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Underground > Radio & Music >

Kanye West's Sophomore Year

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Regrettable Juvenilia

12:07 / 05.07.05

After debris settles and the dust gets swept off
Big K pick up where Young Hov left off
Right when magazines wrote Kanye West off
I drop my new shit and it sound like the Best Of

So who's heard the new Kanye West single, 'Diamonds (From Sierra Leone)'? He's stepped up his game several degrees as both a rapper and a producer, and the result is breathtaking. Whereas on College Dropout he often sounded like an MC trying out different styles and not quite finding his own, here he flows nicely over his most fantastically rich, detailed, maximalist production to date, and works in his most memorable rhymes since 'Last Call'. It takes real skill to build a song around such a familiar vocal sample as the one that forms part of the chorus to 'Diamonds', and yet he carries it off with aplomb.

Don't worry too much about how the "please buy conflict-free diamonds only" tacked-on message/video fits in. The song's actually about what Kanye's been up to in the last year and how he's rather wonderful really despite his flaws (smoking, drinking, making bad sexist jokes, throwing tantrums because he didn't win any awards). On the basis of this, I'm inclined to agree with him.

13:55 / 05.07.05

i have neither so far.
would you reccomend getting some of the earlier tracks first?
or would you say i should ignore his college dropout album just now and go back for it later?

Regrettable Juvenilia

16:27 / 05.07.05

No, do get College Dropout, it was one of my favourite albums of last year. I found it one of those odd albums that I would probably have given a lukewarm, good-but-not-great review to had I written one the first week or so I had it, but then I couldn't stop listening it for the next year. If you're an internet seeker, seek: 'Two Words', 'Last Call', 'Never Let Me Down'.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

00:07 / 06.07.05

Ah that was such a good bit you quoted, Fly.

I have to say, though, I'm much more in love with the Gold Digger beat. It's just, GAH, so dope. Diamonds is growing on me day by day, but I can't tell if that high melodrama video ending with the TWO PIANOS is either hurting or helping.

But I'm very eager to get the damn album already, especially after he just absolutely killed it on Common's album.

14:12 / 11.07.05

Anyone heard the Jay Z mix of Diamonds yet?

It's got a lot more from Kanye on the conflict-free diamonds angle (very good too, in both sentiment and rapping) plus, at the what's up with Jay man/Are you all OK man

Jay pops up to tell us yes, they're OK, and goes off on one for two or three verses. In true Hova style.

I hope this one's on the album, not just a promo mix....

02:09 / 21.08.05

The whole album has leaked.

Its good. Even if JayZ has the best line on the album:

how could you falter
when you the rock of gibraltar
i had to get off the boat
so i could walk on water

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

09:54 / 21.08.05

And I just liveblogged it.

Nothing gets as good as the first three songs do, but overall not bad. As you'll see, I really like Jon Brion.

18:19 / 22.08.05

I have to say, though, I'm much more in love with the Gold Digger beat. It's just, GAH, so dope.

Gotta agree. It's the type of song that makes me stand up and take notice on first listen. I hope there's more in this vein on the new album..

Regrettable Juvenilia

23:39 / 22.08.05

That noise that comes in at about 2 minutes 42 of 'Golddigger': OH SHIT.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

23:53 / 22.08.05

Right?

Oh and this?

"I feel like the Bad Boy Street Team
Can't find the locks."

Ouch.

(I tried to find a link to an article about that fire that happened at a concert PD promoted but couldn't. Basically, hundreds of people were locked inside the gymnasium. Anyway, that's the reference.)

21:18 / 23.08.05

Yeah but its also a pun on LOX - cause they've just signed with Jay at Def Jam but word was Diddy also wanted them for Bad Boy.

All this is killing me cause my limewire thinga's not working!

08:21 / 30.08.05

When is it out? WHEN?

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:03 / 30.08.05

Today.

I must get dressed.

Haus of Mystery

11:42 / 30.08.05

Just saw it in the shop, and I can't GODDAMN afford it. Arses.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:18 / 30.08.05

Hmmm.

I hope this grows on me as effectively as the last one.

It's a bit... conscious, in places. That UK bonus track featuring Common, Talib and Q-Tip, for example. And it has the guy from Maroon 5 on it, not too obtrusively, but still.

The version of 'Diamonds' that includes Jay-Z may yet make it all worthwhile.

14:30 / 30.08.05

I expect more comments by tomorrow, young Flyboy. Shall I buy, Fly, is what I'm asking?

I was thinking about "The College Dropout" and there's some tracks on there which are incredibly political in their own way - Spaceship, All Falls Down,etc. - pesonal as politics (consumerism, wage slavery, insecurity) etc rather than teh wevoloution. I may do a longer post on this in the "bling" thread if I can be arsed.

Regrettable Juvenilia

19:29 / 30.08.05

I've read even critics who give the album a good review dissing 'Hey Mama' as mawkish and corny or whatever. Fuck that: it stands out as one of my immediate favourites, that production is so LUSH, and the sentiment's no more 'mawkish' than Ghostface's 'All That I Got Is U'.

I actually think 'Touch The Sky' makes Kanye seem a lot like Puffy (circa several years ago now) - the obviousness of the sample, the slightly clumsy rapping, the shouts of "Top of the world, baby!" - but then again, I may be one of the few people here who doesn't think that's entirely a bad thing.

Illmatic, I can't come down on a yay or nay yet, give me a day or two. There's definitely at least five or so tracks on here I really like, but the three that aren't already singles may all be singles eventually, and the big question is, will the other stuff reveal its own appeal over time? We shall see.

Keith, like a scientist

20:12 / 30.08.05

i'm liking "gone" a lot, with that Otis Redding sample in it. A pretty well put together track. "crack music" is also very nicely done. "golddigger" is cool for what it is, but it gets a bit boring after all. the jay-z version of "diamonds..." is quite nice, as is "heard em say."

BUT, he's not a very inventive or varied beatsmith, is he? He tends to set up a beat and/or loop and let's it ride for 4 minutes without any change-ups or whatnot... hence, i tend to get bored with this tracks after a couple measures.

23:29 / 30.08.05

I haven't got the album, but I've downloaded most of the tracks and I'm... uh... not exactly loving it. I mean, take Gold Digger - the beat is like the total definition of OH MY GOD!!! but the lyrics could not be more annoying. I say that as someone who likes Kanye's goofy shit, but come one; this was dodgy enough circa 'No Scrubs'; did ye really have to compound the obnoxious class privilege with obnoxious sexist bullshit? And he wonders why he can't find a woman interested in his personality? Kanye, you are a rich fuckwit who's only interested in the size of her ass - do the math. Every other version of this song will be a bazillion times better.

I think a lot of it comes down to overexposure and that when I first heard College Dropout, I didn't really know anything about the guy except he'd produced some of my favourite records of the last couple years. Now I know he's an arrogant dickhead who can't shut up about how great he is, and who won't stop venting at his college prof dad. (I so hope the Cornel West rumour is true.)

I do like the real lush production feel, esp. on 'We major'. But am I going nuts, or just listening shit quality downloads, but it seems like all the guest rappers voices are mastered to sound more like Kanye's. Finally, 'Roses' is vastly more schmaltzy and irritating than 'Hey Mama' (which I do like).

Haus of Mystery

08:53 / 31.08.05

Maroon 5?????

autopilot disengaged

09:13 / 31.08.05

kanye needs to stop hanging with common.

it's also lame that he stuck with the college schtick for a second album. what relevance does it actually have? i've only given the record a very cursory skim, but i'm missing the cute autobiographical content of the first album.

i dunno, it's so *soulful* but not in the fun, sped-up sample kanye-trademark way. no. this is serious. so, so serious.

autopilot disengaged

09:19 / 31.08.05

furthermore, regarding fly's comment on 'touch the sky' - i fear that as he's hit the mega-league and can afford any sample he damn well likes, wacky ideas start to creep in - "wouldn't it be amazing if we took ((incredibly famous song)) and..." (plus delusions of grandeur to think he was really going to do anything of note to 'move on up'). very diddyesque. missy elliot's 'cookbook' was guilty of this for me, too.

09:24 / 31.08.05

Hmm, I dunno, it took me awhile to get "College Dropout" - the kind of real life subtleties he was dropping, so I'm still undecided whether to buy or not. If that stuff is absent, that'd be a real let down to me.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:28 / 31.08.05

Woot, autopilot and Crunchy on the same thread! Do you remember the days?

Another problem: the skits here are even lamer than those on College Dropout. It's basically the same skit 8 times or something crazy.

Current count of tracks I think are great:

'Diamonds From Sierra Leone' (both versions, but the one with Jay takes it, naturally)
'Gone' (Otis Redding sample + Cam'Ron = awesome!!!)
'Gold Digger' (although almost everything Crunchy says is true - I wouldn't even mind, though, were it not for the knowledge that grrrr grrrr stupid broadsheet critics will say Kanye is not misogynistic like those other rappers!)
'Hey Mama'
'Drive Slow'

Question: am I going crazy or is there no Game verse on 'Crack Music'??? That's incredibly stupid, if so. Yeah Kanye, get one of the most popular up-and-coming rappers around on your album, then have him say all of five words! Doh.

autopilot disengaged

10:47 / 31.08.05

yes. it is like the good times. the good old times. the good olde tymes UNDERGROUND.

10:50 / 31.08.05

Well, ditto with Ludacris last time around (though that chorus is wicked). How many tracks is it, btw? 'Cos I don't know if I'm going to go for if it's a 26 track monster with 5 good uns.

Haus of Mystery

11:44 / 31.08.05

Seems like a whiff of dissappointment here folks. although to be honest, I thought 'College Dropout' had it's fair share of lame tracks (I could do without the irritating 'Kanye's Workout Plan', and the tedious 'Breathe In, Breathe Out' - good once, dull every other time) but what elevated it was that the standout tracks were so damn good. 'School Spirit' and 'Two Words' are two of the best hip hop tracks ever, with 'Spaceship' running close. It's so rare that a hip-hop album is solid all the way through, but the mish-mash of ideas, and the over-reaching is something I love about the genre.

But still I ask:

Maroon 5??

12:30 / 31.08.05

Damn. It ain't looking good.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:49 / 31.08.05

Actually, the track which features the singer from Maroon 5 is pretty good - he's just confined to some vaguely generic backing vocals, and doesn't really indulge in any of the distinctively bad vocal ticks which help make Maroon 5 records the disaster they are.

Macgyver - at this stage I'd question whether the good tracks on this album are as numerous or as good in themselves as the best tracks on Dropout - but again, I'm going to give it time. Hard to imagine suddenly realising that there's a 'Last Call' on here though.

Incidentally, if Jay-Z has a cunning plan to make everybody so desperate for him to come out of retirement to such an extent that nobody ever accuses him of having planned the whole thing in the first place... He's going about it the right way.

Incidentally 2: autopilot, I gotta disagree about The Cookbook - where are the obvious samples apart from 'We Run This', which is great? But there's another thread for that...

Haus of Mystery

13:24 / 31.08.05

Illmatic - dude, I know who those lettuce leaves are, I just want to know, in the name of god WHY! (But then Kanye was reported as calling Franz Ferdinand 'white crunk', so...)

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

17:04 / 31.08.05

I warned you about those skits, man!

Yeah, there's still nothing on there as good as the first three tracks to my mind, but those three are definitely as good as Two Words or Slow Jamz or School Spirit. I suppose I'd describe it as more of an interesting album than College Dropout, but that's like Prefuse's One Word Extinguisher being more interesting than Uprock Narratives, but you know which one you always end up bumping in your jeep. I don't think I could go so far as saying it's in anyway bad, though.

And I was as surprised as anyone else. "Heard Em Say" is amazing, even with Adam Levine. Probably my favorite song on the album.

21:28 / 31.08.05

The New Workout Plan is the best thing on College Dropout!!! And there is NO WAY the remix of Diamonds is better than the original. Okay, I do like the hilarious bit about how Memphis Bleek will never make it big but who cares. But the conscious diamonds shit is unbearable.

Haus of Mystery

22:07 / 31.08.05

Why is 'conscious' always used around these parts as such a diss?

Regrettable Juvenilia

22:36 / 31.08.05

Hey, I don't always use it as a diss! I usually use it sarcastically to refer to music that seeks to create the illusion of certain qualities, or if you're being generous, that genuinely believes it has those qualities. I don't actually know if there's anybody left* who still uses the term "conscious" in an unexamined way to mean hip hop that's deeper and more spiritual and more political than other hip hop, but they certainly used to. And too often what it means in practice is people making records that are either aeshetically dodgy - ie, Common far too often deciding he doesn't need to actually rap properly and can just do that spoken word bobbins - and/or politically dodgy - ie, what that whole jazz cafe scene has to say about women isn't really any better than what gangsta rap has to say about women, but it thinks it is.

*Except Bruno. Hey, I thought maybe I was just fighting a strawman until Bruno came along.

Threadrot ends, except to say - does Common get a whole track to himself on this album? Argh! No biscuits for Common until he makes more tracks like 'The Hustle' and less like 'Go'.

autopilot disengaged

06:52 / 01.09.05

listened to it properly last night, while defragging my poor hard drive, and i have to say, it does seem like a Quality Product (which is a Mixed Blessing, natch). musically, there's a lot of attention to detail in texture and tempo, very accomplished and even *lovingly crafted* - great sounds, good ideas, but i dunno - i'm still not so enthused as i was about '...dropout'.

i think this is one of those albums that refines the techniques and styles the artist used on the previous record, a consolidation. but it is too uniformly mid-tempo neo-soul for my taste. kanye is obviously totally immersed in hip-hop - throwing in a really sharp F.A.B.O.L.O.U.S. joke and a moment or two where a song gets suddenly screwed (in the slowed-down sense).

seems like the lyrical content is pretty autobiographical - i was wrong on that. but there's a split between songs that acknowledge the seismic shifts in his life, the vertigo of fame and fortune (accesorised by braggadocio) which divide between the endearing, innocent and irritating, crass. then there's kanye exploiting his new position to get up on the soapbox, which still seems like self-conscious posturing, but maybe we just need time to get used to it. and then, the stuff that uses memories from the life before in much the same way as before - but he seems to have used all his A material in this sense...

the transformation of 'diamonds' from a ridonkulous evocation of bling ('close yr eyes and imagine / feel the magic / vegas on acid / seen through yves st laurent glasses...) to the noble, but not wholly mastered 'diamonds from sierra leone' is a pretty good indication of how he's fallen between stools.

still, a solid second album, and further proof he's capable of great things - i just wish he'd stayed locked on focusing on his life - which wd have meant this entire album wd have been about overnight celebrity and vast wealth. i think that wd have been an amazing record - underneath the wisecracks, he's got a lot of honesty and a sharp eye for reportage - i wd have liked to have seen his take on that.

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