1. Introduction
Kanye Omari West. Who is he? His first name answers this question by itself. As his mother, Donda West mentioned in her book she wanted her child to have a name that represented his culture and stood for something. Kanye is an Ethiopian name that means “Only One” and I think it totally describes what Kanye West represents (West, 2007, p.46). Six out of seven solo albums debuting at No.1 and total of 34 million albums sold. Winner of 21 Grammy Awards and other 68 nominations as a record producer, singer, songwriter and rapper. Until today, no other hip-hop artist has won more. Plaudits from Lou Reed, Prince, Paul McCartney and many more (Biography.com Editors, 2017). He has been influencing music as an art constantly since his …show more content…
Kanye began selling his demos around Manhattan, luckily landing one in the hands of Roc-A-Fella Records A&R chief Kyambo “Hip Hop” Joshua, who played Kanye in one of the studio sessions with Jay-Z (Brown, 2006, p.22). This resulted in Kanye’s four productions on Jay-Z’s album called The Blueprint, which is widely regarded as one of the greatest rap albums of all time (Channel 4, 2017).
Kanye used a popular sampling technique of speeding up samples at that time which I can describe as a “chipmunk soul” style. He adapted it from Wu-Tang Clan’s producer known as RZA and it quickly became Kanye’s signature. The typical example is the song called “Izzo (H.O.V.A)”, which was a Billboard Top 10, where he used the sample from the Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back”. (Hess, 2007, p.559). He sped up this sample and pitched it down by 2 semitones and used different chops to make a completely new song.
In the early 2000s, hip-hop sound was described as a “Timbaland sound”, who was one of the most demanded hip-hop and R&B producers at that time. This style favoured beats with scattered drums, hard-hitting kick drum and digital keyboards. However, Kanye’s production on the album caused a shift and the approach to music production returned back to the birth of the hip-hop genre, as it relied on the
Kanye Omari West. Who is he? His first name answers this question by itself. As his mother, Donda West mentioned in her book she wanted her child to have a name that represented his culture and stood for something. Kanye is an Ethiopian name that means “Only One” and I think it totally describes what Kanye West represents (West, 2007, p.46). Six out of seven solo albums debuting at No.1 and total of 34 million albums sold. Winner of 21 Grammy Awards and other 68 nominations as a record producer, singer, songwriter and rapper. Until today, no other hip-hop artist has won more. Plaudits from Lou Reed, Prince, Paul McCartney and many more (Biography.com Editors, 2017). He has been influencing music as an art constantly since his …show more content…
Kanye began selling his demos around Manhattan, luckily landing one in the hands of Roc-A-Fella Records A&R chief Kyambo “Hip Hop” Joshua, who played Kanye in one of the studio sessions with Jay-Z (Brown, 2006, p.22). This resulted in Kanye’s four productions on Jay-Z’s album called The Blueprint, which is widely regarded as one of the greatest rap albums of all time (Channel 4, 2017).
Kanye used a popular sampling technique of speeding up samples at that time which I can describe as a “chipmunk soul” style. He adapted it from Wu-Tang Clan’s producer known as RZA and it quickly became Kanye’s signature. The typical example is the song called “Izzo (H.O.V.A)”, which was a Billboard Top 10, where he used the sample from the Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back”. (Hess, 2007, p.559). He sped up this sample and pitched it down by 2 semitones and used different chops to make a completely new song.
In the early 2000s, hip-hop sound was described as a “Timbaland sound”, who was one of the most demanded hip-hop and R&B producers at that time. This style favoured beats with scattered drums, hard-hitting kick drum and digital keyboards. However, Kanye’s production on the album caused a shift and the approach to music production returned back to the birth of the hip-hop genre, as it relied on the