#iTunesSounds: Kanye West – “The Life of Pablo” – March 17, 2016

Kanye West spent 2015 designing shoes, fashion and trying to rule the world with an iron (albeit at times all over the board) fist via social media. In the process, he set the stage for what is now known as “The Life of Pablo.” Outside of Drake’s “Views From the 6” project slated to drop later this spring, West’s album is arguably the most anticipated of the entire year and it’s only March. Kayne even did Kanye like things throwing us a slight curveball by only releasing the music on Tidal as opposed to Apple Music.

Now that we’ve had multiple weeks to digest the music, Taylor and I will each provide perspective on the final output:

By: Taylor Johnson @KTaylorPSB and Brandon Clay @psbpopculture

Taylor’s Take:

I have always loved Kanye, just not as much as Kanye loves Kanye. I have been a huge fan, with the exception of Yeezus, but did anyone really like that album? He made up for whatever Yeezus was with The Life of Pablo album for sure. One of my favorite things about him is how much he makes fun of himself and he doesn’t hold back on himself in The Life of Pablo. Multiple references are made to how crazy he is off of his medication (which makes me wonder if he hasn’t been taking it during his random Amanda Bynes style Twitter rants). Another reason I love Kanye, Kim Kardashian. Anytime Kanye raps about Kim I absolutely love it, therefore “FACTS” is one of my favorites because I contributed to Kimoji shutting down the app store with my Kimoji purchase. Also, Kim has been snapchatting Kanye driving around listening to The Life of Pablo and dancing to his own music in true Kanye fashion and it is HILARIOUS. If you haven’t seen the videos I highly recommend looking them up. Lastly, coming from a person who doesn’t listen to too much rap I loved Famous with Rihanna and FML with the Weeknd because they are definitely more my style of music and of course still Kanye making fun of himself.

Brandon’s Take:

This music – content and production – falls right in line with his classic works to date. More importantly, it’s back on track from where he left us with My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy back in 2010.

Ultralight Beam: I was pleasantly surprised with this one. Chance the Rapper killed it. “My daughter look just Sia, you can’t see her.”

Father Stretch My Hands, Part 1: Kanye starts this one the right way thanks in large part to Metro Boomin’s “If Young Metro Don’t Trust Ya…” line…

WATCH THIS PLAY OVER AN EPISODE OF “THE OFFICE”

Part 2: Kanye introduces us to his newest GOOD Music artist, Desiigner, on this one. I mentioned in a this article (click to read) that he sounds like Future. That’s a whole different story. This one goes in. It might be favorite track solely due to my energy level going up two notches when it comes on.

Famous: Taylor Swift owes her fame to Kayne’s epic rant at the VMA’s in 2009. At least, that’s what Mr. West says. Toss Swizz Beats and Rihanna assists for providing us with one of the album’s most

WATCH KANYE’S INFAMOUS RANT:

Highlights: Blac China with Rob (Kardashian) helped him with the weight. I wish my trainer would tell me what I overate. Done.

I Love Kanye: Vintage ‘Ye. I love the old Kanye, make the beats Kanye. Hilarious stuff.

Waves: West definitely came ready with the production on this one. He brought Chris Brown with him on the hook. The beat didn’t need much from Kanye lyrically so Chris did the heavy lifting.

FML: Speaking of go-to industry singers, The Weeknd jumped on this with Kanye. West delivers a poignant lyric “I will die for those I love. God, I’m willing to make this my mission: give up the woman, before I lose half of what I own.”

Real Friends: The stanza about the cousin stealing the laptop is pure gold. Well done ‘Ye.

30 Hours: With Andre 3000 on the hook, a Nelly reference and talk of rapping for Jay-Z with Cam’Ron when Roc-A-Fella was the place to be, Kanye made it feel like 2002 again real quick. Toss in a MEAN Matt Barnes / Derek Fisher reference about Fisher reportedly driving 95 miles to beat Fisher up last fall and it all comes together nicely.

No More Parties in L.A.: This was another song that dropped before the album. Kendrick Lamar teamed up with Yeezy to deliver a clean cut…

Donte’ Grant & I dropped: a crisp review on it in January

FACTS: Yeezy, Yeezy, Yeezy just jumped over Jumpman. This was a first of the year article (click to read) That’s the perfect way to end this album.

Taylor-Staff-PicTaylor Johnson serves as Brandon Clay’s personal stylist and is one of the most fashionable people in Atlanta. She’s also the resident expert on Hulu and Netflix. While attending graduate school at Georgia State, she’ll contribute to various categories throughout the PSBPopCulture.com site. You can follow her on Twitter @KTaylorPSB.

Brandon Clay serves as the publisher of PSBPopCulture.com. A self-professed entertainment, music and sports junkie, Clay has been on his game since picking up his first Nintendo and Sony Walkman in the early 90’s. Adding in a SLAM (Basketball) Magazine subscription in the late-90’s had him setup up for lifelong success. Clay is also a founding member of the “Luxury Boys Club” designed to stay on top of whatever is next in the world of PopCulture. You can follow him on Twitter @psbpopculture.



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Posted March 17, 2016 by admin in category "#iTunesSounds

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