I know that in real life, Kanye did drop out of high school to pursue his dreams. He fails classes, gets in trouble, and ultimately doesn’t know how he’ll escape. Aptly named as the introductory track to the album, Kanye talks about how his fictitious self is struggling to graduate from high school. It features edited voices that sing the main melody over a really different-sounding drum track. First of all, this is the best beat on the album. Good Morning - this is just such an amazing song. My top four songs (in no particular order) are: I also still consider Murakami’s works to be my absolute favorites. As soon as I left the museum, I was hooked for good. I have vivid memories of this exhibit - it featured tons of variations of the Kanye Teddy Bear on the album art, and also was one of the debut locations of the Good Morning music video, also produced by Murakami. It turned out that my mom knew this, and was a huge Kanye fan at the time. My mom, who’s really into modern art, saw that the Museum of Modern Art in LA had a special exhibit, solely featuring Murakami, the extremely talented Japanese artist who did the cover art for Graduation. I was nine years old when this album dropped. This album also has a special meaning to me personally. Everyone forgets that Kanye was a producer first - he learned how to rap, and ended up being pretty damn great at it, but his original passion was creating beats. All of these beats feature singers, drum lines, or other songs in their entirety, and although people sampled before Kanye, nobody did it quite as well. This album, coupled with Late Registration and College Dropout (Kanye’s first 3 studio albums), heavily popularized the art of sampling. That being said, I believe the Chicago native has done more for rap than any other rapper since the year 2000. Right now, he’s in a tough mental spot, and I truly feel for him while also recognizing that he’s losing it a little bit. It’s my number one because I could listen to it nonstop and still love it, and it’s the absolute pinnacle of Kanye’s lyricism. You heard that right - not my favorite rap album, my favorite ALBUM album. I have to say - this is my favorite album of all time. Listen to the best of Kanye West on Apple Music and Spotify.Second in my rap album series is Graduation by Kanye West. Hip-hop was moving forward fast, and Kanye West would remain a driving force for change in the years to come. Perhaps more importantly, Kanye’s success cemented hip-hop’s shift away from the gangsta rap that had dominated during the 90s, ushering in an eclectic brand of hip-hop that would embrace styles as diverse as house and rock music. In the end, Kanye won by a landslide as Graduation sold nearly one million albums to Curtis’ 691,000. A competition between the pair ensued, spurred on by 50 Cent’s assertion that he would easily outsell his rival. Its release coincided with 50 Cent’s third album, Curtis steeped in the traditions of gangsta rap, the latter stood in stark contrast to Kanye’s futuristic hybrid. Released on September 11, 2007, Graduation proved to be one of the year’s most memorable albums. Elsewhere, “Champion’”s looped segment of Steely Dan’s “Kid Charlemagne” lends the track hints of jazz-rock, while on “Drunk And Hot Girls” Kanye sings alongside Mos Def, the pair delivering an idiosyncratic cover-of-sorts of “Sing Swan Song” by krautrock legends Can. Further bridging the gap between hip-hop and mainstream rock, Coldplay singer Chris Martin was brought in to add anthemic weight to the arena-sized synths of “Homecoming,” while “Big Brother” – a tribute to Kanye’s long-time mentor, Jay Z – was built upon heavy guitar riffs.
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