Late Registration — Kanye West
Roc-A-Fella
2005
Rating:


Let the haters hate and the lovers love, but can't we all agree that Kanye West is one of the all-time greatest samplers? Some have accused of West of doing nothing more than pillaging his mother's record collection. If Mama West listenes to Gil Scott-Heron, Curtis Mayfield, Hank Crawford, Orange Krush and James Bond soundtracks, then a huge amount of credit is due to her. Even if that were that case, it's still Kanye who makes those samples soar and gives them a context to do something profound.

West's staggering use of samples has never been in fuller effect than on "Late Registration," the wildly anticipated follow-up to last year's epochal "The College Dropout." More surprising is the way West's old school raiding has been given greater life with the help of Jon Brion, a film composer and erstwhile Fiona Apple producer. Brion, known for the idiosyncratic melodies he has provided to Paul Thomas Anderson's films, brightens West's sound, preventing "Late Registration" from being a redundant effort.

Which "Late Registration" never is. West's and Brion's production is too insistently inventive for that. And this time around, the rewarding merits of West's album are less immediate. Besides "Diamonds of Sierra Leone" and "Gold Digger," which have been on the radio for months, there's nothing here that screams for radio play. That's because, unlike most hip-hop artists, West is more interested in making a cohesive album.

After Mr. West receives a wake-up call in the opening skit, West groans into "Heard 'Em Say," a song that sets the tone for West's prevalent sense of humor, political jabs and hopeful philosophizing. "Nothing's ever promised tomorrow today," he says over a sample of Natalie Cole's "Someone That I Used to Love" and the vocal noodling of Maroon 5's Adam Levine. "Before you ask me to get a job today / Can I at least get a raise on the minimum wage?" West asks. The Just Blaze-produced "Touch the Sky" uses the blaring horns of Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up" for the album's most uplifting moment, giving the ever-conflicted West a chance to admit, "I'm tryin' to right my wrongs / But it's funny, them same wrongs helped me write this song." After the get 'em high of "Gold Digger" and its biting switcheroo ending, West lays down a smooth, Portishead-like groove with "Drive Slow's" Hank Crawford sample and Paul Wall's surprisingly effective guest appearance.

West hands his tightest and most inspired sample, Gil Scott-Heron's "Home is Where the Hatred Is," over to Common wholesale on the too brief "My Way Home," but, in an inspired bit of sequencing, West nods to Scott-Heron on the following track, "Crack Music," which is, by far, West's toughest track and possibly his most socially aware. Using a sample of a choir's version of "Since You Came in My Life" hardened with staccato-ed horns and heavy drums, West raps of the strange fruit he and Scott-Heron have been seeing: "You hear that, what Gil Scott is Heron / When our heroes or heroines got hooked on heroin? / Crack raised the murder rate in D.C. and Maryland / We, invested in that, it's like we got Merrill Lynched / And we been hangin' from the same tree ever since."

Because, all things considered, West does have something important to say, and though he can't say it with the lyrical finesse of Common or Talib Kweli, at least he's trying and he realizes that hip-hop needs more socially conscious rappers. Credit is due to West for include "Diamonds of Sierra Leone (Remix)" as the official album version (the original, superficial version of Grammy whining appears only as a bonus track). West beats himself up for needing to keep his diamond chain, even while he recognizes that the conflict diamond trade of Sierra Leone is comparable to America's drug trade.

The newly discovered demo of Bill Withers' "Rosie" provides the sonic aura for "Roses," a sentimental song of praying by a dying grandmother's bedside that seems less saccharine when compared to the song that follows, the clichι-ridden "Bring Me Down" and its Brandy guest appearance. Much of the second half becomes mired by maudlin over-orchestration, but it builds back up in much the same way as "We Major," a seven-minute opus that finds West and Brion at their most expansive. "Hey Mama" is the album's emotional center, sampling Donal Leace's "Today Won't Come Today" to great effect, but even better are the little flourishes from Brion, including trashcan percussion and a xylophone, while Kanye promises to go back to school.

"Gone" is the West-Brion partnership brought to fruition. Brion's pounds the piano and slides strings with Otis Redding's "It's Too Late" and West's very good beats while West gets to rhyme at his funniest: "I'ma open up a store for aspiring MCs / Won't sell 'em no dream, but the inspiration is free / But if they ever flip sides like Anakin / You'll sell everything, including the mannequin / They got a new bitch, now you Jennifer Aniston."

West's pride is still fully intact, but by this point it's confidence, not arrogance. As West says on "Gone," "I know I got it, I don't know what y'all on."

Posted Monday, September 19, 2005

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/music/kanye.west/late.registration