YE RETURNS...

Word on the title. It's funny how in Hip Hop circles Kanye is more often than not referred to as Ye. Whereas among the commercial fans and 'Rap' websites he's known as 'Yeezy'....Yeah, we didn't jump on that whole 'eezy' hype being added on to names. Snoop made it big, you just killed it.

Kanye's latest offering is set to drop sometime in October, but who really knows when it comes to this guy. I'm not really a fan of the obnoxious idiot. It bothers me that he thinks he's the only person that puts heart and passion in to his music. It bothers me more, that rather than just bragging about being great like most rappers do, you can honestly tell this man thinks he's only a hop-step and jump away from God himself.

However, all that being said, I am a fan of the man's music. The title of this post wasn't aimed at highlighting the fact that Kanye is back with a new album. Instead it was meant as reference to Chi-town's beat aficionado returning to his style of old. That being, heavily soul-sampled beats with straight forward lyrics, at times heartrendingly emotional, at others blatantly arrogant. A style that Ye has made his own. No Kanye's not the best lyracist in the game -there's even rumours of ghostwriters - nor on the whole does he make the best albums. Though his powerful beat selection is always ill and when accompanied by raw passion (in abundance), there's no denying the classic Hip Hop sound of his music.

Word is filtering through that this year he may be joined by RZA, Pete Rock, and DJ Premier on the producing side of things. If that's the case, someone tell this man to pass a note to Nas instructing the idiot to follow suit. Hopefully what that line-up also means, is that the electro/techno sounding beats he's been using over the past couple of albums are now dead. For me, that totally ruined his music and the music of others that blindly followed the trend (Usher), 808's was just horrible. Not Hip Hop at all. A statement you may reply to with, 'There's more to music than just Hip Hop you know!' Yes, you're right there is. But I look to Kanye for Hip Hop. If i wanted alternative or electro, I'd look elsewhere. Think Anthony Hamilton trying to rap when there's already millions doing it better.I know Ye was being creative and 'ground-breaking,' trying to push boundaries, but the bottom line is, the music was type turd.

It's a joke that Jay-Z made a song called 'Death Of Auto-Tune' co-produced by Kanye, the King of using auto-tune. Many people don't know this but the pair actually made an auto-tune song together until Kanye came up with the idea of doing an 'anti' auto-tune song. This was furthered by removing all auto-tune tracks from Blueprint 3. The fact that he even had them on there just shows you Jay-z's lack of integrity. And I like Jay some what, but he has lost all integrity as an artist. He's a business man, not a musician. If he thinks going against the grain (current trend) like that will gain attention and make him a quick buck, he'll do so. But then he'll go straight to using an auto-tune song on his next album, that's what he's like.

Despite being based on that ridiculous egyptian chain he rocks,
this is live.

Anyway, there's been much debate about the covers. Personally I think the two I've pictured here look real clean and fresh. They would transcend time, still looking dope in decades to come. But unfortunately there have been other images noted as possible selections. Though those look a little photoshop cartoony or straight up corny. I like the faded minimalist approach to colours on these ones here.

I hope Kanye's fans way back from College Dropout and Late Registration days, love this album. I hope it caters to them. Ultimately I hope fans of 808 and wack Hip Hop in general hate this album. Infact it would bring me great pleasure to know that they do. However with losers like Drake featuring (must be hard when you know Kanye's only featuring you to raise publicity. Ha! you know Drake's the type of guy Ye would have cursed out back in the day) along with Niki Manaj, it's sure to appeal to the lame crowd also. The track list I've seen looks a little disappointing. He's doing that thing I mentioned before that i hate, which is including a million featuring artists on you're own album. I bought you're album to hear you, not them. Take heed from Illmatic and only use one, at most two features. That being said, Mos Def, Common and Phonte look set to feature so, that may just counteract the onslaught of 'ewww' we'll hear from those previously mentioned.

Am i expecting any less hedonism, hubris, extravagance and overall egotism?.......Of course not it's Kanye.

Some videos just leaked of 'the making of power' and the album itself, go google.
EDIT: I discovered during the writing of this post that those two covers were made by 'Casso,' a kanyelive forum member. Good shit sir.

Peesh.