This Mini-Documentary On Kanye West's Innovation Is Incredible

I’m typically not a huge Vox fan. Even their motto, “Understanding the news,” is fucking infuriating. Almost all of their tweets are “Something happening in the world, explained” as if we’re all three year olds who can’t possibly use our own minds while reading the news. It’s condescending as shit. Nonetheless, gotta duff my cap at them for this one. It’s a really, really great breakdown of Kanye as a producer and an artist.

The thing that’s ironic is that I like this video for the exact reason that I hate Vox. I don’t really know shit about music. I know what I like and what I don’t like, but I don’t really know why. This *explains* it to me. Almost every song discussed is one of my favorite Kanye songs. Runaway, Through the Wire, Jesus Walks, Good Life, Bound 2, Good Life, Say You Will, Ultralight Beam, Hey Mama, New Slaves… those are all the first Kanye songs I’ll go to. Now I get why. Because they’re like shit we’ve never heard before. I just listen and think, “Oh ok, well this fucking goes,” but understanding exactly why it does bang is interesting as shit.

I’ll even admit that hearing something like, “Kanye West thinks that the best instrument in the world is the human voice,” kinda makes you roll your eyes.

“Hey Kanye what’s your favorite instrument?”

“Voices.”

“That’s not an instrument you DICK!”

That’s like a perfect Kanye West conversation. On the surface it seems like he’s just trying to be weird to come off as a genius, and it’s annoying as hell. But when you actually hear how and why he incorporates choirs, distorts voices, uses synthesizers that sound like people, etc. all in an attempt to make the human voice into an instrument, you kinda just have to nod your head and think, Yeah, he’s right. That fucking bangs. And I guess that’s perfect Kanye West: he sounds crazy, but when you see it in action you can’t help but think alright, the guy is, in fact, a genius.