Kanye West - Artist of the Decade

For starters this is not meant to be a piece for dickriding purposes (no homo), it’s simply an examination of facts that lead to an opinion of an artist’s worth and impact on an ever-changing game. Secondly, this is not meant to be a simply biography and therefore there is an assumption that readers are familiar with this artist’s career and don’t need a recap. With that said I submit to you, the hip hop community, that the artist of the decade, the artist who best represented hip hop, as well as took it to new levels, is Kanye West.

To anyone who’s been around the game recently, it’s clear that Kanye West has made a huge impact. From his soulful production, to his big ego, to his unique style, the Chi-town native has established himself as a staple in hip hop. What was once a young producer desperate to even get a guest verse has turned into a powerhouse in the rap world, doing everything from producing entire albums for big name artists, taking down the legends with guest verses, and creating albums that push the envelope further than we’ve ever seen. The most important quality in any rap artist is originality, and no one can deny that Kanye is as original as they come. His influence is seen in many of the young artists now coming up from his clothing (which is, albeit, questionable), his performance style (which is nothing short of rockstar-esque), his production (he brought back, yes, brought BACK, the method of sped up soul samples), and his lyricism (which is probably his most impressive improvement over time). While other artists have dropped classics and sold more records, no one in the last ten years has had the amount of quality material that Kanye has and no one else has been as consistent as Kanye. In fact, consistency might not even be the right word as Kanye has developed so much in this decade that his inconsistency is probably more impressive considering that when most artists change their style, they fail, but with Kanye change has only brought more greatness and it’s kind of fitting that his first real breakout came in the form of a single called “The Truth”.

The year was 2000 and Roc-A-Fella Records was reaching its peak. Jay-Z was riding out the success of “Vol. 3” and readying “The Dynasty” when the Roc’s beast Beanie Sigel released his first album, “The Truth”. Setting off the album was a title track that saw the Broad Street Bully putting to rest any questions of his ability to career himself in the game. The beat was raw, grimy, and sounded like it was straight out of the streets of Philly. The man behind the boards was Kanye West, a young producer who had done little more than a few Harlem World tracks, but the presence was immediately noticed. So fitting was the beat that it helped the album get past that “your label mates ain’t shit without you status” that Memphis Bleek had suffered through. What was most impressive about Kanye’s introduction to us was his uncanny ability to match beats with the artist. No one else has been able to construct a song in such a way that it perfectly fits the artist. Whether it was the Beans track, “Overnight Celebrity” for Twista, “Guess Who’s Back” for Scarface, “Selfish” for Slum Village or “Encore” for Jay-Z, Kanye always knows exactly how to create the perfect marriage between MC and beat. With “The Truth” he provided the backdrop of a hustler on the streets. On “Overnight Celebrity” he used the violins to complement Twista’s rapid-fire flow. “Guess Who’s Back” had that perfect southern drawl even with its soulful base. The pianos on “Selfish” were Slum Village to a T, and “Encore” is the stadium sized anthem track that Jay-Z needed to go out on. Ye’s production value is unmatched in a game where far too often an artist overpowers a beat or vica-versa. Case in point is DJ Premier. Premier can make a beat that damn near anyone can sound good on, regardless of that artist’s true lyrical talent (see Group Home and Afu-Ra), but production alone can’t carry a track. On the flipside you have the always-criticized Joe Budden, whose lyrics are arguably the best in the game, but whose production has been part of the reason why he’s never been able to achieve success (that and the bullshit label politics, and the low I.Q. levels of the zombies who buy music). Kanye will take an artist and create a beat that allows them to do their thing without sacrificing anything in the process. And when the lyrical abilities of the artist are in question, he’ll simply craft a masterpiece and drop a dope guest verse on it (see Dilated People’s “This Way”). However it isn’t just production that has made Kanye the artist of the decade, as beats alone cannot make a star. Over the years the once playful child-like rhymes of Kanye have become full blown 16 bar darts that make us all press rewind time and time again.

Back when “The College Dropout” dropped, it was nothing short of a masterpiece and a game changing album. From the skits to the samples to the flow and lyrical content of this Chicago MC we saw a shift in the way hip hop was made, from the simple “beats to the rhymes” style of the golden age to a true song composition that Kanye brought us. Even though we already had cinematic albums such as Raekwon’s epic “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx”, the lyrical skills of the Wu-Tang were NEVER a question, even from the beginning. But with Kanye, even those who loved his debut still criticized his somewhat immature lyrics, even though he had some very conscious political and social messages on the album. He certainly wasn’t at Eminem-level immaturity, but he didn’t seem to take himself that seriously and his somewhat corny flow and Ludacris-style accentuating of lines was something that everyone thought could use improvement. He clearly heard his critics and silenced them with “Late Registration”, where he upped his lyrical game about 1000 times past the level he was at with “The College Dropout”. But always being one step ahead of the game, he not only went above and beyond lyrically, he blew open the doors musically by adding full-on orchestras and creating not just songs, but symphonies with tracks like “We Major” and “Gone”. The latter of these tracks has not only clearly defined movements, but a final verse that proved that the youthful Kanye could tear apart a microphone when given the chance. He had come a long way since “The New Workout Plan”. Around this time, Kanye went from being the producer everyone wanted making their beat to the rapper everyone wanted to drop a guest verse. This has certainly elevated in recent years with him gunning for Jay-Z’s spot as the rapper you know will drop the hottest guest verse on every track he touches. His track record in the past two years has been untouchable with his contributions to “Go Hard”, “Put On”, “Swagger Like Us”, “Make Her Say”, “Run This Town”, “Kinda Like a Big Deal”, “Knock You Down”, “Maybach Music 2”, and he was the clear winner on “Forever”. While four years ago it was a known fact that if you saw Jay-Z as a featured guest you knew you would be hearing one of the sickest verses of the year, and while two years ago that title belonged to Nas, it’s no question that the last two years have found Kanye at the top of the guest feature list. To overcome such disbelief from people with regard to his lyrical ability, this producer disproved everyone from Damon Dash and Jay-Z to his biggest critics who thought he was nothing more than a dope producer. But lyrics and production alone can’t elevate someone to superstardom status, what an artist also needs is recognition and poise. And clearly from his complaints about Grammy nominations to his assessment of George Bush, no one on the corner has swagger like Ye.

The first lesson rappers learn apparently is that they are the best rapper ever in the universe. It’s kinda hard to believe that when every single rapper is saying it, yet Kanye not only believes it, he proves it, time and time again. Raised in a wealthy home he has never exactly been humble, but well it’s one thing to let your music speak for itself as he did for so many years behind the boards, it’s another thing to be in the spotlight and have the ability to not just boast lyrically on record but also in public. Kanye West embodies the idea that “I’m your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper” and he does it with such confidence and with such a resume to back it up that it’s damn near impossible to deny. The difference between Kanye and every rapper who claims to be the greatest is that Kanye isn’t just the greatest rapper, he’s the greatest producer as well, something that no other artist in the history of rap has been able to claim. You have great producers, like DJ Premier and Marley Marl, but when have they rhymed? You have producers like Dr. Dre and Pete Rock, who rhyme but aren’t known for their lyrical skills (in the case of Dr. Dre he doesn’t even write his rhymes most of the time). Then you have full on producers/rappers like J Dilla and Madlib, who although they certainly can rock a mic, are best known for their beats with their rhyming playing second to their work on the keys. Madlib and Dilla are the types who rap so as to not merely be creating albums full of instrumentals (which Madlib has done anyway). You have rappers whose lyrical abilities are easily beyond the scope of 98% of the rappers out there, and although everyone has their opinion about who the best rappers are, people like Jay-Z and Nas got lyrics for days and are certainly at the top of the game when it comes to metaphors, narratives, flow, and knowledge. But they don’t have any beats under their belt. Premier doesn’t have any quotable verses. Kanye has both. Kanye has beats which are unquestionably some of the greatest of all time and verses which are unquestionably quotable for years to come. With that comes the back up of the claim that he is as big as he thinks he is, because he has done it all, and he’s done it better than anyone else in the game right now.

Kanye has changed the game, in some ways by bringing back traits of the golden age, and in other ways by pushing the game in new directions. For starters he brought back the idea of one producer working with an artist on an entire album, something that had just about died out when he resurrected the concept on Common’s “Be”. Whether it was groups like Gang Starr, a record like “Doggystyle”, or the era of Wu dominance when RZA composed their classics, hip hop had begun to fade away from the one producer album. In an age when less is more turned into more is more, you saw commercial releases targeting every big name producer they could find to fill the teaser sticker for an album cover. With the exception of Clipse having the Neptunes run their show, no one in hip hop was letting the musical magic be handled by a single person. In 2005 Common released an album that both created a comeback for the rapper who had been exiled to left field after “Electric Circus” as well as re-introduced the brilliant concept of having one beatmaker oversee an entire record. What’s come from that has been artists like Sene and Fashawn bringing in Blu and Exile respectively to create their projects, as well as Blaq Poet electing to have DJ Premier run his show. There are still artists who elect to have a project run over by 17 different producers but the stigma of relying solely on one beatsmith to construct a record has been overturned by the brilliance that Common and Kanye brought. At the same time Kanye has pushed the rap game way past its roots, making golden age purists bullshit in the process, but opening doors to those who may have thought they didn’t have what it took to be a “real” rapper. Certainly without Kanye’s movement into the electronic world with “808’s and Heartbreak” we wouldn’t be hearing from Wale or KiD CuDi as both of their styles have a distinct electro feel. When Kanye announced that his fourth album would be mostly, if not entirely, auto-tune the rap community was a bit perplexed and when he performed “Love Lockdown” we all took a huge gasp. What the fuck was this singing bullshit and where were the soulful bangers and hyped up verses? The album that followed was either going to be a huge success or an epic failure, as most artists who switch their style up look silly by encompassing something that are not (see Lords of the Underground, yes, they released an album a couple years back). Hip hop is one of the toughest places to reinvent yourself and other than a couple artists who have shredded their old image and fooled the world with a new one (Lil’ Wayne), most are just left behind to question why they thought they could change their style and expect to still make hits. Kanye on the other hand managed to completely exit rap and create what is best described as a pop album which not only was incredible on its own, but allowed for future artists to explore other forms of music to incorporate into their style of hip hop and the result has been brilliant albums from artists such as the aforementioned Kid CuDi and Wale, both of whom have tracks that are far from hip hop but still work in a way that screams hip hop culture.

Part of swagger is not only the perception people have of you through your actions but also the image that you portray. Hip hop has gone through fashion changes from the disco era flashiness, to the Fila jumpsuits, to the gold chains and Africa medallions to the hoodies and tims to the flashy Puff Daddy suits to the all-black-everything. Some artists set the trends while others follow the trends. Whether or not the trends are good ones, they are nonetheless a giant part of hip hop culture. The Puff Daddy era of flashy everything was certainly one of the lower points in this culture but it was also a time that was filled with a lot of great party music and takes us all back to a prosperous time. What Kanye West did, whether for better or worse, was introduce the skinny jeans, tight clothes look that has been prevalent in hip hop for the past few years. Now granted some people have taken it a little too far, including Kanye himself who allowed pictures to be taken of him with highly questionable individuals, as well as Lil’ Wayne who thought the skinny jeans trend meant he could actually open up about being a homo as if that is somehow acceptable in hip hop (Biggie, Kane, Brand Nubian, as well as a shitload of others would HIGHLY disagree with that), but you can’t deny the impact that the skinny jeans have had on a culture that is all too familiar with being continuously told to pull its damn pants up. Kanye went so far as to ink a deal with fashion mogul Louis Vitton for a line of sneakers as well as with Nike for a line of questionable sneakers, thus cementing his position as “Louis Vitton Don”. Again, his fashion choices may not be the best and they might not be appropriate for hip hop, but they have been undeniably influential in a culture that is so conscious of fashion.

As important as artists such as Jay-Z, Talib Kweli, Nas, and even 50 Cent have been to this decade, there is no question that Kanye West has done more for hip hop than all of them combined. With his production dominating the world of beats, to the emergence of his lyrical dominance, we have seen an in-house label producer turn into a rap superstar. From his first hit “Izzo” to his most recent appearance on a track where he arguably bodied his “big brother”, Kanye has been owning every aspect of the hip hop world and he hasn’t been afraid to go against the grain to do so. There aren’t many artists who would have taken the chances he has taken or accomplished the goals he has set for himself, but he has managed to go way past any expectations that may have been set for him and has done it without any real missteps along the way. No sophomore slump, no lyrical faux pas, no dark periods (talent wise), and no losses of credibility, Kanye West has done what no other artist this decade has been able to do, everything.