A Kanye West Epic

To coincide with the release of the three-part documentary about Kanye West, Jeen-Yuhs, I’m gonna post my personal playlist on the three eras of his discography (at least, that’s how I divide them).

Blog posts:

YEEZY ERA

(2003 – 2007)

Covers his first three albums: The College Dropout (2004), Late Registration (2005), Graduation (2007).

The following playlist contains my personal favourites from these three albums.

Notable tracks:

  • All Falls Down – In the documentary, Kanye crashed into the Roc-A-Fella office and perform this track to a few disinterested people.
  • Jesus Walks – First time I heard of Kanye West. It’s loud, it’s powerful, he sounded angry but spitting facts, it’s called ‘Jesus Walks’, there’s a marching type of beat to it.
  • Through the Wire – he got into a car accident and had to record this with his jaw still wired shut.
  • Last Call – The second half of this song is just Kanye retelling his time trying to get signed to a label. A nice companion to the first part of the Jeen-Yuhs documentary.
  • Heard ‘Em Say – There’s a sweet dreamy feel to this song but the subject is kinda depressing, about the difficult life of low income section of society, especially the Black community.
  • Gold Digger – Try playing this in a wedding LOL
  • Diamonds from Sierra Leone – Remix – A song about the sufferings of people under the ‘blood diamonds’ mines in Sierra Leone.
  • Hey Mama – A tribute to his mother who showed up in the documentary bringing warmth and wisdom.
  • Gone – This became a hit years later because it was used in a viral video of this lady who announced she was quitting her job while dancing at her office after hours.
  • Stronger – A banger of a collab between Kanye West & Daft Punk
  • Homecoming – An ode to his hometown Chicago
  • Big Brother – Kanye’s song about his idol, his mentor, his “big brother” Jay-Z.

YEEZUS ERA

(2008 – 2015)

Covers the following albums: 808s & Heartbreak (2008), My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010), Watch the Throne (2011), Yeezus (2013)

The following playlist contains my personal favourites from this era.

Notable tracks:

  • Heartless – became crossover hit, and probably Kanye’s most popularly covered song.
  • Bad News – There are few nice Kanye outros and this is one of my favourite, taking the whole second half of the song.
  • Coldest Winter – Kanye mourned the passing of his mother. Powerful drums, like a lot of the songs in this album.
  • POWER – Still my favourite ‘I don’t give a F*ck, so F*ck you all!’ song
  • All of the Lights – Kanye invited an all-star ensemble of artists and layer their vocals together to create a unique single backing vocal.
  • Runaway – Only Kanye can make a highly distorted autotune voice sound emotional in the extended outro.
  • Black Skinhead – Somehow I felt like this was a spiritual sequel to POWER. Love the in your face angry energy.
  • I Am a God – Provocative title. But then again I also thought it was funny, there’s always some playfulness to Kanye that his “arrogance” in this song is sort of a parody to me. “I am a God. Hurry up with damn massage. In a French ass restaurant. Hurry up with my damn Croissant!” There’s a industrial experimental feel to it. The screaming and the change of tone in tail end of the song scared the crap out of me when I first listened to it while half-asleep.
  • Hold my Liquor – My favourite of the album. A favourite to sing in the car too (alone). 😅

YE ERA

(2016 – Present)

Covers the following albums: The Life of Pablo (2016), ye (2018), Kids See Ghosts (2018), Jesus in King (2019), Donda (2021).

The following playlist contains my personal favourites from this era.

Notable tracks:

  • Famous – Aside from that line about Kanye making that “b*tch” Taylor Swift famous, this was one of my favourites from The Life of Pablo (TLOP)
  • I love Kanye – A rap about people missing the “Old Kanye” and complaining about “New Kanye”. Kanye still have that playful side to him ever since College Dropout.
  • Waves – Remember when Kanye and Wiz Khalifa bizarrely fought about the term ‘Waves’ on Twitter and it culminated with Amber Rose (Kanye’s Ex and Wiz’s Ex) to reveal that Kanye like finger up his ass. Weirdest “feud” ever.
  • Real Friends – Probably my favourite in TLOP. The closest thing to “Old Kanye” in that album.
  • Wolves – I remember seeing the performance of this song on SNL (back when it was supposed to be the opening track of the album) and was excited for his new album. Then he officially released it and took out Sia and replaced it with his own verse about leaving a fridge open and somebody took a sandwich or something (WTF?!). Kanye eventually reuploaded a new mix and re-inserted Sia’s part back (but still kept that sandwich verse though LOL).
  • Lift Yourself – Funniest troll song. Nice buildup though.
  • Close on Sunday – Funny Chick-Fil-A line aside, I like the haunting atmospheric vibe of this song.
  • Believe What I Say – Nice use of Lauren Hill sample. The “Old Kanye” is still there somewhere.
  • Jesus Lord Part 2 – Best track from ‘Donda’. Really good verses from everybody, backed by an addictive backing-track.

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