Kanye West lives up to the hype with “The Life of Pablo”
“The Life of Pablo” is Kanye West’s newest album and his latest album since 2013 when he released “Yeezus”. The 18 track album features Chance the Rapper, Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, Young Thug and Chris Brown. West hopes to win a Grammy with this album, saying “This is not album of the year. This is album of the life.”
The album begins with “Ultralight Beams”, and jumps right into the gospel sound that is played throughout the album, with stellar production from Metro Boomin. After listening to the song, you must ask yourself the question, “Does Young Metro trust you?” This track gets a 9/10 from us.
The next song on the album is “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1” and the “Pt. 2” which is one of the most powerful tracks on the album. These two tracks definitely do not disappoint. In Part 1, West reflects on his friendships in a sad tone, while Kid Cudi’s optimistic and loving tone opposes West’s – this juxtaposition is mixed perfectly, and we give it a rating of 8/10.
“Part 2” features Desiigner, another rapper, and it reflects a much more modern mood, with samples from Desiigner’s “Panda”. The most popular line from the song is, “If Young Metro don’t trust you”, and overall, it is a great song to get hyped up to. We give it a rating of 8.5/10.
The song up next is “Famous”, in which West collaborated with Rihanna and Swizz Beatz. The song is about all the people he made famous. The highlight of this song is the controversial line when he disses Taylor Swift. We give this song a rating of 7.5/10.
Next, there is “Low Lights” and “Highlights” which are good songs musically. The two songs flow very well together and are very cohesive. However, these tracks do not come close to the greatness that “All of the Lights” had, which featured Elton John and was on “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”. We give these a rating of 7/10 collectively.
Track 9, “I Love Kanye”, is a very short song. It is a track that reflects upon West’s transition from the days of Late Registration to The Life of Pablo in the present day, and he also jokingly reflects upon his ego. We give the track a rating of 8/10.
“No More Parties in L.A.” was released on SoundCloud. The song features Kendrick Lamar on a Madlib beat, though West was by far the better rapper on the track. West addresses his long hiatus from music, his fiery personality, his kids, and his wife in the song, which we give a rating of 9/10.
“30 Hours”, which was also released on SoundCloud, starts with a slow, melodic beat and then progresses into a more modern beat. West talks about his past, especially his ex girlfriends and being nervous about starting his career. West says, “My ex says she gave me the best years of her life I saw a recent picture of her, I guess she was right.” We give this song a rating of 9/10.
The album isn’t lyrically the best Kanye West album, but sonically it is a top notch album, from the production to the featured singers. It lived up to the hype. Every song on the album is worth listening to, and we give the album an overall score of 8.5/10.
Image courtesy of Kanye West
