The 2009 MTV Video Music Awards became ground zero for what eventually led to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The backlash from the Taylor Swift incident sent Ye to Hawaii and ultimately led to one of the greatest Hip-Hop albums ever made.
Ye constructed strict rules around the recording of this album - everyone in the studio had to wear a suit. He led by example, and no one was spared from the rule, from legendary artists like Charlie Wilson and Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) all the way down to the recording engineer. Ye also posted pictures and quotes all around the studio, creating a vision board he wanted to communicate sonically. Collaborators had to fly out to record with him; trading files online was not an option.
All the lengths taken during these sessions become apparent when you listen to the album. “Monster” and “So Appalled” sound like cyphers taking place inside an elegant château. “Dark Fantasy” opens majestically with soaring vocals and Nicki Minaj narrating the intro before crashing into a RZA-esque loop where Kanye delivers some of the best-written verses of his career. The epic that is “Runaway” has Ye using Auto-Tune like a distorted guitar during the outro, reinventing the sound entirely. The song’s ballad-like structure collapsing into that robotic breakdown creates a beautiful juxtaposition and the perfect ending to the track. “Lost in the World” feels definitive with its tribal drums, vocal chops, clashing snares, and Gil Scott-Heron closing the album by asking, “Who will survive in America?”
As mentioned before, Ye’s lyricism is at its peak here. “Gorgeous” pulls the curtain back on his superstar life while ruminating on systemic racism without ever losing his wit or charm. Songs like this show that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is his densest album from a lyrical standpoint. Musically, that becomes more subjective considering how drastically his sound evolves from release to release.
This record continues to stand the test of time because it gets almost everything right - from the lyricism and performances to the maximalist production and replay value that keeps pulling you back in. It closes out one decade and enters another with Ye still reinventing the wheel in his medium.
