Independent Research - Kanye West entry

            The road to success isn’t always a straight path. There are detours, roadblocks, and countless people that you meet along the way. Sometimes you have to take a longer path that seemingly veers way off course in order to reach your desired destination. Some of the people you meet are friends and some turn out to be foes. Some people never make it to their destination and some do. Sometimes people stop on the way because they’ve reached a much better place at only half the distance. The legendary musician Kanye West knows about this journey all too well. From being a mediocre beat-maker who people never gave a chance, to a platinum-selling hip-hop artist whose productions are desired by the best musicians on the charts.

            Kanye West grew up in Chicago and became an aspiring rapper at a very young age. People told him he wasn’t good at rapping and wouldn’t give him instrumental hip-hop music to rap to. Facing this problem, he decided he would begin making his own productions. He did everything himself. From the instrumentation to the lyrics, Kanye became a one-man band. He quickly ran into a new problem with this plan: he needed money to support his desired career. He decided he would start selling the hip-hop instrumentals that he was creating in an effort to gain some extra funds. He believed he was good enough to create instrumental productions that people would buy because, in his mind, “You can accidentally make a good beat; you can’t accidentally write a good rap.” This became a lucrative business for Kanye West. After years of producing for local acts, major artist began to notice his unique productions. He began producing for chart-topping hip-hop acts such as Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Jay-Z, Beanie Sigel, Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and Janet Jackson. Although this would be terrific news for most people, Kanye West was not satisfied because it was not benefiting his rap career, which was his true passion. He was only reluctantly given a chance after he consistently bothered one of the labels that was a frequent client for an opportunity. They decided to give him one chance because they had nothing to lose and it’d help them maintain a healthy relationship with one of their favorite producers.

            Kanye West quickly became an innovator in many ways. First, his productions were soulful and unique. They constantly sampled old songs and reinterpreted them in a creative new way. One of the most popular examples is his hit song “Through the Wire”, which sampled Chaka Khan’s “Through the Fire”. He made the song about his mouth being wired shut after a horrific car accident. He influenced the majority of hip-hop musicians to go in a more soulful direction with their productions. Kanye West constantly samples music that other people would be reluctant to even listen to. A great example of this is his song “Dark Fantasy” which contains a sample from Mike Oldfield “In High Places”, which I have a hard time even pin-pointing the genre of. Kanye West is constantly referred to as a musical genius. Further along the Kanye West spectrum, lies Kanye’s innovation upon lyrics in rap. Kanye West approached rap in a way that wasn’t popular among virtually every major artist on the billboard charts. He spoke of conscious topics such as struggling to make it through college without a career plan, people of his culture selling an enormous amount of drugs because of their struggle between morality and poverty, and wondering why life even has a struggle between morality and poverty because they are two things that are seemingly worlds away. His raps about struggles that anyone can relate to helped elevate his career to an extremely high level. Other artists rapidly began to follow suit in a great attempt to make their raps more real and relatable to a broader audience.

            As a listener, I enjoy listening to Kanye West more than the majority of other popular artists in today’s music. He is a relieving breath of fresh air that I can relate to and enjoy his clever ideas and lyrics. As a professional, I believe Kanye West is an amazing musician. People should strive to have the passion, drive, and creativity that Kanye West does. He is a true innovator of this day and age. If everybody were as passionate about his or her work as Kanye West is about his, the world would be a better place.