louder's hip-hop café IV
 

for the new year, here's a new Kanye West song with no one else than Paul McCartney playing the piano: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/on...ey/id955053780

this song is beautiful.. not the bombastic production you'd expect from Kanye, but really intimate and emotional. i got chills when i realized it's from his mother's perspective. Kanye singing "tell Nori about me" at the end really reminded me of Paul. seems like this is gonna be the album that EVERYONE will like.

Hmm I love Kanye, but on a song like this he should've stayed away from the auto-tune. Especially on that last part. Can't fault him for doing a song like this though.

Great picture though.

I don't know if I love the song right now. Will need s'more listens.

pretty much every song on Yeezus is better if you ask me (EDIT: okay just listened to it a few more times, gonna have to take it back). however i'm fond of the introspective direction he's taking. we still don't know shit about the album yet though so we'll see.

"i talked to god about you, he sent you an angel and look at all that he gave you, you ask for one and you got two".

"and if you knew how proud i was, you'd never shed a tear, have a fear, no you wouldn't do that".

FUCKING KANYE WEST

yeah. I mean, if the new album is like this - it makes sense conceptually. Yeezus was so over the top debauchery. It's like, he made his bachelor party album. A last crazy hurrah of sex and drugs and shit talk before calming down w/ the fam. Maybe?

No, I don't think that was what Yeezus was, honestly. To me it felt more like a last journal entry. Nothing (and I mean absofuckinglutely nothing) on Yeezus, not even "Send it Up," sounds like a party to me. To me it's like he was confronting some fears, taking mushrooms in the dark, getting primal scream crazy.

But I famously read too much into these things.

Re: “ONLY ONR”: WOW! Fucking motherfucker waits all goddamn year to release a new song, and when it drops on the last possible day of the year, it feels like every other single of 2014 was just a preamble.

Great, great, great song. Ridiculously sad... But totally worthy of Sir Paul. Thanks louder.

see, I think that My Beautiful Dark Twisted was that more. It was a sort of "I hate myself album." On there he asks "what's worse? The pain or the hangover?" Yet, I feel like Yeezus was the party before the hangover. Except of course "Bound 2" which would be a lead-in to the next album. I think.

I love this song. If you ask me if would work great as a non-album single. But since McCartney's supposed to contribute to "several songs" from the next album, this might not even be a good representation of the kind of work they're doing together. Who knows how the other songs will sound? But for now, this feels like a fitting stand alone single.

Love the auto-tune. Tastefully used. Keeps it fresh. Sounds crisp and very clear. Like a freaking Stevie Wonder song or something. God damn. Way to start the year. :)

holy shit, SEVERAL songs? this might be the "Black Beatle" album.. i'm starting to shake just thinking about the potential of it.

by the way, i don't think we've discussed Kendrick's performance on The Colbert Show a few weeks ago, where he debuted a new Untitled track: http://pitchfork.com/news/57867-kend...olbert-report/

fucking amazing. Kanye and Kendrick are truly the only things i NEED this year.

Yeah, I'm feeling that way too. Kendrick's new album is going to be HUGE of course. I doubt that it will leave room in the headlines for Lil Wayne. This is how things work. Kendrick is in an excellent position. I think he may very well redefine the culture in a way that only one artist does each decade or so.

Kanye is a fixture, and I think his ability to consistently make the perfect album at the perfect moment will help him meet and surpass any level of critical/fan expectation, no matter how lofty. Commercial success isn't even something Ye needs anymore. But I'm pretty sure he'll still do just fine sales wise.

I think the time for Lil Wayne has passed though. I mean, is anyone even thinking about Carter V anymore? I hate to say it, but I think Weezy and Niki are both quickly becoming caricatures of themselves. Soon they'll be relics.

But tbh, I'm much more interested in Ye, Kendrick & A$AP. Let's not forget about ol' Rocky naow.

Oh hey, anyone else listen to the new Fabolous joint?

I'm hearing all kinds of smack talking about it, but it's incredibly fucking proper. I couldnt hate on that opening track if I tried! He should have waited until 2015. Now I've gotta re-jigger my fucking hip hop albums list for 2014 AGAIN.
(Yeah, I say it's that good.)

On a side note, I'd love to see a proper LP from Young Thug drop this year. Enough hype, ok? And how 'bout no more mixtapes for a while? Just fucking give us what we want! Young Thug, solo, getting crazy on a proper album.

Also I think Black Messiah might have been my #2 album of 2014. What a fucking masterpiece. Shit. It reminds me a little of Sign O' the Times (my favorite Prince album) though I couldn't say why. It's just real. Organic. Human. Powerful. It's a goddamn brilliant album, and it's up there with Syro and Bécs and A U R O R A for pure, raw emotional power.

Sorry to change topics like some kind of douche.

#catching up...

oddly I was listening to Carter IV today. I'm still curious about Carter V. But man... we haven't had like top form Weezy in a long time. No Ceilings is probably his last GREAT release.

Fabolous I was listening to the other night oddly as well. Old stuff though. Haven't heard anything new.

This year my eyes are on Kendrick, A$AP Rocky/Mob, and hopefully some new YG shit.

new Earl should be interesting. Mac Miller too especially since he signed to a major label. and Chance the Rapper of course.

i just found this article from last year:


this is so cool. i never really expect old white men to understand current hip-hop (even some of the old black folks don't understand it sometimes), so this is really a big surprise to me. makes me wonder how John would feel about Kanye if he was still alive.