More: Is Kanye West still a creative genius? Not on 'Ye'Īnd yet as we also know now, West can and will never release an album such as “808s” again. And as his contemporaries started to imitate him – most immediately with Drake, whose debut mix tape “So Far Gone” dropped several months post-”808s,” with the then-upstart rapper citing West as the release’s biggest influence – West had moved on, taking the experimental impulses of “808s” and pumping them full of hip-hop star power on the album that many see as his magnum opus, 2010’s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.” “808s” may not have sounded like rap music in 2008, but it absolutely sounds like the kind of genreless, rap-sung, in-my-feelings hip-hop you can hear anywhere in 2018. Why, listeners asked, was one of hip-hop’s most engaging rappers choosing instead to warp his voice into a robotic monotone and abandon the kind of songs that made him famous to make a synthpop album?Īs we know now, West was just hearing the future. ![]() West recorded “808s” coming off a series of personal tragedies, including the death of his mother and his split with his fiancee Alexis Phifer, and his melancholy is pervasive throughout the album. Gone were his trademark soul samples and the flashy crowd-pleasing hits, replaced by spare production and AutoTuned vocals. ![]() It didn’t seem that way in 2008, when West released a 12-song album that shared few characteristics with his previous three critically and commercially beloved releases, 2004’s “The College Dropout," 2005’s “Late Registration” and 2007’s “Graduation.” ![]() While it’s certainly a stretch to credit every time we hear a rapper sing a verse to Kanye West – a claim that the rapper and his massive ego would nevertheless appreciate – it’s undeniable that “808s” was a groundbreaking release. And a look at the rappers on top of this week’s Hot 100 reveals just how broad the album’s influence can be extended – would Travis Scott and Juice WRLD be making the same kind of music if it wasn’t for "808s"? It’s a lineage that stretches from Drake and the Weeknd to the Soundcloud rap phenomenon of the past few years.
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