When the country turned against Kanye West last year for interrupting Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards, it was kind of hard not to laugh. Here was Kanye, a singular talent whose four records to date had shown him to be nothing less than a visionary artist and vanguard, spoiling a ridiculous awards show meant to honor music videos on a music video channel that doesn't even play music videos. The whole charade, and subsequent outrage, was absurd on numerous levels. To begin with the only real crime was that Kanye legitimized MTV with his presence, not that he upended the current vanilla flavor of the month. Yet, in the days and months that followed Kanye was deemed by many to be more or less the worst human being alive. The amount of venom directed Kanye's way was kind of mind boggling. I mean Christ, John Lennon was an asshole from time to time, so were all of the Rolling Stones aside from maybe Charlie Watts, so why was Kanye the devil? I think partly it was because of a vacuous 24 hour media machine that would rather report meaningless celebrity antics and fan the flames of controversy than run substantive news, and partly, I would argue, because of race, but I don't want to get into that debate here. Mainly, though, I think it has something to do with the overly sanitized pop culture that pervades the country. It used to be that rock stars acted like rock stars, accountable only to themselves, not perfect princesses like, well Taylor Swift. Certainly some of it was Kanye's fault, he isn't exactly the most humble human being on earth, but he is more than self-aware of his flaws and is not afraid to blow them up widescreen on his records. In the end, it is talent and not his personality that carries the day. The fact is that Kanye West is one of the most gifted artists of our time, and despite his boorish behavior, if you forgo Kanye because he acted like an ass on a few occasions, then you do so at your own detriment, just as if you quit listening to the Beatles because John Lennon said they were bigger than Jesus. The one thing that I was 100% certain of was that despite all of the crap hurled at Kanye over the last year whatever he was going to do next was going to be victorious and great. I didn't quite realize how great that great was going to be though. "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" is 2010's masterpiece.Kanye sums it up best on "Power" when he says "lost in translation with the whole fucking nation, they say I was the abomination of Obama's nation, well that's a pretty bad way to start a conversation. At the end of the day goddammit I'm killing this shit, I know damn well you all feeling this shit." And he is right, he is absolutely killing this shit, and you would have to be an asshole yourself to not be feeling this shit. But least anyone think Kanye is simply shrugging off all of the controversies he leaves in his wake consider that immediately following this verse he indulges in a suicide fantasy. It's certainly no coincidence that West samples King Crimson's "21st Century Schizo Man" throughout the track.
This dichotomy is far from lost on West, instead he turns "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" into a tour de force of contradictions, high life, low life, egos, ids, devils and angels, and it's all over a cinematic soundscape that contains some of the best production and beats found on any hip hop album. Ever. Opener "Dark Fantasy" is a micro example of the record as a whole. The track begins with falsetto vocals backed by a chorus over slight ascending strings and effects to make for an energetic, but ethereal start before descending to street level with a West/RZA collaboration that combines the neo-classical grandiosity of the former with the ominous grime of the latter. Lyrically the track starts off with West broke and nameless in Chicago and ends with him kissing an heiress and waking up in Paris. This mixture of street life with refined culture, as well as the profound with the profane, and mythology with reality are all driving forces musically and lyrically throughout "Fantasy," and it's a mixture that only someone like West, himself a paragon of contradiction, could make so entertaining and powerful in equal measure. If Federico Fillini's "La Dolce Vita" were a hip-hop album it would be this.
One theme that West takes head-on here that doesn't seem to be getting as much press as his own personal narrative is that of race. "Gorgeous" through "So Appalled" looks at race from within and without, sometimes blatantly and sometimes in a more subtle fashion. "Gorgeous" is West's most direct commentary on race in both a universalized and personalized manner. "End of century anthems based off inner city tantrums based off the way we was branded, face it Jerome get more time than Brandon, and at the airport they check all through my bag and tell me that it random," West raps before he says "as long as I'm in a polo smiling they think they got me, but they would try to crack me if they ever see a black me," and that is just a taste of the lyrical firebombs he lets loose over the hazy soul/blues guitar based piece. West is right on the money with commentary that is both social and personal. America went so far past "post-racial" after Obama was elected that we somehow ended up back in an era of extreme racism that seeps out of our pores. He is more than correct that nothing has really changed for millions of young black men across America no matter who is in the White House.
It is those young black men who weren't able to crawl out of the inner city as athletes or rappers whose plight he explores from the first person perspective on "All Of The Lights," possibly the album's grandest note. No amount of effuse praise can come close to capturing the ecstatic experience of "Lights." It energizes, it brings tears, it causes goosebumps and chills, and it will make you just damn happy to be alive to hear this song. The track is based on a brass fanfare of french horns, trombones and trumpets. The beat is constructed out of a marching band tom rhythm giving the track an urgent feel that Kanye builds upon with a lyrical flow that tells the story of a man's attempt to reconstruct his life after a stint in the penitentiary only to be meet with restraining orders and unemployment. The titular "lights" change throughout the song from fast cars and shooting stars to sirens and spotlights, before the protagonist asks for all of the lights to be turned up extra bright so that everyone can witness his final fall in an act of desperation. It's such an insanely powerful and perfectly constructed song and, again, the kind of song that only Kanye West could craft and execute.
"Monster" plays with race in a more subtle manner, and in some ways it is secondary to the clash of hip-hop bravado and pathos that is at the heart of the track. Yet the song does play with stereotypes, particularly those that subconsciously may have been at the heart of the campaign to crucify West after the VMA debacle. After a wild introductory scream and growl, West lays down a beat that sounds like a gorilla bounding through a jungle, before declaring that everyone knows he's "a motherfucking monster." The track takes the image of scary black man and toys with it in the context of irony-laden bravado that strikes at the heart not of white America, but hip-hop culture itself. The track features some equally insane/brilliant verses from Jay-Z, Rick Ross and Nicki Minaj, before Bon Iver's Justin Vernon brings it all back to earth with the confessional "I crossed the line, I'll let God decide, I wouldn't last these shows, so I am headed home." Vernon's verse is the sound of guilt and exhaustion after so much untethered id, and undercuts entirely whatever boasting hasn't already been undercut with irony. That guilt and exhaustion are what feed the dark and brilliant "So Appalled." The track features West, Jay-Z, Swizz Beatz, Pusha T, Prynce Cy and RZA running through a laundry lists of rap star excesses and privileges, but rather than boasts, each sounds like a burden at best and a sin at worst, particularly in the context of record high unemployment among other African-Americans. "Niggas is going through real shit, man they out of work that's why another goddamned dance track has got to hurt," West raps over a nightmarish urban hellscapse that sounds more like a Wu-Tang production than a West one (oddly enough even though RZA appears on the track, this one was solely produced by West). The track solidifies the battle inherent in West's mind and life. He is certainly not one to turn away from the indulgences that his success affords him, at the same time there is a conscience at work inside of him that forces him to acknowledge the vulgarity of those luxuries.
The latter half of the album focuses on sex and relationships, and finds West bringing his self-aware mixture of profound and profane to each. "Devil In A New Dress" and "Hell of A Life" combines sex and religion, and the disconnect between them. In each West comes to the defense of fallen women. "Hell of A Life" is a full-throated defense of porn stars, that contains the cut to the chase classic line "how can you say they live their life wrong, when you never fuck with the lights on." It also features West singing the chorus to the melody of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man," so yeah, the song pretty much has it all.
The gorgeous "Runaway" and the sorrowful "Blame Game" deal with the love side of the equation in moving and gritty measure. The much heralded "Runaway" features West at his most humble and regretful as a man who is his own worst enemy, the kind of guy who "could have...a good girl, and still be addicted to the hoodrats." It's hard not the read Kanye's "toast" to the douchebags, assholes, scumbags and jerkoffs as his own personal assessment, especially when he raps that he "never was much of a romantic, I could never take the intimacy, and I know it did damage 'cuz the look in your eyes is killin' me." To add to his painful admissions, the track is built around beautiful simple repeating piano notes and strings that make the song even more moving. West returns to the string and piano combination on "Blame Game," but the tone here is darker and more tragic. Lyrically the song is a complete inversion of "Runaway" with West directing all blame for a failed relationship outward toward his ex. It's a violent and ugly track that is also as emotionally naked as "Runaway." Taken together they expose both sides of the same coin in the most painfully honest manner possible.
West brings the entire production to a close with the mind boggling "Lost In the World." Mind boggling because chances are that when you first heard Bon Iver's "Woods" you probably didn't exactly think it would be the basis for a hip-hop banger (other than the whole auto-tune thing), but apparently West did and here he turns "Woods" into an exhilarating finale for his masterpiece. All of the themes that have run throughout the record come together in a last stand sort of moment, with West finding either salvation or damnation (either way he appears to be getting laid in the afterlife...you just have to hear it to believe it), before giving way to excerpts from the legendary Gil Scott-Heron's revolutionary poem "Comment 1." In doing so Kanye brings the album back to the plight of everyone, not just himself. Kanye the kisser of heiresses may have issues, but Kanye the human being knows that those are nothing compared to the rest of us who just want "a good home and a wife and children and some food to feed them every night," and whose survival in modern day America is as perilous now as it has ever been.
This ability to straddle the absurd with the deadly serious is what makes Kanye and "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" genius. It is that genius that permeates the lyrics and music throughout "Fantasy" and one that is simply so far and above anyone else right now that it is almost inexplicable. This is easily the album of the year, perfectly reflective of all the good and bad that is Kanye West, who just happens to be one of the greatest artists of our time.
"Runaway" film with excerpts from various tracks
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