Kanye West- The Life of Pablo (2016)

Kanye West- The Life of Pablo (2016)

By: Ghost Writer

Kanye West, Jay Z and Rick Ross were purveyors of the bad joke known as "luxury rap" an obvious betrayal to the true street origins of hip hop in a way, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was a representative of that embarrassing ideals, but I must admit, a very impressive recording showing West's production smarts, creating a wide palette of colors previously unseen in commercial hip hop, then Yeezus, another defiant and ambitious musical attack, with Yeezus, West reached peak, it was a fearless musical statement in which West defied the establishment, flirted with juke, noise and even industrial music, it was praised even by musical underground maverick Lou Reed, and it looked like West was finally leaving mainstream in order to look for more artistic oriented endeavors.

But The Life of Pablo simply lacks all that made those two previous recording so exciting, it is a minimalist approach of music, but not a successful one, unlike the beautiful despairing of 808s & Heartbreak, another artistic triumph by West, this time, West hardly delivers something sonically or emotionally meaningful, songs sound disjointed, underdeveloped and under produced, lacking the multi layered universe of previous records, here Kanye sounds naked and desperate in really ugly ways, opener Ultralight Beam sounds uninspired, with West disappearing in between the gospel atmosphere, failing to capture that Nina Simone feel the tune blatantly tries to catch, Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1, does a little better, and gets even better after repeated playing, but is not so relevant, neither Pt 2 despite the sonic and rapping attack.

Rihanna comes to West rescue on Famous, which manages to recapture the dark nostalgic feel of My Beautiful..., while the slightly dissonant Feedback recreates subtly Yeezus sonic wanderings, but lacking density, while Waves featuring controversial Chris Brown has some charms despite the Lex Lugger stolen production approach.

30 Hours despite its simplistic nature us perhaps the record most sympathetic moment, with Kanye displaying his pop smarts in a direct way without further pretensions, regaining some of that 808s charm, and then thanks to current hip hop great Kendrick Lamar reaching wonderful heights on No More Parties in LA, featuring mind blowing brutal flow by Lamar and a great fluid musical accompaniment in the record most memorable piece, yes, The Life of Pablo has its good moments, but not plenty of them, is dark and depressing, but not in a fully creative and inspiring way like many West's previous record, here West, a man who knows how to get benefited from chaos simply gets lost in it clueless, and is thanks to friends like Rihanna or Lamar that he manages to get some good moments, it seems like the world economic health, West's luxury rap is also in deep crisis, hope he can get out of it soon.