I finally had the chance to listen to Kanye’s new album The Life of Pablo. Other than the fact that I didn’t stream through Tidal and I was very hesitant about giving another Kanye album a chance. I have been a little unsure about Kanye and his music since My Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy. I was a HUGE fan of him and his music during The College Dropout, Late Registration, Graduation, and 808’s and Heartbreak.
Apparently, Kanye said that this album was going to be a Gospel album. He wasn’t lying, especially with the record’s opening track “Ultralight Beam” featuring Chance the Rapper and The Dream. The song starts with audio of the little girl who went viral having her own little sermon after church with her mom. This track sounds a lot like a classic Kanye from his College Dropout days.
It’s great to hear Kanye sounding like his old self. He also has some amazing features on this album, almost too many to name but I will try…
Track 1 “Ultralight Beam” – Kanye, a Church choir, and The Dream giving you major feels before Kelly Price comes in and just breaks you down even more. Then Chance the Rapper comes out and kills it. And in the last 30 seconds we get a little sermon from Kirk Franklin. Yes, we all just got taken to church real quick.
Track 2 “Father Stretch my Hands, Pt. 1” that features Kid Cudi.It really is good to hear Cudi doing his thing, sounding like some of his older songs. And I want to piggy back on something my bf & his cousin said… They said that this track is probably one of the most hardest hitting tracks (beat-wise) in a long time by Yeezy but he didn’t BODY it like you would hope. I agree 100% especially with the whole “… I’m with a model and she just bleached her @ssh***, and I get bleach on my t-shirt, I’ma feel like an @ssh***…”… I know he’s supposed to make you talk about his content but still…
Track 3 “Pt. 2” features Desiigner, newly signed to G.O.O.D. Music, who has been called “Brooklyn’s answer to Future”… On this track, Kanye uses his original song “Panda”… I was surprised to hear this and at first, I could not stand that song but after a while, it’s catchy as hell so, thumbs up for that one dude! And the slow down at the end is crazy.
Track 4 “Famous” features my favorite female artist at the moment, Rihanna aka RiRi on a classic Swizz Beatz beat and ad-libs. The song does go hard though. I still don’t like the whole Taylor Swift diss verse but it doesn’t exactly take away from the song either.
Track 7 “Highlights” features catchy vocals from The Dream and Young Thug. Of course he has another controversial line in this one that includes Ray J… I feel more for Kim than anything. But, it’s Kanye being Kanye, right?
Track 8 “Freestyle 4” features Desiigner again with a quick verse seeing as the track is only 2 minutes.
Track 10 “Waves” features fellow attention-getter Chris Brown. Chris’ vocals have a touch of soft gospel to it. His voice usually fits perfect with everything anyway, but the angelic beats in the background compliment both Chris and Kanye for this one.
Track 11 “FML” features The Weeknd who gives us life on this slower, haunting track by Kanye. But this is right up The Weeknd’s alley. Aren’t songs like this the reason why we love The Weeknd?!
Track 12 “Real Friends” does a little story-telling assisted by the amazing, raspy rhymes and vocals from Ty Dolla Sign. Kanye feeling some type of way on this one (as usual) but that’s music. It’s supposed to tell a story to convey real feelings. He definitely achieved that on this song.
Track 13 “Wolves” features Frank Ocean… Do I even need to say anything else? Except.. Where’s the new music Frank?! You’re killing us! I will say though, the vocals done by Caroline Shaw are beautiful. She kind of makes the song for me.
Track 16 “30 Hours” brings in the super creative, legendary Andre 3000 who doesn’t even rap on this one. He does sing though, giving us some strong and effortless vocals. I wish I could’ve been a fly on the wall during that studio session.
Track 17 “No More Parties in LA” features Kendrick Lamar who kind of pulls out his inner Kanye. Of course he killed it. He should’ve just gave Kendrick the whole song, honestly. What’s new?!
Final Track 19 “Fade” brings Ty Dolla Sign back which is a straight party/ club/ Rave joint. It’s not my favorite track off of this album but it kind of rounds out the rest of the tracks. It gives this record more variety and I am not mad at it at all. And of course it turns into more than a typical party track when you have Kanye and Ty together on it.
And a quick Congrats to Yeezy on debuting at #1 on the Billboard 200 Chart. This is his 7th #1 on this chart. The majority of The Life of Pablo‘s units came from Streaming.
Thank you Kanye for giving us another classic, since the College Dropout releases 🙂
Also, check out these 2 Amazing articles from Complex Magazine about the features and people behind Kanye’s The Life of Pablo:
< http://www.complex.com/music/2016/02/kanye-west-whos-who-the-life-of-pablo >
< http://www.complex.com/music/2016/02/kanye-west-the-life-of-pablo-guest-features-ranked/ >
