GORGEOUS - KANYE WEST, KID CUDI, RAEKWON
As a massive Hip-Hop fan, I decided that the first song I would review would be the fantastic track Gorgeous by Kanye West, off his most recent album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Perhaps this review might be slightly biased as I am a major Kanye follower, having seen him live twice in Manchester. I am also a big fan of the two other artists that feature on this track; Kid Cudi and Raekwon.
The song opens with a chilled almost anthemic hook chimed out softly and elegantly by the on form Kid Cudi. This sets the stakes high for another classic Hip-Hop track to be released upon the world, and Mr. West does not fail to deliver. As soon as Cudi's opening climaxes, Kanye bursts onto the track exclaiming, "Penitentiary chances, the devil dances and eventually answers to the call of Autumn". He makes a pop culture reference in this first verse by rapping, "Got caught with 30 rocks, the cop looked like Alec Baldwin". West also makes another pop cultural reference later on in the track, by confronting the writers of South Park, for parodying him (with the use of fishsticks), by stating, "Choke a South Park writer with a fishstick" (however Kanye praised/accepted this parody on his blog, upon the release of the episode). (Note: I have still not seen this episode of South Park!)
Raekwon's performance on the track is spat with first class delivery, as he demonstrates why once a part of one of Hip-Hop's all time greatest groups (Wu-Tang Clan).
Reverting back to Kanye, I am not going to do a verse by verse analysis of his rapping, but I would like to discuss two of the ones I find to be key.
One quite clever verse from Kanye adresses and criticises "the way the government treat AIDS", as Kanye quips "I won't be satisfied til all my n*ggas get it, get it?"
However for me, the most noteworthy and powerful verse contains the following:
"Is hip-hop just a euphemism for a new religion?
The soul music of the slaves that the youth is missin’
But this is more than just my road to redemption
Malcolm West had the whole nation standin’ at attention"
Here, Kanye is evidently (and perhaps egotistically), parralelling himself to civil rights leader Malcolm X; he sees himself as a prophet for today's Obama generation, and musically he is, as he continues to move firmly away from the limited confines of Hip-Hop, creating a thought provoking political track, which will surely survive as a Kanye West classic.
