RETROSPECTIVE: Kanye West - MY BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED FANTASY
November 2020 marks ten years since the release of Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The project, highly regarded as one of the most seminal albums of the 2010s, represents the ultimate realisation of West’s strongest talents and divisive public persona and, at the time, elevated him to new heights of prestige and critical acclaim, whilst redeeming his recent negative public perception. As a response to his downfall, West once referred to the album as his “long, backhanded apology”, subsequently creating an epic that demonstrated his genius and resilience, more so than he had ever before.
West’s music and persona have always been marked by a flawed candour. With the release of Dark Fantasy, however, we see West grapple with both his pride and his anguish, resulting in a conflict between self-aggrandisement and self-effacement. The album serves as an outlet for his most over-the-top boasts, yet simultaneously a reckoning and awareness of his flaws. West can pull off such an ambitious project to near-perfect results, equally embracing, confronting, and, in turn, justifying his reputation and egoistical nature.
Displaying his pioneering strengths, the album sees West push the boundaries of contemporary music production, celebrate the power of collaboration, and ultimately redefine the modern rap soundscape. Track one begins on a fittingly fantastical note, greeting the listener with a fairy-tale-style spoken word introduction and vocal choruses in almost divine jubilation before plunging us into the harsh realities of fame, and the trappings of human desire and ambition. Here, West explores a range of sounds such as majestic choirs, boom-bap throwbacks, anthemic pop, hazy soulful hooks, grand piano, and even a prog-rock injection in the form of a King Crimson sample. All this is explored through maximalist arrangements that are synonymous with West and are rife with samples, orchestration, guitars, synthesisers and grand pianos – a contemporary take on a Greek chorus that allows him to project himself and his struggles with the grandeur of a trailblazing musical epic. It’s thanks to the epic scale of these arrangements that the album's impact has long endured and that Power remains to be one of the most synced tracks in modern advertising, even a decade later!
Dark Fantasy is not all style over substance, it must be noted. The album arguably carries the finest and most personal lyrics of West’s career, rife with introspection yet balanced by an appropriate amount of wit and bravado. Tracks like Gorgeous, Power, Dark Fantasy, and Hell of Life blur the line between fantasy and reality, ecstasy and agony, sex and romance, and arrogance and awareness. Although on the surface the album acts as a hedonistic exploration into the subconscious of the rich and famous, beneath the boorish and boastful exterior, it once again concerns itself with the self-doubt that is so often touched on in much of his prior work. West puts his most raw and ugliest behaviour on display providing a visceral look at his unflattering actions, with a self-lacerating lyricism that delves deep into his deranged mania and bouts of hedonism and misogyny. This trademark openness of emotion is yet another factor that has always set West apart from so many of his peers. In a genre that was often concerned with keeping inner feelings sheltered, West stays true to his honesty, exposing his emotions for all to see.
Many might credit Dark Fantasy with catalysing the shift towards the self-obsessive qualities that have come to define the Kanye West we know today; a man preoccupied with his grievances above all else, inadvertently overshadowing his music, legacy, and artistic vision with mental breakdowns, ignorant statements, problematic political associations and an overstated religious re-awakening. However, all these excessive, ego-centric tendencies that would later tarnish his reputation work to perfection on the album, helping it earn a place in the musical pantheon. No matter how often internet contrarians – or West's own increasingly divisive character – may attempt to dethrone and discredit his work, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy will remain an unimpeachable masterpiece within hip-hop and, for better or for worse, serve as a reminder of West’s true capability and brilliance.
