What I thought of The Life of Pablo

The “modern day Warhol,” “creative genius,” “Shakespeare in the flesh,” finally delivered (well, kind of, only on Tidal) his long-awaited album “The Life of Pablo.” Yeezy himself has been teasing this album for a while. From “All Day,” to the collaboration with Rihanna and Paul McCartney, then to a series of titles of the album and pictures of tracklists on Instagram, Kanye settled for Pablo and released the album along with Yeezy Season 3.

What surprised me the most about Pablo was the meaning of it, because there’s not a clue of what Yeezy is trying to convey through this album. Despite trash talking Pitchfork for giving his album a 9/10 (Yeezus scored a 9.5/10), Kanye didn’t say a whole lot about Pablo after the release. There’s no clear political message, and people are still debating about which Pablo he’s comparing himself to. If Kanye’s twitter rant is confusing, this album just took confusion to another level. What’s happening Ye? Seriously. The guy has some issues going on for sure.

Kanye has gathered a herd of big names to produce the album. Rick Ruben, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Young Thug, Andre 3000, Chance the Rapper, the Weekend, even Pharrell was involved in the creative process. No wonder this album sounds so…innovative. It’s similar to what Yeezy has done in the past, but full of novel elements. “30 hours” sounds like a work in progress; the mother-appreciating “Low Lights” doesn’t have a thing to do with Kanye himself; and what’s with the phone call between Max B and French Montana? I mean, Kanye ditched “Waves” already right? Yeezy introduced so many new things in this new album that it became real messy after listening the whole album for the first time.

Despite being messy, the album does have the usual — lavish self-praise. In the track “I Love Kanye,” he rapped A Capella style about how much he has changed over the years and how he has inspired others to be like him. I’m just glad that Kanye can chill, play around and make fun of the “Kanye Loves Kanye” meme in a very sarcastic manner. Maybe Kanye just wants to do music this time. No matter what he’s trying to do, after all, he’s still the biggest fan of himself.

The album, despite not being released on popular streaming services, still generated some heat for some of the lyrics. Kanye explained, in the track “Famous” that he doesn’t need his fame to achieve goals and get people to work with him anymore. It’s definitely a positive note for himself, but he just had to drag Taylor in there. Yeah, he went there. “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. Why? I made that bitch famous.” Let’s not talk about whether he really made Taylor Swift famous, or the other way around. This “frienemy” thing between Kanye and Tay is mind boggling and I don’t even know what to think of it. (What happened to your alleged collaboration with Taylor or all the flowers you sent her?) The best explanation is that Kanye is trying to score a cheap laugh here. So, to all you Swifties out there: don’t take this too seriously.

I almost lost it when Kanye addressed his feud with Nike in the track “FACTS.” He rapped, “Yeezy Yeezy Yeezy just jumped over Jumpman.” Kanye, can you like, not? Kanye is clearly not firing at Michael Jordan, the Jumpman himself, but Nike instead. After leaving Nike, Kanye surely made some waves (no pun intended) with Adidas. However, his Yeezys are not anywhere close to what the Jordan Brand has achieved. What happened to your promise “now everyone’s gonna get their shoes” Kanye? The cheapest pair of Yeezys are still looking at $1000 on eBay.

I guess shamelessness is the best quality of Kanye, and he made sure that he harnessed on that fully. His amazing ability of saying things, attacking people, and apologizing afterwards has built himself a name and transformed Kanye from an artist to a brand. Kanye’s not Kanye without his outrageous personality. When the album becomes available on popular streaming services (someday, hopefully), more people will step into the discussion, and we might just find out which Pablo Kanye is talking about. Maybe Kanye is not referring to either Pablo Picasso or Pablo Escobar. It’s Kanye, you’ll never know.