Music
Graduation: the road to Kanye’s electronic apogee
On the 10th birthday of Kanye West's Graduation, we look back at how pivotal the album was in the rapper's oeuvre.
Every Kanye West album has pushed the boundaries of music— sonically, visually and culturally. From fashion shows at Madison Square Garden to projections across the world, West’s vision is unpredictable and Graduation in a lot of ways was the tipping point in his innovation.
Preceding the release of Graduation were Late Registration and College Dropout — together completing an unfinished four-part series along with Good Ass Job, which was never released. Kanye’s first two albums were political, soulful and imaginative — from his genius co-opting of gospel in Jesus Walks to Jamie Foxx breathing new life into Ray Charles' I Got A Woman on Gold Digger. Graduation ushered in a new era and saw Kanye West take on pop.
Back in 2007, the release of Graduation wasn’t just about Kanye West proving himself, it was also about winning a record sales feud with 50 Cent in the opening week of album sales. Where 50 Cent was consistent, Kanye was experimental and it worked in his favour, beating 50 by a landslide.
In 2017, Graduation is about his earliest flirtation with electronic music, the end of the dropout bear and who he was before his mother’s untimely death. Donda West’s passing came two months after the release of Graduation, which saw Kanye scrap Good Ass Job and instead release 808s & Heartbreak.
Criticisms of Graduation range from the album dating itself with its outmoded features to West mistakenly positioning himself to a pop music audience that would ultimately abandon him. Is a Chris Martin feature palatable in 2017? And did the fanbase Ye gain through songs like Good Life and Stronger ultimately lend itself to 808s & Heartbreaks’ hypercriticism as he failed to follow up with another pop-centred album? Graduation isn’t by any stretch his best work, but it was pivotal in setting the foundations for his electronic apogee, Yeezus.
It was pivotal in setting the foundations for his electronic apogee, Yeezus.
The ways in which West took to sampling, recording and collaborating on his third studio album was unlike anything hip hop or pop had seen before. Was its release the day Kanye killed “gangsta rap”? Not quite, but it was the day Kanye birthed a new wave of rap.
There are many moments on the album that showcase his innovation, but none more so than Stronger. His work with Daft Punk was mesmerisingly novel in 2007. Those critics that say West dated himself by collaborating with the French producers don’t seem to be aware of Daft Punk’s production credits on The Weeknd’s record Starboy just this past year.
Stronger is a culmination of pop, hip hop and French electro. Today, Stronger is a throwaway track you’ll hear in any bar on a Thursday night but ten years ago it was a brave step into unchartered territory. Rolling Stone called it a nod to hip hop’s “pre-Run-DMC disco days” but this isn’t disco — this is outrageous French electro.
Daft Punk’s influence on dance music isn’t dissimilar to West’s in rap. Their first album, Homework, released in 1991, followed by Discovery in 1997, revolutionised sampling and sonic textures in house music. Not unlike Kanye, Daft Punk faced immense criticism for their work on Discovery and their departure from the “sophistication” of their debut album. Harder Better Faster Stronger was hearty electronica that was visceral and entered the pop realm but was denounced as “a perfect example of undemanding, brainless dancefloor filling hook laden culture”. Yet their musical influence has continued for decades.
It was A-Trak who introduced Kanye West to the French producers who’d go on again to collaborate with him on Yeezus. In an annotation on Genius, A-Trak revealed that West didn’t even know who Daft Punk were in 2006 and it was his interest in Busta Rhymes' beat on Touch It — which samples Technologic — that led to his initiation. It looks like we have a lot to thank A-Trak for. Electronic music and hip hop weren’t synonymous a decade ago and even though Kanye wasn’t the first to bind the two together, he’s certainly one of the best now.
Maybe Kanye West could see the future through those shutter shades.
It took 75 different mixes, 8 audio engineers and 11 mix engineers to get Stronger to the maximalist, energetic masterpiece we know today. Besides being iconic, it was true to its name sake and from this moment we saw Kanye go from strength to strength. Someone somewhere once said that a rap song is only as good as its hook — if that’s the case then Stronger is perfect. But it isn’t the only song on the album where West toyed with his electronic curiosities.
Described as “all the misanthropy of Yeezus with none of the joy nor the benefit of Auto-Tune”, Drunk & Hot Girls is easily one of Kanye’s most hated songs by fans and critics alike. The woozy flow over the sharp synths is joyfully preemptive of the track it precedes, Flashing Lights.
Flashing Lights is a collaboration with Sneaky Sound System’s Connie Mitchell — a result of another chance meeting. Mitchell’s vocals laid on the synth-driven beat lends itself to the accompanying video, which sees West murdered in the boot of a car. It’s probably cliche to pair darkness and electronic music together but just as any Daft Punk song conjures up feelings of being at a warehouse party at 4am, so do Flashing Lights and Stronger.
While West came to collaborate with these artists by chance, it’s these moments that have gone on to perhaps be the most crucial in his musical journey. It’s led him to work with countless electronic producers from Hudson Mohawke and Gesaffelstein to Arca and Evian Christ. Without these chance meetings, we wouldn’t have 808s & Heartbreak and we certainly wouldn’t have Yeezus.
The rest of the album is linear in how it borrows inspiration from his stadium tour with U2; you can hear it in the Chris Martin hook on Homecoming, the beat on Can't Tell Me Nothing and the joy on Good Morning. Stronger, Drunk & Hot Girls and Flashing Lights are anthemic and don’t stray from the theme of the album, but unlike any other tracks, are a nod to the future and not to the past. Maybe Kanye West could see the future through those shutter shades.
Reviews for Stronger are regressive and protective of Daft Punk. The irony of criticising Kanye West for “taking a liberal sample” from a duo who revolutionised sampling in the '90s isn’t lost on anyone. It seems more likely that no one was quite prepared for something so incredibly fresh — and so often is the case with his work. Kanye West has self-identified as many things: a god, a genius, as this generation’s Walt Disney, but he’s never been more right than when he told Zane Lowe, “I’m a futurist.” The problem is that West’s refusal to play into the expectations and desires of his fans and critics leaves them confused. He refuses to be of the time and chooses to be ahead of it. “I know how to make perfect but that’s not what I’m here to do. I’m here to crack the pavement and make new grounds, you know, sonically and society, culturally.”
In 2007, Stronger, Flashing Lights and even Drunk & Hot Girls were the beginnings of Kanye West at his zenith and celebrating Graduation’s ten-year anniversary without praising his electronic genesis would be a disservice to a living legend.
