I’d just like to go on record as saying just how much I’m enjoying Kanye West’s new album, Late Registration. In so many ways it’s better than his first. It’s more mature, more lyrically and musically sophisticated, and I thought his first album was great.<\/p>\n
The thing is, this guy does hip-hop like nobody else seems to, and he’s astoundingly commercially successful. It finally seems that hip-hop with some emotion besides belligerence is hitting the mainstream. <\/p>\n
This album is so refreshing in this age of over-produced club beats. Sometimes Kanye becomes minimalist in his production, even using nothing but a rolling bass line and a siren soul singer to complement his poems.<\/p>\n
My favorite track on the piece may be Roses, a song in the vein of Family Business on his last record, a truly heartfelt poem about AIDS and death. Kanye lays his lyrics early on over a very simple bass line, letting the beats take over halfway through as he throws on layer upon layer of chorused samples. The underproduction of the rap sections and the over-produced crescendo of the hook work masterfully together.<\/p>\n
My second favorite track is Drive Slow, a kind of down and dirty gangster track with just a touch of a jazz saxophone to give it a really retro-soul flavor. It’s a beat to bounce to in your car worthy of Dr. Dre at his peak.<\/p>\n
And then there’s Diamonds From Sierra Leone, a track with such a strong message told with such ferocity it’s nearly impossible to ignore it while it’s on. Kanye throws out track after track on this record with a diverse set of influences and an all-star guest list. And unlike Mos Def who seemed to throw every musical style he liked into every track on The New Danger, Kanye decides on a sound before he opens his toolbox. <\/p>\n
That’s not to say this album doesn’t have some missteps, I know “Crack Music” has no real appeal to me, but when it works it really works. To me, Kanye West is the best producer working in hip-hop today and a formidable rapper, and it doesn’t look like that’s changing anytime soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’d just like to go on record as saying just how much I’m enjoying Kanye West’s new album, Late Registration. In so many ways it’s better than his first. It’s more mature, more lyrically and musically sophisticated, and I thought his first album was great. The thing is, this guy does hip-hop like nobody else […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debt-on.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}