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Kanye West Album Review: LATE REGISTRATION

“I’m ahead of my time, sometimes years out…So the powers that be won’t let me get my ideas out…” - Kanye West, “Gone”.

“George Bush does not care about black people.” This is the Kanye West comment made on live national TV (later censored out on the West Coast broadcast) during a Hurricane Katrina benefit relief telethon that I heard one late morning as I was waking up from another drunken Friday night in yet another foreign country in the comforts of yet another luxury hotel. It stunned me. I couldn’t believe someone as famous as Kanye West whose livelihood depends a lot on what the public thinks of him actually stuck his neck out to support black people. Black people! Not kidnapped white girls or Asian tsunami victims. But Black people! Who the hell wants to stick up for black people anymore once they become famous actors, athletes or singers/rappers? So it’s this act that forced me to buy Kanye’s newest album called LATE REGISTRATION despite his comments perhaps being nothing more than a bold move to sell more records. I say forced because before now I had viewed him strictly as a producer so I purposely never really gave the cat a chance as a rapper and wasn’t about to buy this album.. I mean this guy has one of those music production gifts that is akin to the great Dr Dre and he wants to rap? On top of that this guy just might be more conceited than the combined egos of 50 Cent and P-Diddy/Diddy (or whatever it is now). According to my manz Aaron Gray, Kanye is conceited not arrogant - difference to him being those who are truly gifted, talented or beautiful, etc., yet are in to themselves are conceited while the arrogant SOB’s are the ones that think they are more than they truly are. Well at first this conceited journalist thought Kanye was just arrogant but I’m slowly finding out that really this guy is just plain conceited because he’s more gifted than I thought. But even he admits his conceit on the original version of “Diamonds” - “The only player who got robbed and kept all his jewelry…the international a&&hole…[who threw] a tantrum like he is 3 yrs old..”. He’s referring to an ugly American Music Awards ceremony in which he felt “robbed” when he didn’t win any awards so he threw a national temper tantrum. Along with this famous conceit also comes his famous self-admitted hypocrisy. Look no further than the remix of “Diamonds” as he points out the situation of black children getting amputated in Sierra Leone indirectly stemming for a struggle for power and thus a struggle for who controls the most diamonds (a situation by the way that 5 years ago brought me to tears and momentarily almost made me give all my possessions to the Red Cross it was so sad) and yet in the next sentence he refuses to let go of his huge diamond necklace anchored by an “iced-out” baby-blue eyed Jesus piece (He discusses the chain on “Touch The Sky”). I mean this guy may be more of a basket case than Tupac (we still love ya Pac!!). But at least when it came down to it you knew what Tupac would do if it came to having his homies’ backs. But Kanye? This guy indirectly disses everyone close to him from Damon Dash to Jay-Z. So hey there is lots to hate here but you gotta admire Kanye’s willingness to express exactly what’s on his mind no matter what the costs. I mean this fool even has a freakin Teddy Bear with a backpack representing him! That takes nutz in hiphop! And whether it’s pleading on MTV for everyone to stop hating on gay people or it’s appearing on national television accusing our idiot president of being a racist he gets his point across and at the end of the day I admire a man who speaks his mind because one who does that is truly free.

Now I just got through saying all that but I open up the album and to my surprise Kanye has actually let eclectic non-hiphop producer Jon Brion co-produce almost every track. So it’s like at the end of the day Kanye slaps all his critics in the face as he can’t be that conceited if he lets Jon have that much control and influence on the album and another point made is that he’s not scared to try something different on only his sophomore album. Most hiphop artists will only do what they want on an entire album if it’s their last album and they’re going to retire. Kanye’s move was ingenious though because what he and Jon Brion have given us is a musical novelty that hiphop has never heard. But like all forward thinking, “wildcard”, type artists that bring the game to new heights (think Andre 3000 and Mos Def) the bi-product is a lot of songs that take getting used to. So I have to warn you that when you first listen to this game changing album only a few songs will grab you initially if you’re a hardcore hiphop fan (If you’re an R&B thug then you loved the album upon first listen). Those songs that grab you are “Diamonds” (both versions), “Gold Digger”, “Drive Slow”, “Crack Music”, “Addiction”, “Gone” and “My Way Home” (which is tragically too short). Of course “Diamonds” was dang near a hiphop classic the moment it was released (and the moment Jay-Z was featured on the re-mix) with the killer climax being the ferocious piano chords at the end of the song and “Gold Digger” was gonna succeed once Jamie Foxx was featured on it. But close to the power of “Diamonds” is “Crack Music”. Not only because the music intensifies as the song goes on but Kanye actually does his best “elite rapper” impression and straight rips it like I’ve never heard him do before. Peep this lyric - “How we stop the Black Panthers? Ronald Reagan cooked up an answer, when Gill Scott was heron, when our heroes and heroines got hooked on heroine…crack raised the murda rate in D.C. and Maryland…We invested in that, it’s like we got Merrill Lynched…and we’ve been hanging from the same tree ever since..sometimes I feel the music is the only medicine so we cook it, cut it, measure it, bag it, sell it….that’s that crack music ni&&a..That real Black music ni$$a!!..”. Whoa. Go Kanye! And after peeping the lyrics in “Drive Slow”, Kanye and Benz0 share something in common as Kanye spits “My car is like the movies, my car is like the crib, I got more TV’s in here than where I live….”. Preach Kanye!

After we get all juiced up on the aforementioned songs though a calmer and more patient soul is needed to appreciate the genius of the other songs. To make sure we do though, Kanye enlists more star power like Brandy, Nas, and Adam Levine to create “Bring Me Down”, “We Major”, and “Heard Em Say”. Maybe “We Major” should be amongst the first group of songs mentioned but truthfully the music and singing on that song has to grow on you despite the nasty verse Nas hits us with - “I’m Jesse Jackson on the balcony when King got killed, I survived the livest ni&&as around, lasted longer than more than half of you clowns…”. Then you have songs like “Celebration”, “Roses” and “Touch the Sky” that are all quality songs but they are SO mellow or different that you can easily miss the surprisingly clever lyrics in the songs. Not to mention musically a lot of work was put into the songs. For example in “Celebration” Jon hired a full orchestra to make up the main part of the track. Even the "hidden" song after the original "Diamonds" bonus track is musically packed and just may sneakily end up in my top 5 favorite songs on the album.

When I think about it though…once you start really listening to every song the thing that really is going to get you to keep listening to the album is the lyrics. Yes the lyrics. The music is good and all that but what will keep me listening to this over and over are all the great lyrical performances found on this album. So unfortunately for all the Kanye West haters (I’m an admitted ex-Kanye hater) they’re going to have to pray that Album 3 is a flop because this one has too much genius involved in it. Those looking for a great hiphop album with GREAT lyrics and good music need to go ahead and cop this one. Remember it’s not an album that grabs you right away but similar to Brand Nubian’s IN GOD WE TRUST album this album will grow on you because of the substance of the lyrics and topics.

Benz0
Contact Benz0: BenzWritings@Hotmail.com