Acquired Taste.

Kanye West. 

Rude, Crybaby, Obnoxious, Cocky; Creative Genius. 

Whatever you say about Kanye West in a negative context, you have to respect and appreciate what this guy is doing and has done already. West's latest album 808's & Heatbreaks was probably one of the most highly criticized that I've seen in a while. By going in a different direction as he has done in this video has led to both optimism and harsh backlash for doing so. With a first listen to most of the tracks on his most recent cd, I was with the rest and wanted the old sound and was heavily doubting what he was going for. After listening to the songs "Welcome to Heartbreak" (above) and "Say You Will (below), I took grasp to something different. With time I have seen that the message is more important to an artist like Kanye than the reception that is taken to the song. In these two songs he relays a down point in his life and even though it not the most popular thing out it touches on true life situations.

After watching Kanye on his first appearance of VH1 Storytellers a couple weeks ago, I gained a new overall feeling of his thought process. West performed several songs from his new album as well as past ones and offered his meaning to each that carries along with the Storytelling deal. Being commerical and popular was the least of his priorities at this point in his career, he was looking for produce a product that was real and something that expressed the heartbreak he has been feeling following the death of his mother. Also, he touches on the fact of the life he has missed with being continually in the limelight and the other side of being famous as well as a tough love life.

I am definitley against the entire auto-tone movement, which alters the voice through an audio processor that changes the pitch of his voice. Though looking back at it, the auto-tune element adds to the entire feeling of sadness and conveys his message with a sound that carries it as well. The whole persona he has created may seem weird and out of the ordinary to old Kanye fans, but he is one of that carries himself on outdoing the next and being out there and original. West's creative side takes another step forward with the video "Welcome to Heartbreak." No, your internet is not messing up or Youtube in not freezing; West implements an effect known as "pixelating" in computer graphics to mesh the entire flow of the video together. Yes, weird at first, but blows your mind with time. Mr. West will continue to put out jaw-drawing music, comments, and acts, but with all that he has provided this generation with much more and looks to push the envelope of the hip hop scene for many years to come.