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Kanye West: in your face, cocky, and has much as you love to hate his personality he is one of the very few rappers that have the skill to back the attitude.
He's first effort ‘The Collage Dropout’, spawned hit singles such as ‘All Falls Down’ and ‘Jesus Walks’ back in 2004.
Just over a year later Kanye was back with ‘Late Registration’, the album is responsible for the huge hit ‘Gold Digger’ and the smooth ‘Heard 'em Say’ featuring Adam Levine from Maroon 5 .
Now two years later Kanye West is back with his third album ‘Graduation’.
The album begins with the mid tempo ‘Good Morning’ which is also the Intro to this album. It has inspirational lyrics and a good flow.
Next is ‘Champion’, it features church choir back vocals, that at times comes across as a bit repetitive, and the chorus lacks personality. The rest of the song has a drop of reggae, and positive lyrics.
Track three, is the first single off this album, ‘Stronger’. It again, lacks in the chorus, but the verses have strong lyrics, good flow and a good beat.
‘I Wonder’ has soft piano coiled around a mid-tempo beat. The chorus has a classic 50's ballad feel, but is smartly mixed with rapping from Kanye. A strong track, and one of my favorites as it is so different from the same old hip hop sound.
The album then moves onto ‘Good Life’ Featuring T-Pain. The title of the song pretty much sums everything up. It’s about living the good life and having money to blow. It’s enjoyable and Kanye and T-Pain serve to be a good collaboration.
‘Can’t Tell Me nothing’, is about Kanye living his own life and nobody can tell him anything because he is gonna do what he wants anyway. It works to say the least. Believe if anyone can make a song about being self centered and ignorant - believe me it’s Kanye.
Lil Wanye accompanies West on this track titled ‘Barry Bonds’, sadly the song is nothing special and on the verge of being titled a filler.
‘Drunk and hot girls’ featuring Mos Def is next, and it’s a mid tempo song about… drunk and hot girls. After about a minute its gets annoying, and at 5:11 minutes, its just to long of a song, you’ll end up skipping it every time you listen to the album.
‘Flashing Lights’ Featuring Dwele has unique beat that sounds like something that would be playing at a disco in the 60's. Its lyrics could have been tweaked a little but the flow and the beat make the song.
Next is ‘Everything I Am’. It’s what I’d called a rap ballad. It’s almost something that would be on an Usher album, which is a bit frightening. It gets a repetitive with, “People talking ****, but when the **** hit the fan, everything I’m not, may be everything I am”. It uses the “N” word a few too many times, and it’s just not necessary for the song.
‘The Glory’ is yet another song about Kanye’s ego. It has the back vocals of a women’s voice that is so overproduced it sounds like a hamster is singing. The voice will get on your nerves, and the lyrics are again, nothing special.
‘Home coming’ Features Chris Martin from Coldplay, Chris goes perfect for the song as the tone of his voice works nice with Kanye’s. The chorus sung by Chris, is “Do you think about me now and then, cause I’m coming home again”.
To finish the record is ‘Big Brother’, it’s about Kanye’s big brother and some times that involved him. It’s enjoyable, and has great lyrics. It’s easily one of the strongest songs off the album, and is an excellent way to end the album.
Overall the album has great beats and quite a few songs make you feel like you’re in the 50's, 60's. Kanye delivers a great album as usual, and it with a lot of the songs having the ‘Heard ‘em say’, and ‘Gold Digger’ appeal to them, makes this album full of hits. It holds together strong, and its most importantly fun to listen to.
As I said before, and I’ll say it again, he may be cocky but he’s on the few rappers that have the skill to back the attitude.
Don’t forget, Graduation hits stores September 11th.
Rating for Kanye West: Graduation 4/5 stars.
This album has a Parental Advisory for explicit lyrics.