When Kanye West ‘s album Graduation (2007) was scheduled to be released on the same day as 50 Cent released the album Curtis , everyone thought Kanye had nothing to lose. Almost like the Britpop battle between Blur and Oasis back in the day, everyone paid all their attention to this unique battle. Even though most people think Kanye will be a loser, Kanye will still benefit from PR to sell more records. At that time, Kanye was a rising rapper but was still inferior to a big guy like 50 Cent in the popular Gangsta Rap market. 

50 Cent previously sold 872,000 copies of Get Rich Or Die Tryin’ and 1.15 million copies of Massacre in the first week, while in the same week, Kanye sold “only” 441,000 copies of The disc. College Dropout and 860,000 copies with Late Registration . It can be seen that Kanye West’s sales are not bad, but clearly inferior to ‘Cent’ . So 50 Cent is very confident! This guy also announced that he would retire if he lost to Kanye in this match.

Who would have thought? In the first week, Kanye West’s Graduation sold 957,000 copies while 50 Cent’s Curtis “only” pushed 691,000 copies, losing nearly 30% to Kanye. 50 Cent never retired as promised, but after that he never regained the peak of fame. By the time the album Graduation was released and won over Curtis, the music market had learned a lesson: street gangsta rap was no longer as popular as before and 50 Cent had lost his throne, replaced by the rise. of the new king – “Kanye West” . On the way to winning the “throne” from 50 Cent, Kanye also had to go through a major event in his life. If 50 Cent took 9 “luck-changing” bullets in 2000, then Kanye had his face planted directly into the steering wheel after the brutal car accident that almost took his life. It was on an October day in 2002, at dawn, that Kanye left the studio in the Lexus he rented. At that time, Kanye was also tired after several recording sessions with different artists. At that time, Kanye was already a popular producer thanks to the huge success he contributed to Jay-Z ‘s album Blueprint . However, Kanye’s goal is much more than that…

“Dream of becoming a rapper!!!” From a young age, Kanye practiced writing poetry and rapping before he practiced music as a music producer. Therefore, even though he was a Hip Hop music producer attracted by many famous rappers, no one, including those who collaborated with him, supported Kanye’s move into this field. Kanye has sold himself to many record label owners, to many bosses in the world, but what he received was just shaking his head. In addition to the fact that people see Kanye West as more of a producer than a rapper, his middle-class family background from an educated family is a weakness that hinders Kanye. His resume lacked the “cool” and “streetwise” elements of a popular street rapper at that time. Finally, reluctantly, Damon Dash , owner of Rock-A-Fella Records , signed Kanye to a recording contract, supposedly to comfort him thanks to Kanye’s efforts in bringing success to artists on the same record label. . … Back to that fateful evening, when Kanye was still holding out hope that the “elephant in the room”, Ludacris, would pay attention to his demo rap, but the result was not only that Ludacris did not bother to listen. one word, but then decided not to even choose the beat that Kanye brought. Tired and frustrated because once again, people looked down on his rap skills , Kanye sat in the car and drove straight into the dark street in a depressed mood. The Lexus he was driving swerved into the opposite lane and crashed head-on into an opposing car when Kanye fell asleep at the wheel. Two crushed cars. Kanye broke his jaw and the driver of the other car broke both legs.

Given a second chance at life by God, Kanye’s time in the hospital was a time for him to reflect on his life. That was also the time when he was free even though he had to lie still in a hospital bed. Not having to answer the phone or serve other rappers’ orders, Kanye spends time shaping his own music. Here, Kanye came up with the idea of ​​starting his music business starting with the song “Through The Wire”.

Kanye West’s fateful car crash

The good news is that, since starting his career as a music producer, Kanye has accumulated quite a collection of rich music samples, and he quietly keeps the best ones for himself. Therefore, the first unique product in Kanye West’s music is the beats that use very “Kanye” samples. The characteristic of those samples is that Soul songs breathe life into Kanye’s Rap beat, which is much different from other rap songs. A common formula of his when using borrowed music is to increase the speed of the tape to increase the music’s tone, making the original singer’s voice chirp like a chipmunk. Like the song “Through The Fire” by Chaka Khan used in the song “Through The Wire” that Kanye composed and recorded while his jaw was still stuck in stitches, it was disfigured like that, but it was not offensive at all. . A series of other songs on The College Dropout album have borrowed pieces mixed in this way: “Spaceship” is a line from Marvin Gaye ‘s “Distant Lover” , “Slow Jamz” is borrowed from “A House Is Not A Home” ” by Luther Vandross , “School Spirit” borrows from “Spirit In The Dark” by Aretha Franklin , or “All Falls Down” is a reinterpretation of “Mystery Of Iniquity” by Lauryn Hill , and there are many other examples. It’s very difficult to compose beats from these samples. How long is enough music to choose? Where to put it in the article? Which musical instrument will go well with it? Yet Kanye’s sample preparation is very delicate, because not only is it not copied exactly from the original due to changes in speed and pitch, it also blends with the beats he makes as if they were composed. That’s for Kanye’s music. The second unique product in Kanye’s Rap music is this rapper’s masterful music production. It must be admitted that Kanye’s musical ear is probably at the top among Hip Hop music producers. Hip Hop music beats are mostly created by “copying & pasting” musical bars with the same steady drum rhythm, then instruments such as bass, guitar, and keyboard will circulate in harmony. In general, they are all very predictable, easy to recognize and usually only differ between the verse and hook, with the purpose of allowing rappers to mentally calculate how many “bars” they have rapped. This method is actually very practical because most rappers do not have the musical ear to recognize scales. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that Kanye West composes music, instead of composing beats, for his Hip Hop music. Like the intro to the music of “Through The Wire”, there is a series of continuous transitions following each extremely cool beat. Next, Kanye uses drum breaks or bursts as a fill effect that changes between each piece of music. So in terms of drums, there is no repetition in the song, not to mention a broken rhythm.

In the song “Never Let Me Down”, the background music when Jay-Z raps at first has enough sample vocals behind it to make the sound very full, then when it comes to Kanye West’s part, there is only the piano sound that follows the chords in a unique way. quiet over the drums and bass, then before the hook, only the flickering bass remains. When it was time for poet J.Ivy to open his heart, the singing in the sample in Jay-Z’s part was now replaced by humming like the sound of angels. Each piece of music is separate and has its own characteristics. The structure of Kanye’s rap songs and his use of background music were much more complex than traditional Hip Hop music at that time. In “Two Words”, the beat has the best music on The College Dropout album when it not only uses the violin sound as if grinding each note, but also the constant chord progression at the beginning of each 4 bars. create a sound party that “awakens” all the senses.

On the Late Registration disc , he showed listeners that he no longer overused sped-up samples. In “Drive Slow”, the chill music is deadly seductive through alternating trumpet verses. Then the song “Roses” is a Rap song with a structure that is very different from anything we have ever heard. The drum sound only appears in the hooks, but in Kanye’s rap verses, the sound only stops at the keyboard and bass. The blend of Bill Withers ‘ original singing and sample from the song “Rosie” with Kanye’s music and rap lyrics blurs the line between Rap and Soul. Suddenly, at some point, Kanye’s rap sounds more like lyrics than lyrics without a melody. Kanye’s talented music making techniques don’t stop there. He constantly breaks through with a series of challenging sounds. That is trying to sing using autotune without causing discomfort to the listener on the disc 808s & Heartbreak . It’s the electronic synth sound mixed with Soul music on the Graduation disc , in which the pinnacle of creativity is the way he changed the pitch of the sample to turn it into a riff using just the right autotune software for the background music of the song “Stronger”. . It is a combination of Soul, Electro, autotune sound elements plus Rock colors in the masterpiece My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy , like the guitar solo at the end of the song “Runaway” but is actually the distorted voice of the singer. Kanye West. It’s minimalistic with just the “noise” from electronic music and Industrial sounds in the Yeezus disc that I’ve written about before. And much, much more. But Kanye West ‘s musical genius is just enough to prove that he is a talented music producer. Most importantly, his dream is to become a rapper!!! Therefore, the third element discussed here must of course be Kanye West’s rap. People say that wine goes in and out. Therefore, “wine” as delicious as Kanye’s music must be a rich source of inspiration for beautiful words.

At that time, mainstream rap lyrics revolved around guns, alcohol, and girls, while Kanye told stories about everyday life around him. While in the song “Many Men (Wish Death)”, 50 Cent boasts about his miraculous escape from an assassination attempt, which is speculated to be revenge because 50 mentioned drug lord Kenneth’s criminal past. “Supreme” McGriff in one of his previous rap songs… … Then in “Through The Wire”, Kanye recounts the tragic situation after the car accident: “I drink a Boost for breakfast, an Ensure for dessert / Somebody ordered pancakes, I just sip the sizzurp / That right there could drive a sane man berserk ”. Just sucking up liquids to fill his body was enough to drive him crazy. But Kanye is still optimistic and dreams of turning this disaster into a glorious rap career: “ But I’m a champion, so I turned tragedy to triumph / Make music that’s fire, spit my soul through the wire .” While in the super hit “In Da Club” brought 50 Cent’s name to the music market, 50 boasted about going out and doing drugs with girls… … Then in “Spaceship”, Kanye told the story of being beaten by his boss. The old man at the Gap store he used to work for insulted him so much that he wished he could hit him back and secure the money in the safe: “ If my manager insults me again / I will be assaulting him / After I fuck the manager up / Then, I’m gonna shorten the register up ”. While in “PIMP”, 50 Cent confessed that in addition to being a girl, 50 also wanted to be a pimp, making money from the industry girls… … Then in “Jesus Walks”, Kanye wanted to have faith. He wants to have Jesus by his side, and prove to the whole music market that Hip Hop music doesn’t have to just revolve around “guns” and “sex”, that difficult topics like religion still exist. can succeed: “ I’m just tryna say the way school needs teachers / The way Kathie Lee needed Regis, that’s the way I need Jesus / So here go my single, dawg, radio needs this / They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus / That means guns, sex, lies, videotape / But if I talk about God my record won’t get played, huh? ”

Kanye didn’t use too many complicated rhyming techniques, but his story was a breath of fresh air for mainstream Rap music at that time. Although rap lyrics about reality or society have been present for a long time in the underground world, Kanye West’s album The College Dropout is like a bridge connecting with the mass market. Kanye’s success was the starting point for other rappers who later found a voice for popular music listeners such as Lupe Fiasco or Kendrick Lamar . Now all of Kanye’s dreams have come true. He had a brilliant career, he joined Gap ‘s executive board , he gained faith, and even Christian songs like “Jesus Walks” brought him a prestigious Grammy Award. Now Kanye’s rap lyrics have changed because he has also changed as a person. There are no more narratives of hardship, replaced by fierce confidence like “ N-now th-that doesn’t kill me / Can only make us stronger ” in the song “Stronger”, the uncertainty need with the criticism about him ” Fuck SNL and the whole cast / Tell them Yeezy said they can kiss my whole ass ” in the song “POWER”, the excessive illusion of himself as a god in the song “I Am A God”. There’s nothing wrong with these lyrics, even if Kanye West has changed as a person, because after all, rappers in general have a sense of pride in themselves that makes it easy to imagine 50 Cent rapping lyrics like the above. . It’s just that after achieving all his wishes, Kanye West still doesn’t stop dreaming . As Steve Jobs once said, “ Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish “, Kanye still continues to come up with crazy ideas, most recently running for president . But who knows? Everyone has seen that Kanye was crazy when he tried to be a rapper, maybe he could be president too. Anyway, for me, among the countless crazy statements of Kanye West since his success, there is one sentence that I still find true. That is: Kanye West is a genius in music.