‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’: Breaking down the Samples on Kanye West’s Magnum Opus
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Sampling in Hip-Hop is like alchemy, an artform that rearranges space & time as the producers who build on the tradition use Sonic DNA from the past to cook up a future. Kanye West(now known as Ye) - more famous for his notorious public image rather than his music - blew past all the rules of Hip-Hop on his 5th studio release that is now heralded as one of the benchmarks as far as production & sampling goes amongst mainstream rap/hip-hop albums.
Although his songs have always been a huge affair, on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy he went ridiculously maximal, reinventing the genre by constituting the album with Hip-Hop epics, R&B ballads, alien electronics, prog-rock samples, featuring a number of surprise guests such as Bon Iver to Fergie to Chris Rock & even including a freaking Elton John piano solo while working alongside a slew of talented producers.
Yeezy’s personal legacy might be a sinking ship but his musical legacy can rest easy on the shoulders of ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,’ which is probably perfect in every way!
Creatives:
Marred by the Taylor Swift controversy at the 2009 VMA’s, Kanye West fled to Hawaii to set up his base during his self-imposed exile for what would become his 5th studio effort ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.’
The album is a no holds barred musical extravaganza that brought together the best of the best producers including Mike Dean, No I.D., Jeff Bhasker, RZA, S1, Bink, and DJ Frank E that helped him to lace up his magnum opus.
Again, this opulent, saturated LP deploys a symposium of talents from the indie backwoods (Bon Iver) to the pop pantheon (Elton John) including a Greek chorus of pop stars – Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas to La Roux.
For the most part, the samples come through loud & clear in West’s tracks, propelling each song forward where the song is either built off of an existing song or picked out of the best parts from several others to create one coherent & cooler whole.
Samples:
Power:
The samples on this powerful track are unmissable where the main chorus/hook comes from a 1978 song Afroamerica sprinkled with a vocal sample from the messiahs’ of prog-rock - King Crimson’s ‘21st Century Schizoid Man.’
Runaway:
The opening keys of Runaway are instantly recognizable & the drum sample on it directly comes from a 1971 song ‘The Backyard Heavies’ by Expo ‘83 besides the vocal sample is taken from a live recording of Rick James song called ‘Mary Jane’.
Gorgeous:
This daring, spooky space funky interpolates an electric riff from a 1969 song called ‘You Showed Me’ by Enoch Light and the Glittering Guitars.
Blame Game:
There’s a famous story where West was accused, in a typical fashion, of getting away with the unmistakable sample from the legendary Aphex Twin’s ‘Avril 14th’. However, Aphex Twin is credited in the album liner notes.
Devil in a New Dress:
This tune provides a flashback where West samples a soul track from 1973 called ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’ by Smoke Robinson, the kind where he used to sample for Jay Z in his early career.
Read more: Unmasking Samples on Daft Punk’s ‘Discovery’
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