Kanye West’s latest album blends psychedelic rock with hip hop to turn his ego into a maniacally beautiful masterpiece. His fifth album, “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” is a work expressing the insane frustration of everything building up inside him in the last few years. He’s insulted everyone, from George Bush to Taylor Swift.
In many ways, this is the first album where West honestly admits that he’s one of the most detestable rappers in music history. He has a knack for creating some amazing songs from sampling other songs. This time, West blends together ’60s and ’70s rock records with funk. The resulting mix is a surreal rock masterpiece that collides with gangster rap to start a heck of a party.
The song “Hell of a Life” mixes a psychedelic rock band’s buzzing bass guitar with a blues drumbeat that was sped to a fast tempo. The resulting song is a hyper acid rock dance track that is infectious.
Despite the arrangement of ’70s samples, West’s lyrics show him at his most rotten state of mind. West goes the distance with his insults.
In the song “Gorgeous,” West rips a nasty lyric at his critics by rapping, “The same people that tried to black-ball me forgot about two things: my black b***s.” He blurts these lines out with a cocky swagger in his voice, as if he’s privileged to say whatever he wants whenever he wants.
As a whole, though, the entire album is a strangely alluring satire about West’s lethal obsession with himself. It is a tragically honest look at how he loses sanity in his love for fame, porn stars and alcohol. For the first time, it seems that West is revealing to the public just how flawed his own character is.
West is also a genius at promoting up-and-coming rappers through his albums. The hottest lyrics on the album come from rapper, Nicki Minaj. In the song “Monster,” she serves up a tough lyric about how she still gets paid ten times as much as other rappers. She shouts, “50k for a verse, no album out! Yeah, my money’s so tall that my Barbie’s gotta climb it.” Her vicious swagger sounds incredibly cool, especially with Kanye’s hard-hitting beat playing in the background.
West also includes other excellent rappers and musicians who collaborate with him in this new album from the soft blues singer Bon Iver to rap superstar Jay-Z. Even if this album is about Kanye’s bloated ego, his music is sadistically addicting. West couldn’t possibly create an album that sounds more ferocious and enjoyable than “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.” As long as people are willing to gloss over all of West’s idiotic remarks in the last few years, most will enjoy this album.