By Spence Blazak
When Kanye West is name
dropped, many things come to mind aside from the Louis Vuitton Don's stellar
music catalogue. Through a decade of scummy hijinx and a Biblical sized level
of superficiality, Yeezy has successfully ostracized himself from an enormous
amount of music listeners worldwide. The casual fan might have seen his
"Imma let you all finish" stunt with Mrs. Spence at the VMAs, heard
"N**** in Paris," then moved on with their music exploration, but
this is an artist so special that he is well worth a second chance. Dive deeper
into his songbook with these five cuts and you're opinion might make a
180.
-Technically it was a hit,
but Kanye’s first single didn’t achieve the legendary status of “Gold Digger.”
When Kanye was still just a producer, he got in a horrifying car accident that
almost killed him. When he woke up, his jaw had to be completely reconstructed,
but aside from that he was surprisingly unscathed. He rapped this track with
his jaw still wired shut, which changed his flow and voice completely. One of
his most memorable lines is “I drink a Boost for breakfast and Ensure for
dessert/ Somebody ordered pancakes/ I just sip the sizzurp.”
-No matter how many
ridiculously judgmental tweets Kanye makes, he will always have this beautiful
ode to his mama. In the first verse, Kanye reflects on his mom working hard to
support him as a child, and the world turning its back on her. Her boyfriend
has cheated on her and flown the coop, leaving her in tears. Little Kanye
starts to cry as well, then sings: “As we knelt on the kitchen floor, I said
mommy I’m a love you til you don’t hurt no more/ And when I’m older you ain’t
gotta work no more.” The song can melt the iciest of hearts. No matter how many
times the man tweets pictures of hookers that look like a Kardashian, he’ll
always have this as a saving grace.
-Yeezy’s prototypical
“carpe diem”/ “shit, I’m getting older” cut is one of his more mellow songs.
Compared to hard-hitting tracks like “Breath in, Breath Out,” this one is snowflake-like
in delivery. The song shows a Kanye unstuck in time: reflecting on his past, analyzing
his present, and wishing that he had a better memory or that he could just
capture moments in life a little better. Amidst this struggle, he tries to gain
better appreciation for things as they happen. A nice spin on an age old
realization of life. A far cry from “Drunk and Hot Girls.”
-Backed up by Bon Iver,
Kanye created this anthem to end his earth-shattering album “My Beautiful Dark
Twisted Fantasy.” Madness, existentialism, and catchy chaos all make up Kanye’s
most epic track. Yeezy ponders heaven, death, life, and everything in between
in the cut, which alone can be enough to sway your opinion of him.
-Featuring John Mayer,
this is one of Kanye’s catchiest tracks to date. It is also one of his
best-kept secrets, having only been released on the Japan edition of
“Graduation.” Kanye finds himself in a conflicted relationship where he “loves
you, hates you at the very same time.” The song’s setting shows him flip
flopping back and forth in his feelings, set to an old school Nintendo-esque
sample. “I been thinking and it got me back to sinking/ and this relationship
it even got me back to drinking/ all this Hennessy/ Its gonna be the death of
me.” Pure gold.
