The decline of hip-hop has been affected by the genre’s fading generation. As iconic rappers from the ’90s disappear in influence, hip-hop needs change.

Kanye West’s new album, ‘808s & Heartbreak,’ is at the forefront – a lead to a new generation of hip-hop albums and artists.’808s & Heartbreak’ is all about love. And West’s successful first single, ‘Love Lockdown,’ proves hip-hop fans are listening.But West’s new album also takes something from the past.

Not since LL Cool J rapped ‘I Need Love’ off his 1987 double-platinum record, ‘Bigger and Deffer,’ has a top-charted rapper fused hip-hop and relationships.

No influential East Coast rapper from the last decade has chosen to sing rather than rap as West does here, albeit with the aid of an auto-tune that can distort his voice and realign its pitches.

Those two things – auto-tune and a ‘love’ album – could give a rapper a bad rap. But hip-hop needs this.

When West released his debut album, ‘The College Dropout,’ in 2004, critics called his style more spoken word than rap. West picked up the college-kid concept, carrying the backpack for three albums, until his third album, ‘Graduation,’ in 2007. In every album, fans could expect something old and something different.

His latest album will, like his others, create a sense of nostalgia. You can remember when or where you first heard a Kanye album. You feel his rap if you can relate, and love is a common thing. But his tendencies to exert an ego, to rhyme words with the same words, to make you laugh and say, ‘That’s true’ about the money, clothes and schoolwork he raps about are all gone.

‘808s & Heartbreak’ is both something different and something old. His avant-garde production of beats remains, revisiting orchestration found in his sophomore release ‘Late Registration’ and the hard-hitting bass of ‘Graduation.’ But this time, the backpack is gone.

The songs on ‘808s’ seem retrospective to his previous works. In ‘Welcome to Heartbreak,’ he sings: ‘Chased the good life, all my life long/Look back on my life, all my life gone/Where did I go wrong?’

This time around, West sings about failing relations, about the girl who left him (his ex-fiancée, Alexis Phifer) and about the only girl he truly loved (his late mother, Donda West). In the emotional ballad ‘Coldest Winter,’ Kanye racks up the nerve to ask himself, ‘Goodbye my friend/Will I ever love again?’

But tracks like ‘Paranoid’ and ‘Heartless’ verge on rap rather than singing, and some tracks seem more spoken word than a flow of verses. Then there is Kanye’s continuous repetition of short hooks where lyrics seem to be missing. In ‘See You in My Nightmares,’ West repeats the phrase ‘That you know’ 17 times.

West exploits his own emotions for music. Perhaps, it’s a realization that life’s not all material and ego.

This is revelation of Kanye West. His backpack days are over. There’s more electronic pop now than pure hip-hop. But although the added tribal sounds, distorted vocals and djembe drums are refreshing additions to West’s production, there could have been so much more.

It may not be West’s best album. Fans may hate it or love it. But, remember, hip-hop needs this. At the least, ‘808s & Heartbreak’ is an innovator in a genre that needs one – a step in the right direction.

But Kanye’s refusal to immerse himself entirely in singing or rapping deters the impact the album could have had and the changes he could have made as a hip-hop artist. And West knows this.

‘Let me know. Do I still have time to grow?’ West asks in ‘Street Lights,’ perhaps the most consistent song to the original vision of his concept album. ‘See I know my destination,’ he sings clearly. ‘But I’m just not there.’

edpaik@syr.edu

Published on December 1, 2008 at 12:00 pm