Kanye West Graduates

  The way Chicago-born rapper/producer Kanye West has been acting lately, you might form the mistaken impression that things weren’t going well for him. After learning that Britney Spears had been chosen to open the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards, he publicly moaned “I can’t believe she would perform… She hasn’t had a hit record in years.” While it’s understandable why one of the most popular rappers in the world might be upset at having been passed over for the opening number in favor of a washed-up and apparently drunk former starlet, his statements seemed like needless whining more than anything else. Days later, after failing to win any awards at the VMAs, he was secretly videotaped backstage while launching into a characteristically self-pitying tirade against MTV itself, shouting “Give a black man a chance, man! Fuck MTV! Tell ‘em what the fuck I said!” Music fans were left wondering why Kanye seemed to care so much about a second-rate awards show to begin with, forgetting that he takes his music seriously period. And it’s that near-obsessive dedication that helped him sculpt his new release, Graduation, into arguably the finest rap album of the year so far.

  The production on Graduation is as crisp and solid as one would expect from Kanye West, who originally started out in the music business as a producer before becoming an emcee himself. Thematically, Graduation seems to stand as a more upbeat album than Kanye’s previous outing, 2005’s morose Late Registration; even the cover art is more playful and colorful. The album starts out with the upbeat “Good Morning,” in which Kanye celebrates his proverbial “graduation” into stardom after which the album was named. Kanye’s favorite topic of discussion is, of course, Kanye, and he takes several opportunities to respond to critics who’ve labeled him as self-obsessed, jokingly referring to himself as “Mr. by-his-self-he-so-impressed” (“Good Morning”), and later posing the rhetorical question “I'm a star, how could I not shine?” (“I Wonder”). Along the way, he drops countless double entendres that a listener may miss if they aren’t paying attention, including a comparison between the movie Snakes on a Plane and a woman pleasuring his, ahem, “snake” on a plane. While Kanye’s lyrical mastery really stands out in tracks like “Flashing Lights” and “Big Brother,” Graduation’s most catchy tracks are those in which attention to production trumped lyrical content, including the popular Daft Punk-sampled single “Stronger” and the hilariously inane, self-explanatory “Drunk And Hot Girls”. The album, like its predecessors, doesn’t go overboard with guest vocals, but when they are used it generally works, with artists like Mos Def, Lil Wayne and Chris Martin making their presence felt with their limited but precise contributions.


  One of the most-discussed aspects of Graduation has been the fact that in July, Kanye changed the album’s release date from September 18th to September 11th – the same day that fellow rapper 50 Cent’s Curtis was scheduled for release. This move – most likely a publicity stunt to create controversy around Graduation – meant that the two long-awaited titles would be competing head-to-head in sales, turning the two rappers’ mutual respect into a business rivalry that 50 Cent was sure he would win. Clearly out-of-sync with listener trends that have been steadily moving away from generic thug rap and towards more conscious and experimental rap, 50 vowed that if Kanye West’s album outsold his on September 11th, he would quit making solo records. However, somebody at Interscope Records must have reminded 50 that he was still contractually obliged to provide them with 2 more solo albums, because he later backtracked on his promise and said that even if Kanye outsold him he wouldn’t stop making solo records. But he still stood by his prediction that Curtis would win the day, telling MTV “I will be #1 on September 11”. 50 Cent’s prediction was, to say the least, foolishly optimistic; according to the Nielsen SoundScan Building Chart, first-day sales for Curtis were 310,000 units, as opposed to 437,000 for Graduation, which also achieved the largest sales week of the year with 957,000 units sold in the United States alone. In this high-profile sales race, Kanye West has left 50 Cent in his dust.

  While Graduation won’t be remembered as a landmark in hip-hop history, it is a solid, enjoyable album that came out at just the right time, when rap music seemed to be stagnating. The album can be purchased from Amazon.com here, and should serve to tide fans over until Kanye's next album, rumored to be named Universecity, is released.

About the author:

  Curtis is a writer specializing in politics, popular media and the entertainment industry. Based out of Vancouver, Canada, he graduated from Kwantlen University College with an Arts degree in 2006 and is now a contributing editor at TrendPimp magazine. His online portfolio can be found at CurtisSpring.com.