Life Of Pablo - Kanye West (2016)

Look, I’m not here to make any excuses for the man’s public persona. I think it is worth noting that he’s struggled with serious mental illness, and often doesn’t keep it under control. For years, his out-of-pocket stunts were predictably always in advance of new product, which made him look more like a canny marketer than a person who really ought to be taking his meds more regularly. People dismissed it because he’s not the first artist to market themselves with wild abandon. The fact that this stuff still happens after he has clearly lost the plot is really more about how fame has isolated him and made it harder for people to get through to him.

All of that aside, West was at this point one of the most creative musical minds of his generation. He made a string of albums that are essentials of hip hop culture. You can certainly argue that the man isn’t worth paying attention to, but it’s much more difficult to argue that the music isn’t.

This one is maybe the start of the downward trend where his public image started to outweigh his talent. But there’s still an amazing mix of house, drill, synth-driven hi-tech beats, dark soul, and his uniquely odd deconstruction of gospel (both musically and lyrically).

Ye and his work are hard–maybe impossible–to decode. Up to this point, at least, it was still worth the effort.