![]() But the lyrics are a real letdown at times, with plenty of lines comfortably settling into the Top 10 Clunkers of West’s career – truly, a litany of abysmal attempts at humor making what could have been a joyous return into the unbelievably cringe worthy (the transition from jaw-dropping opener “Ultralight Beam” to Kid Cudi’s glorious chorus in “Father Stretch My Hands Pt 1” is ruined by West’s opening bars about the rear grooming regime of a model). There is a loosely interesting narrative (if you look hard enough) and when it hits, it hits hard. The thing is none of this is particularly new – this piece by piece scrapbook is essentially “The Collage Dropout” in format, and the album rollout which seemed botched was actually the hot sauce to the whole damn thing (again, call me cynical but perhaps it was partially planned this way).Īs for the album itself, it’s mostly an act of self-sabotage: this COULD have been a 9.0 scoring, easily. His influence means everything to me.” Yeah, we figured that like 8 years ago. It’s funny that a few years back, people started calling him Puff Daddy 2.0 – and now, he openly says that Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs “is the most important cultural figure in my life. ![]() He’s realized that you can play the world like a violin, and all you need is someone editing your pre-planned Twitter rants (what a contrast to my review of “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” which seems comparatively quaint, now). He knows how to create a feeding frenzy better than almost anyone else. He was entering national art competitions at the age of 14, he was chopping up beats at the age of 19, he’s got 21 Grammy awards but is truly obsessed with fashion, and he’s a master manipulator of the media. Kanye West is a genius – but at this point, it isn’t entirely clear where it actually lies. If you unstitched every track separately, and listed them all out, it would look rather similar to that Madvillain masterpiece released just a month after “ The College Dropout” – a similar length too before the second batch of tracks (which frankly all feel like bonus cuts, with “No More Parties in LA” produced by MADLIB HIMSELF) were added. In the original version played at his boldly brilliant Madison Square Garden listening party, it was difficult to differentiate which track belonged to which song, as two minute snippets bled into other ones, almost like a highly kinetic old school DJ turntablist mixtape (the twenty second “How can I find you?” outro to “Father Stretch My Hands Pt 2” is the kind of genial inclusion that few could master). The roots of “T.L.O.P.” are more “ Madvillainy” than Picasso (and West himself said that the “Pablo” refers to the Apostle Paul). But as far as I can see, this is still a hip-hop album that Kanye West has delivered, even if the package is half-open and partially unfinished (clearly this is meant to be part of the fun/journey). Throwing around words like “bricolage” is all well and good, but applying the rules of one world (art) cannot always translate perfectly to another (hip-hop). ![]() Having read a few reviews of “The Life of Pablo” it’s difficult for a lay person to understand just what the fuck they are trying to say sometimes.
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