Kanye West: A Hip-Hop Artist

Kanye West has been the topic of conversation through his seventeen year career as a hip-hop artist, but he is more than just a basic rapper. He is the movement of today's pop culture as he is also, "a producer, songwriter, and a high end fashion designer" (Biography.com Editors). Kanye is not only the best hip-hop artist ever, but he is the best solo musician of all time. For instance, "in the span of three short years, Kanye West went from hip-hop beat maker to worldwide hit maker, as his stellar production work for Jay-Z led to a major-label recording contract and, ultimately, a wildly successful solo career" (Birchmeier). Kanye is having the best career in the music industry and there's evidence to prove that he is the best musician of
all time. Kanye West has won twenty-one Grammy awards, which makes him the eighth most successful artist in Grammy award history. Rolling Stone even gave Kanye West's first album "The College Dropout" album of the year in 2004. To this day, Kanye has sold more than twenty-one million albums through CD sales, and he also has over one hundred million digital download sales. Kanye's albums have all officially went platinum. On top of his album success, he also had over thirty eight songs on the top one hundred Billboard charts. Kanye's songs, such as "Gold Digger" and "Stronger" reached the number one hit song as it was played across radio stations for weeks. "Gold Digger" was number one on the record charts for ten weeks straight, while "Stronger" stayed ahead of the competition for the number one spot for three weeks in a row. "Gold Digger" was Kanye's best hit to release because, "West has the talent of bringing out the best of those he collaborates with. Perhaps it's a case of real (talent) recognizes real (talent). For 'Gold Digger,' West called upon Jamie Foxx for what is the rapper's biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit to date" ( Ramirez 2). On top of all the awards and records, Kanye has also played a huge influence in the hip-hop scene in many different ways. Kanye's biggest influence on hip-hop was the way he brought artists together because, "prior to [his] arrival, Hip Hop was very much a battle between the haves and the have nots (better known as the underground vs.
the mainstream), without paths commonly crossing" (Fairfax) but, underground vs. mainstream died down as Kanye was one of the first artists to find diversity in working with artists from both sides. Kanye alone has completely modernized hip-hop into mainstream music. He's simply not just developing the genre of hip-hop anymore, but he's developing mainstream music for the urban culture to conform to. The reason why majority of his songs went mainstream is due to his experimentation with sounds and samples from rock, electro house music, and even old soul songs. Even with all the success and fame, tragedy can still knock some of the greatest
down. In 2008, Kanye released an album many were not prepared for.
Kanye released one of his most influential albums titled "808S and Heartbreak." It is featured on Rolling Stones top 40 most groundbreaking albums of all time. Kanye West's, "Auto-Tune-heavy, emotionally naked fourth album came after a brutal year during which his mother died and his engagement broke up, but the album's cavernous sound and exposed-soul lyrics confused even those who had been aware of West's recent trials" (RollingStone Editors). Instead of loud beats and lyrics about money and women, Kanye rapped about his poignant feelings and was masked by the Auto-Tune digital production that no other artist has ever done before. In addition to this new style of hip-hop, Kanye would introduce a staple machine that has now been in hip-hop for years. The Roland TR-808 drum machine made its revival because of Kanye West. The 808 machine that was released in the 80's was laughed at because it barely produced what a professional drummer could do but Kanye found that, "it made an elemental shudder when you turned it up loud, sending vibrations up and down packed city blocks. It provided a rough sound that was perfect for an enclosed space with lots of loose rattling parts, like a car" (Greene). All of the songs on "808S and Heartbreak" featured the basic drums of the 808 machine and soon all of hip-hop was using it. In simple terms, "the 808 [rewrote] the rules of hip-hop from the ground up. It is rap's bedrock boom,
and West savvily turned his back on rap completely" (Greene). The album became a new template for great hip-hop artists such as Drake and Future. Simply it has become known that the, "808s template has seeped into the street-rap groundwater-a realm that West's music has always had an arms-length relationship to" (Greene). Kanye West (or Yeezus) has proven to be one of the biggest names across the world in music. Kanye has had a very successful career and his influence through music is widely seen as he is the best solo musician of all time. He has inspired a generation through music and culture. Kanye even established a new template of using 808s during hip-hop songs to bring a new drum sound to songs. Yeezus is the greatest of all time and it would be hard not to put him as the best musician of all time.