Many words come to mind when I think of artist Kanye West. First, the bad, arrogant and egotistical strike me right away, but as much as I’d like to dwell on his personal image and attitude, I can not help but appreciate the music he makes.
Kanye West has yet again, released a wonderful LP, which brings about the positive connotations that make him the icon that he is today, qualities like creative, innovative, and most of all, lyrical.
Graduation, Kanye West’s third album, fuses together witty lyrics with original beats showing why Kanye West is still such a huge figure in the musical world today. Graduation unwinds like a well plotted story, where every part is significant to the over-all story. You can not at any point, point out a weak track, because all the tracks flow smoothly together, working off one another.
Graduation opens up with the track, “Good Morning” and does not let up till’ the end of the CD with, “Big Brother”, where Kanye shows support and love to his mentor, Jay-Z. One of West’s key points is his ability to work with other artists and once again, Graduation shows us his diversity in music by working with such artists like T-Pain, Lil’ Wayne, Mos Def, and even Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay.
One of Kanye’s best attributes is undoubtedly his lyrics. During Graduation you find Kanye preaching very unusual lyrics that are not so common in this genre today, such as: “Chicago had over 600 caskets man, killin’s some whack s*** oh, I forgot, ‘cept for when n****** is rappin’.” Not a very common line in this genre today, but I can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that there is more to Kanye West than the rap scene would like to show.
Overall, Kanye has put together a unique and highly diverse CD that continues to add success to his catalog of music. Releases like this truly show his creativity in music and ability to surpass expectations. At the rate that Kanye is making quality hip-hop, I find it hard for anyone to surpass him for a very, very long time.