Graduation was an underappreciated album, by my own standards.
I remember writing a pretty nonplussed review about the album upon its release, particularly deriding “Drunk & Hot Girls” (which is still a pretty disappointing song) but as I’ve been digging back through the past 7 years of Yeezy and his development as a producer, a songwriter and as a person, I’m starting to appreciate the record as a piece of the long arc that has included all of his releases including the newest, Watch The Throne. In retrospect, it fits well in the narrative.
Post-Katrina Benefit but Pre-Taylor Swift, Late-2007 Kanye was already a well-established part of the American cultural spectrum as some loud-mouthed, brash, yet somehow brilliant artist. The College Dropout was the long-awaited debut that brought him critical acclaim, followed up by the equally lauded Late Registration. What could we expect from Kanye at this point?
Graduation is easily Kanye’s brattiest album (808s haters will invariably disagree) and his own coming-out party to himself, even Murakami’s cover artwork gives a childish “told you I’d make it, nyah nyah” theme to the album. “The Glory” (featured), “Can’t Tell Me Nothing”, the list goes on. This album was heavy on the self-affirmation. Yeezy made it and now what are you gonna say to him? He wanted everything to be big, to show off, to give the world his own brand of don’t-give-a-fuck swagger. But it was no longer “We Don’t Care”, it was “I don’t care”. Kanye made his first attempt to stand alone as an individual as he looked into his own crazy life, hanging out with a newer, more diverse group of artists and musicians.
But how close to Kanye’s real feelings—as an artist and as a person—were these songs? Yes, there is grandiosity in this record, but compared to what we see in MBDTF it seems insincere. I’ve wondered a lot about how much sincerity goes into Kanye’s songs, how much of it his own creation and how much stems from what he feels as a person. The music seems almost too slick, too secure: Look at me! Look at me! But don’t really look at me! In the glitz and shine of it all there was a level of abstraction between himself and his music. Something wasn’t quite right.
Here’s where I’ll make my biggest assumption: either intentionally or unintentionally, the death of his mother Donda West destroyed that barrier, or changed it irreparably. The one source of permanent support and love—unconditional love—was gone, and with it so was the security of the persona he’d created up until Graduation. Almost immediately after the record’s release (in a matter of two months) Kanye West was truly alone in terms of his closest, direct family. What was there left to prove? And to whom? Did it matter?
It’s interesting to compare the two records (Graduation and MBDTF). Both are examples of Kanye’s larger than life, self-aggrandizing style, but the latter is a trip through a real, personal hell. I feel this is where we see some of the rawness, the pain and confusion of dealing with the loss of someone or something that was far greater than anything else in your life, moreso than in 808s. Maybe what we see in Graduation is less insincerity and more a self-assured naiveté. I wonder if Yeezy looks at Graduation now and sees something other than himself.
Maybe I spent entirely too long talking and thinking about Kanye West.
here, ¡DolphinShark!’s most mysterious correspondent, I?S offers his thoughts on Kanye West’s album Graduation.
