You wanna know who Kanye West Is?
I picked up a slew of CD's yesterday, one of them being the College Dropout by Kanye West. If you haven't heard it you should pick this one up. I've heard a bunch of the tracks before, but the cd is way beyond. This is cutting edge in terms of lyrical content from a rap cd.

Rappers are usually at their best when they have a specific story or message they want to convey to the listener. General 'free association' raps are the worst, as rappers use degrading references that are a perfect fill for lines needing one or two more syllable fills. "Murder was the Case" by Snoop, "**** tha Police" by NWA, "Can I get A.." by Jay-Z, "Shorty's Gonna.." by 2Pac, "Stan" by Eminem are the prime examples of this phenomenon. All of these songs are driven by a need to convey a specific message. There is a focus between all of these songs, that is lacking 90% of the time in rap.

Take this example from Kanye, from "All Falls Down":

It seems we living the american dream
But the people highest up got the lowest self esteem
The prettiest people do the ugliest things
For the road to riches and diamond rings
We shine because they hate us, floss cause they degrade us

Right there Kanye rips down the imagery of rap videos: the lack of self confidence represented by 'bling'. Pinky rings, chains, gold teeth and diamond earings are a symptom of something deeply flawed.

Kanye's self examination of himself and the object of his affection in "All Falls Down" is similar to U2's "Who's gonnna ride your wild horses": Flaws of the narrator and his ex are examined and resolved, not patched over with cars rolling on dubs. While ODB has had 13 kids by something like eight different mothers, he will never talk about a relationship, or the complexities of his life that expand beyond a two syllable synonym word for 'cat'.

Kanye is a lucky man. He was brought up by Jay-Z, who recognized that his own existence as a rapper would be limited, for the most part, by the cliches of rap. He realized with Kanye, that he could bring someone to the game with an outlook and a message and not someone defined by party hooks and addiction problems. For now, Kanye can enjoy the trappings of his success and hopefully stay hungry and keep his feet on the ground. Alternatively, when Snoop lost his hunger, he went from talking about a fear of dying while in prison in an amazing retelling of the sale of his soul to the devil to come back to life, to talking about how much the mink on his back costs.

That was our loss. Kanye is our gain.