The Man, The Myth, The Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Once upon a time (or, a prelude)

Perhaps it was the hysteria surrounding the Internet leak that was clouding my judgment or
maybe it was the inflated self-importance that came with my twentieth birthday, but on
November 11, I composed what I was convinced was the perfect series of tweets. I would be

retweeted by the man himself. Overnight, I would be catapulted into the upper reaches of music
criticism, my opinions immediately legitimized and empowered. It would be the ultimate
birthday present. But alas, that Thursday came and went, and the retweet never came.

The Man
In grade school music class, every student hears the fabled stories of Beethoven. It is said that as
his hearing failed him, he would sit at the piano with his ear pressed against the instrument,
desperately pounding the keys in vain attempt to perceive even slightest bit of sound. Then
theres the tale of Beethoven conducting a chorus and needing to be told that the piece had
finished. Many also have heard how, after the first performance of his Ninth Symphony, he
needed to be turned around to see the overwhelming applause that he could no longer hear. Its
not just Beethoven either: theres the story of Paganini who, with his Marfans-elongated limbs,
would reportedly play the violin until all but one string had snapped, his virtuosity prompting
speculations of a Satanic deal. Instrumentalists and composers alike, all of these artists that are
part of the de facto musical untouchables are held in similarly deific regard.
Whatother than timedo Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, or any other canonical musicians have
on elite musicians of the modern day, I ask? Strong words, I know, but hear me out.
Now, I am aware of and appreciate the compositional gymnastics taking place in, say, a work by
Haydn. (Trust me. You ought to see my [less than desirable] grades in music theory last
semester.) The voice leading, the harmonies, the modulationstheyre all masterful. Composing
is like solving a musical Sudoku with notes and rests and key signatures and chords instead of
nine digits. Im not attempting to minimize any of this difficulty. What I am arguing, however, is
that there should be multiple measures of mastery and, more specifically, more than one pathway
to the ranks of musical divinity, none of which being obstructed by the superfluous prerequisite
of time.
To classify a musician as more valuable simply because he is old is nonsensical. The link
between age and worth should pertain only to material objectsantiques, archeological finds,
family heirloomsnot aural art. Trinkets and vases and paintings are one of a kind, bound by
their physical properties to exist as one thing in one place at one time. Music, on the other hand,
can be recreated. Thirteenth century Gregorian chant, nineteenth century slave songs, and
Handels 1791 Surprise Symphony (Symphony No. 94 in G) alike can all be reconstructed today,
despite the lack of recording equipment at the musics conception and the time that has elapsed
since then. Thus, there should be a certain collectivity to all music. That is, when it comes to
determining musics value, a musician and his work shouldnt be restricted to criteria of one
specific time period; rather, music should be judged elite and masterful against a single timeless
criterion: virtuosity.
But virtuosity in and of itself is a contentious concept. When the average person thinks of
virtuosity, Jimi Hendrix on guitar or John Bonham on drums or Yo-Yo Ma on cello come to
mind. Even if you consider yourself more educated, Liszt and Chopin on piano or the
aforementioned Paganini on violin will be the first exemplars that spring to mind. Virtuosity,
however, is not limited to fingers on keys or bows on strings; synthesizers, samplers, digital

audio workstations, and even the human ear are instruments to be mastered just like any
traditional instrument.
To detractors, I ask: Have you ever tried navigating Logic Pro, Cubase, Reason, or Ableton?
Have you ever tried programming your own synthesized sound? Have you ever been crate
digging, discovered a melody or even just a drum break you fancied, and then tried to flip that
sample from its original genre into something wholly reimagined within another genre? Do the
terms sidechain compression, oscillator, band-pass filter, or beat map mean anything to
you?
Kanye West not only understands these concepts, but he has mastered them. Hes drawn from
genres as disparate as krautrock (Drunk and Hot Girls), prog rock (Power), and French
house (Stronger) and integrated them into modern hip hop culture. Hes utilized all the
technology available to him to sequence and mix pieces of music that would be impossible to
create if he werent working at this exact moment in history. And each one of those DAWs,
effect tanks, and hardware synths West uses are separate instruments themselves, demanding
years of work in order to understand, harness, and then effectively use. You might call him a 21st
century multi-instrumentalist (man). No, it may not be virtuosity in the classical senseI never
claimed he was playing Rachmaninoff or anythingbut its still virtuosity nonetheless.
The counterargument dates back to Pink Floyd: that its not the artists making music, but rather
its the machines. Ultimately, though, no matter how complex and powerful those machines
might be, they must be brought under control by the artist in order to create a final product that
people want to listen to. You cant plug in a Synthi AKS and expect it to spit out On the Run
on its own just like you cant boot up an MPC2000XL, press a button or two, and hear
Runaway.
He might not be living in the Baroque era, he might not be making music steeped in advanced
music theory, and he might not even be making use of traditional instruments, but Kanye West is
a virtuoso and should be considered among the untouchable greats in music history. There is,
after all, such a thing as a living legend.

The Myth
Lil Wayne has the word misunderstood tattooed on his face, intended to signify his frequent
misperception in the public eye. Now, I do not claim to know Kanye West in the least, so I will
do my best to refrain from making any claims about him as a person, but I can postulate with
decent confidence that Mr. West feels similarly vilified and misrepresented by the public. Unlike
Wayne, though, I gather that West is not one to wear his emotions on sleeveor face, as it were.
At the same time, though, for me to go as far as to refute that Kanye West is a jackass (Barack
Obamas words, not mine) is to overstep the limits of my knowledge because, once again, I do
not know the man personally. However, what I can do is present the information available to me
in a way that seeks to minimize media glorification and distortion and hopefully looks at Kanye
as an individual in a sensible and thoughtful manner.
I present to you the facts:

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Kanye West started in the music industry as a producer. His career as a multiplatinum
rapper wouldnt come until later.
On October 23, 2002, Kanye West was involved in a near-fatal car accident.
Kanye West lost his mother, Donda West, on November 10, 2007.
Kanye West proclaimed that George Bush doesnt care about black people. George W.
Bush would later remark that the comment was one of the most disgusting moments in
[his] presidency.
Kanye West rushed the stage at last years VMAs, interrupting Taylor Swifts acceptance
speech for the Best Female Video award. Reacting to the incident, Barack Obama called
Kanye West a jackass.
Not including My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy or any of the work on which he is
credited for production, Kanye West has gone platinum eight times over in the US alone.

Most of the above facts are ingrained in pop culture. If you read the newspaper or watch TV,
odds are almost none of these facts are new to you, especially since the George Bush and Taylor
Swift incidents have been more than beaten into the ground by mainstream media. The reason I
bring them up, though, is to frame the following question: How can one man have all of these
things happen to him and not have it affect his personality?
Although his production work was well known within the industry, West didnt sign with RocA-Fella as a rapper until 2003. The final track on College Dropout, Last Call, catalogs this
journey into the rap game, including the doubt Kanye surmounted as he proved himself as an
emcee to record execs and established artists alike. One of those artists to which he proved
himself was Jay-Zthe same Jay-Z who kicked it with Notorious B.I.G., the same Jay-Z who
was and still is a multimillionaire business mogul, and the same Jay-Z revered by many as one of
the best rappers ever. If you can go from Hova reacting rather unenthusiastically to your rapping
with that was cool; that was hot to having a record called Watch the Throne planned with the
guy, you might be entitled to some arrogance. Or, in Kanyes words: Some say he arrogant. Can
y'all blame him? It was straight embarrassing how y'all played him.
And what many seem to forget is that during this ascent to stardom, Kanye was in a car accident
that nearly took his life. Borne out of this potential tragedy, though, was Through the Wire, the
first single off of College Dropout and, effectively, what shifted that ascent to stardom into
overdrive. Between the rhymes that he literally spit through the wire that was holding his broken
jawbones together to the now-classic bulletin board music video, West went from the guy people
mis-Googled as Kayne to hip hops next big thing. If you can go from deaths doorstep to
being a household name, then you might be entitled to some ego. Or, in Kanyes words: But I'm
a champion, so I turned tragedy to triumph, make music that's fire, spit my soul through the
wire.
Fast forward several million records later, and you encounter a low point in Kanyes life as his
mother dies in November of 2007. For a man who didnt have much of a father figure and was
effectively raised by his mother alone, the passing of Donda West was as much a loss of a parent
as it was the loss of the grounding force in Wests life, as communicated in a recent interview
with MTVs Sway. But just as Kanye had been channeling adversity his entire life up to that
point, so did he transmute the pain of his mothers death into musical creativity. Or, as Kanye
articulated later in that same interview: I just zoneI put a lot of the work into the music. I
completely give all of myself into what I can give the worldIts the creativity and the

opportunity that really keeps me going. Put more poetically, you might say that Mr. West is
simply carrying out a promise to his Mama: I said, Mommy, Imma love you til you don't hurt
no more, and when I'm older, you aint gotta work no more. Regardless of his ability to
transform such negativity into positivity, however, it would be simply inhuman to think that a
person could endure the loss of such a significant figure in his life and not to harden and become
a bit more cynical about the world around him.
And whats not to be cynical about when people are filling up your Twitter account with DIE
NIGGA DIE messages and it seems like the whole world is against you? Such public hatred
toward Kanye West is fueled primarily by two events: the infamous George Bush doesnt care
about black people comment and the interruption of Taylor Swift at the 2007 VMAs. But Im
not here to beat those topics further into the ground. Whats done is done. What I would like to
call attention to, though, are two pertinent reactions to the incidents. First, theres George W.
Bush declaring Wests comment one of the most disgusting moments in [his] presidency. This
from the same Commander in Chief who saw 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the War on Terrorism, the
War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War all happen in his eight years in the White House. Then,
theres Barack Obama who called Kanye West a jackass for his actions at the VMAs. Granted,
Obama was specifically asked about his opinion on Wests behavior, but how often does the
public hear the president use such strong language? Combined, thats two leaders of the Free
World acknowledging and expressing strong emotions toward a musician. The Obama remark
might be more nonchalance than anything, but when Bush cites Kanye Westagain, a
musicianas perhaps the lowest point in his low-filled presidency, thats saying something.
Thats saying something about Kanyes status not only as a musician, but also as a voice of the
people. If youre big enough of a deal to have two of the forty-four presidents not only know
who you are, but have strong opinions about you, you might be entitled to some self-importance.
The final fact, however, doesnt need my two cents in order to be adequately explained. Ill leave
that one to Mr. West: Hard to be humble when you stuntin on a jumbotron.
Once again, Id like to restate that I obviously do not know Kanye West personally. I am not in
the position to proclaim untrue the idea that the public image Kanye and the real Kanye are one
and the same. For all I know, he could really be a jackass. But when I look at the facts as
objectively as I know how, I see a multidimensional individual whose behavior isif not
justifiableat the very least understandable.

The Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

In the days after my birthday and some ten or twelve spins of My Beautiful Dark Twisted
Fantasy later, I came to realize that the perfect tweet was, in actuality, a mere reiteration of what
was already sitting on my iPod hard drive. Sure, Pitchfork might've single-handedly and
instantaneously lifted Dark Fantasy among the mythic ranks of OK Computer, Kid A, Yankee
Hotel Foxtrot, and The Soft Bulletin with its 10.0 rating and Rolling Stone might've flexed its
ever-atrophying critical muscle awarding Yeezy with five stars, but the story that the numbers
don't tell is Kanye Wests beautiful dark twisted fantasy itself. On November 22, 2010, Kanye
West took the concept album, turned it on its head, and released a post-nothing hip-hoperapart
autobiography, part memoir, and part prophesy.

Inextricably linked to its visual counterpart in Runaway, Dark Fantasy is music on the grandest
scale. Its operatic, and it requires little writerly acrobatics in order to fit the album into operatic
form. Before continuing with this idea, though, Id like establish some common ground by
presenting some textbook1 definitions of elements found in Baroque Italian opera seria:
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coloratura: an ornate style of singing with fast, brilliant runs, scales, and high notes.
libretto: the words of an opera.
accompanied recitative: a technique of declaiming words musically in a heightened,
theatrical manner, always accompanied by instrumentation. Vocals mirror and exaggerate
the natural ups and downs that occur as an actor raises his or her voice at a question,
lowers it in asides, or cries out angrily.
secco recitative: a recitative in which instrumental accompaniment is kept to a minimum.
aria: a set piece for a solo singer in which the vocal part is accompanied by the orchestra.
Here, the singer-actor is mulling over his or her emotions and getting his feelings out,
instead of reacting moment by moment, as in a recitative.
cadenza: an improvised passage for a soloist.

Act I
After Nicki Minaj announces that the opera is about to begin and its time to gather around, be
quiet, and listen, Dark Fantasy serves as the overture, introducing themes of celebrity,
decadence, fortune, self-doubt, sex, and power along with the modern day pop equivalent of
coloratura singing. Then, from track two until the audience erupts in applause after Who Will
Survive in America, Kanye shifts at will among recitatives, arias, and cadenzas.
The first recitative sees Kanye rapping about the woes of celebrity as his childhood fantasies
become realities. He feels the judgmental gaze of the public bearing down on him (I need more
drinks and less lights), the lens of paparazzi cameras documenting his every move (its been a
while since I watched the tube), the unrelentingly hypercritical media (choke a South Park
writer with a fishstick). This, coupled with his perfectionism and desire to please everyone,
engenders much self-doubt and pushes him to the brink. Somewhere in the lyrics of Gorgeous
is Kanye Wests struggle with suicide. Maybe its in the chorus when Kid Cudi sings of being
on the edge. Or perhaps its loaded into the devil that appears time and again throughout Dark
Fantasy; the same devil that West explained to Sway on MTV: When I allow other peoples
ideals to interfere with what I know is true to myself and I think twice about what it is thats
really in my heart because of what peoples reaction will bethats selling my soul to the devil.
Ultimately, however, Kanyes resilience triumphs, the screams of haters begin fueling his
creativity rather than thwarting it, and he embraces his almost superhuman status and all that it
entails on Power.
What sets Power apart every other hip hop song drenched in braggadocio, though, is its selfawareness. This is not just Kanye talking about how hes the best; this is Kanye incredulously
stepping back and looking at this empire hes created while simultaneously maintaining the guise
of bravado. He might be aware that hes killin this shit and that everyone and their mother is
feelin this shit, but hes also overwhelmed by the unattainable expectations people have of
him and the sense of the responsibility he feels to those people. Its almost schizophrenic how
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Adapted from Listen by Joseph Kerman and Gary Tomlinson

many different shoes hes expected to fill: entertainer, musician, speaker, boyfriend, role model,
son, brotherall while still remaining true to himself. If you look beyond all the decadence of
Powerfrom the opulent production to the over-the-top live performances to its materialistic
boastsKanye West is telling us all where he disappeared to. And it wasnt Rome or Japan or
Hawaii either; he disappeared within himself: I just needed time alone with my own thoughts.
Got treasures in my mind but couldnt open up my own vault. My childlike creativity, purity, and
honesty is honestly being prodded by these grown thoughts.
And the suicidal thoughts still havent lost their allure, either. Especially for someone as cerebral
as Kanye West, the thought of getting away from everything permanently has crossed his mind.
Not only is the prospect of leaving these earthly troubles behind attractive, but for someone
concerned with having his art taken seriously, death is an instant ticket. Look at Tupac. Look at
Kurt Cobain. Look at Jeff Buckley. The list is long. If you die old, you get a few hundred words
in the obituary and have a nice funeral. If you die young, you are immortalized. Dont tell me for
a second that these thoughts havent crossed Kanye Wests mindbecause theyre right there in
the lyrics if you listen hard enough.
As the last distorted chord of 21st Century Schizoid Man gives way to heartrending strings and
piano, the first recitative gives way to the first cadenza. Featuring soloist Elton John, the
interlude to All of the Lights is wrought with emotion. It would sound out of place on just
about any other hip hop album ever made, but on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, it bridges
the gap between the chaotic Power and the anthemic All of the Lights.
Then, just as Elton John reaches the final cadence, the second accompanied recitative begins as
All of the Lights explodes in a flurry of triumphant horns. This, Im convinced, is Kanye
Wests crowning achievement up to this point in his career. He enlists a multidecade-spanning
whos who of artists, including Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Elton John, Fergie, John Legend, TheDream, Tony Williams, Kid Cudi, Charlie Wilson, Ryan Leslie, and Elly Jacksonbut good
luck picking them all out. Moreso than anywhere else on the album, All of the Lights
showcases Kanye Wests grasp of the power of timbre. These artists were not gathered together
on one song haphazardly; at this point in his career, youre not going to ever hear Kanye West
say I wouldve gotten blank on the track, but No, Kanye accumulated these voices because
he liked the way they sounded. Sure, he couldve gotten Beyonce instead of Rihanna. He
couldve gotten Gwen Stefani instead of Fergie. He couldve gotten Wiz Khalifa instead of Kid
Cudi. But he didnt. He had a certain sound in mind and found the artists who would bring that
sound to life, layering vocals on top of one another, filtering them, and manipulating them until
the All of the Lights playing in his head was matched by the All of the Lights blaring out of
his studio monitors.
In other words, Kanye was looking for artists who could fill sonic roles. In an interview with
Dwele, the Power vocalist recounts Ye [coming] to me knowing what he wanted as far as the
hook, as far as everything goes. I added a couple harmonies that werent already in there, but for
the most part, it was my instrument he wanted on the song. An interview with Justin Vernon
echoes, I ended up on five or six songs. Some songs, its a featuring credit, some Im just in
there like a role player. And keeping within the convention of opera seria, hes called upon the
pop musics coloratura in Alicia Keys and the societal castrato in homosexual artist Elton John.
Kanye West was as much casting director on this thing as he was executive producer and
performer.

The lavishly accompanied recitative of All of the Lights then transitions to the comparatively
bare secco recitative of Monster. This track, after all, is for exhibiting brute lyricismverbal
decadence, if you willand allowing the rapping to take center stage. The quotables are plenty.
From Yeezy putting vaginas into sarcophaguses and awarding females with excellence in fellatio
swallowships to Jigga tongue-twisting his way through all I see is these niggas Ive made
millionaires, milling about, spilling their feelings in the air and all I see is these fake fucks
with no fangs tryna draw blood with my ice cold veins, the emceeing here is topnotch. But the
star of the show here is Nicki Minaj, and nowhere does she shine brighter than when Kanye
drops out the beat to just the 808 kick and lets the Black Barbie punctuate her colossal verse a
cappella. Its funny, really: GOOD Music single-handedly legitimized Young Moneys next big
thing.
Act II
The second act takes a darker turn, diverging from the glitz and glamour that typified the first act
and instead digging deeper into Kanye Wests psyche. Beaten down by society in the aftermath
of the Taylor Swift and George Bush incidents, a resigned Kanye turns his back on the world in
So Appalled. The libretto of this accompanied recitative is scathing and ruthless, filled with
rhymes of someone whose grief has long since turned to uncontainable anger. At first glance, the
raps may be simply describing the ridiculous lifestyle of the rich and famousfrom private
jets (30,000 feet up and youre not invited) to fine dining (five star dishes, different exotic
fishes) to parties brimming with beautiful women (champagne wishes, thirty white bitches)
but in Kanyes snarl is a man fed up with niggas writin bullshit and trying to maintain a happy
face when inside hes all torn up.
A brief aside: Yeezy mightve just been trying to bigup a GOOD brother by featuring CyHi da
Prynce on So Appalled, but Ill be damned if CyHi isnt on the shortlist of the best vocal
timbres in rap. His voice has the gnarl of a street veteran whose vocal chords have had a friendly
relationship with the local weed man as long as hes had the manual dexterity to roll a blunt.
When CyHi quips I met this girl on Valentines Day, fucked her in May; she found out about
April, so she chose to Maaarch, I eargasm instantaneously. The only emcee in the game who
even holds a candle to CyHi da Prynces vocal timbre is Odd Futures Tyler, the Creator.
Even though West himself has described the meaning of devil on the album, I cant help but
wonder if the titular devil in Devil in a New Dress is Kanye himself. Demonized by the media,
Kanye was stripped of his musician title and became no more than a joke in wake the of the
Taylor Swift incident (see: the Imma let you finish internet meme), essentially becoming
synonymous with douchebaggery. But with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, West knew full
well that he would win back the hearts of his detractors simply by donning the garb of his
irresistibly good music.
Separating Kanyes verse from Rick Rosss, though, is the second cadenza of the album. A guitar
solo this time, the cadenza could easily have felt sorely out of place smack in the middle of a hip
hop album if it werent for Mr. Wests genius production. By applying the same staticky wash
with which he affects his vocals, West ensures that the guitar solo fits nicely into flow of the
album and thereby simultaneously maintains operatic structure. And dont think for a second that
the rapper to follow that guitar solo wasnt precisely calculated to be none other than Rick Ross.

You see, Rick Ross is the closest thing todays rap game has to Biggie. Hes utterly larger than
life. I wouldnt be surprised in the slightest to find out that Ross laid down his Devil in a New
Dress verse shirtless with a blunt smoldering in his right hand, Dior sunglasses shading his
bloodshot eyes, and a female on all fours delivering him oral favors. The man is that G. And talk
about vocal timbre! Kanye spoke on MTV of eating breakfast with Rick Ross one morning at his
Hawaii pad discussing the way our voices cut on the track. No one couldve filled the role
better on Devil in a New Dress than Rick Ross.
Next comes Runaway, its hollow piano key plinks already classic. Maybe its the reverb that
makes the piano sound like its sitting smack-dab in the middle of a big, empty room or maybe
its my association of the song with its 2010 VMA performance, but Runaway is intensely
visual to me. I envision Kanye center stage in that red leather suit, sitting at a grand piano, his
forehead resting in the crook of his left arm thats draped into the piano so he can feel the
vibrations of the melody as he absently pokes each key. A spotlight emphasizes the isolation.
The crowd might be roaring, but Kanye is focused inward. This is Kanye Wests aria.
Yes, this song as about douchebags; Kanye was sure of that, directing Pusha T to infuse more
douchebag into his rhymes until, four rewrites later, the verse was satisfactory. But its also
about all the people West has pushed away because of his actions. Its not a funny song. It is,
however, possibly the most self-aware song Ive ever heard. This is Kanye West stripped down
to the core. If you dont believe me, stop listening to the radio edit of the song and skip to the
part after the vocals end. The first few times I listened to album, I thought this was a second
guitar solo, but I soon realized that it was actually Kanyes sobs filtered and distorted to have an
electrified string quality. Kanye West, the douchebag of all douchebags, is crying into the
microphone. And the Neutral Milk Hotel Untitled-esque horns only add to the melancholy. In
time, this may come to be considered Kanyes Treefingers, a piece of music skipped over by
many for its dissonances but altogether integral to the album as a unit.
But before the listener is gets too comfortable, the aria takes a sharp right turn into the raunchiest
accompanied recitative ever conceived. Hell of a Life is sex put on a record. I dont mean that
in the sense that its pleasant to the ears; I mean it in the sense that its literally sex put on record.
Kanye orgasms at the end of the track, for Christs sake! And before he does, he makes a nun
cum, has anal sex, falls in love with a porn star, and gives up drugsfor pussy and religion.
Some may call it distasteful and decry that its everything thats wrong with hip hop, but I say
its masculinity in its most carnal formand the appropriation of Black Sabbaths Iron Man
melody in the chorus makes it all the more meaningful.
Those who condemn Hell of a Life also obviously dont listen to Dark Fantasy in full because
as the recitative continues into Blame Game, the listener gets a glimpse into Kanyes
relationship woes. On the hook is John Legend, whose hoarse, strained, yet altogether soulful
voice only enhances the sorrow bleeding through the track. For all his trouble with females,
youve also got to believe that somewhere in this song West is evoking his mother, the single
most important female in his life. And beneath the hood is an Aphex Twin sample. Who other
than Kanye West could flip a song by the father of IDM? No less make that song the one Kanye
cited as being many listeners favorite when questioned by MTVs Sway Calloway. Kanye West
managed to make females want to listen to Aphex Twin. Thats all you need to know.

Another interesting element of Blame Game is found in Kanyes second verse. I may very well
be making a mountain out of a molehill, but its awfully leitmotivic for Kanye to drop all of the
lights, complete with its melody, into Blame Game. That is, it could be considered Mr.
Wests attempt at Wagnerian music drama where musical elements are repeated throughout an
opera in order to unify it and represent certain emotions. I dont hear any other instances of
leitmotifs in Dark Fantasy myself except for the tribal female vocals from Power that return at
the end of Lost in the World, but it might be foreshadowing that Kanye might explore a more
Gesamtkunstwerk-type album in the future.
After a brief second aria where Kanye muses over love in surprisingly good (and probably
lightly Melodyned) sung section, Chris Rock makes an appearance on the album. But instead of
opting for a College Dropout-type funny skit, West plays with conventionand herein lies the
genius. Rather than utilize Chris Rock in the expected manner, he plays stereotypes of celebrity
against themselves and confuses the listener by having Rock deliver a skit that isnt humorous.
Sure, the image of Kanye West in overalls driving around town in an Astro van with Pussy
Reupholstering painted on the side is funny, but Chris Rocks tone of voice is so harsh and the
content is so conflicting with listeners schema of Rock that we dont know whether to laugh or
be disgusted.
Act III
The final accompanied recitative and secco recitative come in Lost in the World and Who
Will Survive in America, respectively. Here, Kanye West seems to be formally returning to the
same world he turned his back on in So Appalled. The first verse of Lost in the World is not
only hopeful and optimistic about the future no matter what may come, but its lyrics also take the
form of another timeless closing track. Presenting opposing ideas (devil/angel, heaven/hell,
now/forever) in quick succession, the verse bears a striking resemblance to Pink Floyds Dark
Side of the Moon closer Eclipse where Roger Waters employs similar lyrical contrasts
(touch/see, taste/feel, love/hate). Pretty nice company, Id say.
Then, when Gil Scott-Herons booming voice enters on Who Will Survive in America, we
cant help but listen to his message. He is, after all, the best spoken word artist this side of
Godspeed You! Black Emperors anonymous street preacher from The Dead Flag Blues. As if
the sixty-seven minutes of music preceding it isnt enough for your mind to chew on, Gil ScottHeron touches on such heavy topics as freedom, morality, and spirituality. And if theres any one
answer to Scott-Herons final query, its Kanye Omari West.

Epilogue (or, a conclusion)

Every single word you just read could be incorrect. I might be completely off base with every
argument I made. These are definite possibilities. Im just some twenty year old boy with a set of
ears and a heart that was moved by some music. But I can offer one piece of information that I
know is true with wholehearted, doubtless certainty:
Hes had so many people doubting him. Hating him. Its been a tough time. I think
he had a certain hunger, you know, a certain drive to come out and make a brilliant
album. To basically say, no matter what you think of me, Im going to make the best
fucking music youve ever heard.
John Legend