It’s a damn shame that the controversy surrounding West’s loutish boast overshadows what is indisputably one of the best tracks in ‘Ye’s 2010s catalogue. Then there’s ‘Famous’, the track where Kanye brought back his boorish side and reignited a rivalry with America’s sweetheart Taylor Swift by falsely proclaiming that “he made that bitch famous”. The concept of holiness continues when transitioning to both parts of ‘Father Stretch My Hands’, including hi-hats, mumbled ad-libs and sped-up gospel samples to craft Yeezy’s version of ‘church trap’ assisted by Metro Boomin, a rejuvenated Kid Cudi and a forgettable Future clone in Desiigner. Majestically transcendent with its choral harmonies, ‘Ultralight Beam’ rivals ‘Dark Fantasy’ as the best Kanye opener of all time, with West reaffirming his faith to God and featuring a Chance the Rapper verse that the latter hasn’t bettered yet. Pre-release, ‘Ye promised that ‘The Life of Pablo’ would showcase a gospel theme, which is prominent from the get-go. “The album’s volatility is emblematic of the annus horribilis the world would later experience”ĭespite ‘…Pablo’’s haphazard composition, Kanye succeeded in crafting what he vowed would be a “living, breathing, changing creative expression”, managing to bridge the throwback chop-up-the-soul Kanye with the more modern madness of 2013’s ‘Yeezus’ to create a captivating project that came to define an era.
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And which ‘Pablo’ was he referring to in the album’s title anyway? Picasso? Escobar? In the three years it took to arrive, the album went through four name changes and three post-release edits (where he relentlessly tinkered with tracklist on Tidal).
The build-up to ‘The Life of Pablo’’s launch, ending with Kanye grabbing the aux and premiering the record from his laptop in Madison Square Garden, New York, during one of his fashion shows, was just as erratic as the album itself. It’s also widely seen as the last great full-length project he has released to date. Its volatility is emblematic of the annus horribilis he – and the world in general, given Trump and Brexit – would later experience. Released on Valentine’s Day that year, Yeezy’s seventh solo album is a sloppy, kaleidoscopic mess that cobbles together its 20 tracks with all the nuance of a planet-invading Rick Sanchez on speed. In retrospect, Kanye’s turbulent 2016 was a case of life imitating art and, in a twisted way, complemented the chaotically fantastic clusterfuck that was ‘The Life of Pablo’. But let’s take it back to 2016, which ended with West experiencing a breakdown onstage in Sacramento, California and was subsequently being hospitalised, barely a month after his wife was robbed at gunpoint in Paris. And we shouldn’t be too surprised that he cosied up to Donald Trump – they’re both stubborn narcissists who thrive in being obnoxious provocateurs. There’s also his idiotic 2018 claim that “slavery was a choice”.
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Many of us cringe whenever the topic of KANYE 2020 is brought up. Fast-forward to today, where at least one in every three people I speak to do a double-take when I express my admiration for ‘Ye’s talents. I grew up with Yeezy as a musical fixture since cramming the entirety of ‘The College Dropout’ into my 128MB MP3 player 17 years ago. Over the past decade, we’ve seen high-profile tantrums, the endorsing of some pretty dodgy ideals and his marriage to Kim Kardashian (alongside his infrequent cameos on Keeping Up With the Kardashians), all of which have catapulted his fame to precarious heights – enough to warrant more column inches in gossip outlets and larger font types in tabloid headlines. For many, Kanye West’s climb up the rocky mountains of celebrity has long eclipsed his artistic legacy.