I had the pleasure of listening to Kanye’s new album at a special album listening session at the O2 Dome Arena in London. Those that were there had a chance to listen to the whole album in its entirety.
Kanye explains why he named the album 808 & Heartbreak, also reveales why he uses the vocoder and tells us why ‘porn stars are the real day heroes’ lol
One thing alot of bloggers will want to hear is what Kanye had to say about them. He started off the night addressing the negative bloggers.
Throughout the night you could see his passion, he was very animated at parts and just minutes before he had to hit the stage, he was taking questions from the audience, including the first real question from yours truly.
Kanye was respectful. You can see he wants to grow as an artist and as a person. He wants to settle down. If you were there today, you can see his passion for his work, alot of people have mistaken that for arrogance, but its not, its pure passion and its refreshing to see.
The album itself is interesting. its very dark. There are parts where its like a movie, parts where you can sense his pain. There’s not alot of rapping, there;s alot of singing. The vocoder is used heavily, its used almost in every song aside from the final track, which is a dope freestyle.
Young Jeezy and Lil Wayne are the only guest features. The Jeezy track was leaked today (Jeezy brings it), Kanye said today that he works with Jeezy because they have great chemistry, which he called ’pop and hood mixed in together’.
Tommorow I will have a track by track review with my opinions. Shouts to Semtex who held it down on the decks.
If you look at this album as a piece of music rather than a Rap album then you’ll appreciate it. The instrumentation, how it sounds sonically. One thing that is obviously constanst is the drum. But how Kanye uses that instrument is what’s interesting.
Its a great piece of musical work.
Kanye is trying to push ‘the envolope’ as he put it, with this album. He certaintly did that.
I have loads of notes, I made almost 4 pages worth. So be sure to tune in.
Oh another note, Kanye also spoke on Blueprint 3. He said he worked with Jay on the whole album. He also revealed that a track called ‘Haters’ which was supposed to be on ’808 & Heartbreak’ will now be on Blueprint 3. At one point, Kanye called Jay-Z album’s ‘drug-dealer rap’ making the point that his music is different to others.
