At the core, Hip-hop music is all about sending a message. And in any ways, strong messages are only as strong as the stories behind them. Additionally, strong stories are perhaps only as strong as the voices that project them. All that being said, yesterday marked the 11th year of one of Hip-hop’s most narrative records.
Roughly a year after his critically-acclaimed debut studio album, Kanye West returned with Late Registration, leaving fans enamored at the producer-turned-rapper’s exponential growth as a musician, lyricist, and more significantly, a storyteller.
Although the album featured West exploring several political issues—corruption, poverty, and racism to mention a few. In doing so, however, West never seems to lose touch on the personal side of life, somehow managing to weave the two into a single intricate entity.
“I wanted to have raps that were just as ill as Jadakiss and just as understandable as Will Smith,” explained West, pertaining to his ambitions behind the album. In essence, West simply wanted to produce an album everyone could relate to. What we got, on the other hand, was everything West aspired for and the bonus of having them wrapped in mind-capturing imagery and heart-piercing narrative.
The record’s opener, “Heard ‘Em Say”, features wise ol’ West prophesying about “being honest with [one’s] self in a world that is not”. Nothing too unique, we’ve heard that before, right? But when the message fades into the first-person contemplations of a modern-day beggar and how he comes to conclude a fallen world, what listeners experience is West’s trademark storytelling. Bear in mind, this is only the album’s opening track.
Needless to say, West’s attempt at storytelling accomplished outstanding recognition, debuting at Billboard200’s #1 chard, achieving #118 on the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, and receiving 2006’s Grammy Award for Best Rap Album—not to mention selling 860,000 copies in its premier week.
The album, however, is more than just an iconic Hip-hop record. In essence, Late Registration, donned by West’s strong messages and sentimental storytelling, embodies pure Hip-hop: Rhythmical storytelling with powerful messages.
By Jods Arboleda for RAPStation.com
