Kanye West has certainly become an enigma within hip hop. His soulful and eclectic production, knack of artistic expression and overblown yet misunderstood ego have created the monster known as Mr. West. After blowing people away with 2 totally different albums (the soul chop of College Dropout & the glossy polish of Late Registration), what is Kanye West to do now? He’s set the bar so high for himself that one has to wonder if he can exceed expectations yet again. Is he able to surprise listeners again with the third in his school themed trilogy titled Graduation?

In hindsight, College Dropout has become the classic album while Late Registration was the excellent although slightly flawed follow up that crushed the sophomore jinx. With Kanye so enamored with himself these days, nobody should be surprised if he took the fabled Big Daddy Kane line (“If I fart on a record, trust me nigga it’ll sound good”) literally. So the challenge for Kanye is to continue to progress himself while remaining familiar to his audience – who already think he has a few screws loose. But this is Kanye West we are talking about here. Who are we to think that he would follow anyone’s rules?

Graduation was built around a concept that Kanye wanted an album to sound good while he performed in front of tens of thousands in huge arenas with ear popping sound systems. Production wise, Kanye accomplishes this for the most part. Big sounding production sprinkled with synthesizers is prevalent throughout the album and accomplishes exactly what Kanye set out to do. Evidence of this can be heard on the throbbing bass of lead single Can’t Tell Me Nothing.

The illuminating Flashing Lights is definitely the one that stands out the most on the album and envelopes this concept thoroughly. With Dwele sashaying through the dense bass and triumphant synths, Kanye drops jewels about the meddling cameras that seem to follow Kanye’s ego everywhere he goes these days. The clever Daft Punk flip on Stronger may be an acquired taste to some who don’t seem to “get” what is so wonderful about the song. Elsewhere, what sounded like it may be an ill fated combo, turns into what may be the feel good song on the album. The “PYT” sample and the voice box of T-Pain sounds cheesy in theory, but when applied to create Good Life all doubts are washed away.

Lyrically, Kanye continues to step his game up. He sprinkles his wit and cleverness over Graduation with slick one liners like “People talk so much shit about me at barbershops they forget to get their haircut” or “The fly Malcolm X, buy any jeans necessary” while still delivering self conscious rhymes that break the mold of bling & things rap heard on the radio today. But it just wouldn’t be a Kanye West album if you didn’t have to endure his cheesiness. On Good Life when Kanye rips the groan worthy “Have you ever popped champagne on a plane/while getting some brain/whipped it out, she said ‘I never saw snakes on a plane’” the line is so inexplicably corny that it is laughable. But if you’ve been a 'Ye fan for years then you know what to expect. Continued on page 2 »