Kanye’s graduation stagnant, but still entertains

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer once wrote of Muhammad Ali: ‘He is fascinating – attraction and repulsion must be in the same package. The more we don’t want to think about him, the more we are obliged to. There is a reason for it. He is ‘America’s Greatest Ego.”

Such is the dilemma of Kanye West.

He, like Ali, is a supreme talent, one simultaneously buoyed and restrained by his ego, his inflated sense of self.

Perhaps that duality explains why his newest album, ‘Graduation,’ both exhilarates and disappoints.

‘Graduation’ is, like most of West’s work, about himself, his father (‘Champion’), his dealings with women (‘Drunk and Hot Girls’) and his relationship with Jay-Z (‘Big Brother’).

He ditches most of the old soul samples he favored on his previous records, ‘The College Dropout’ and ‘Late Registration.’ He digs through rock’s dustbin instead, breaking out clips from Steely Dan, Mountain and ’70s German art rock band Can.

Still, West stubbornly sticks to his old formula, rotating the samples throughout the songs as the hooks. It’s exciting for the most part, but still formulaic.

It’s as if he is so confident in his ability as a producer that he sees no reason to innovate. Therefore the music is not precisely repetitious, but it does sound similar.

Some tracks rise above the rest of course, including ‘Homecoming,’ which features Coldplay’s Chris Martin or ‘Good Life’ with T-Pain and West sharing the stage with a sample of Michael Jackson’s ‘P.Y.T.’ sped up to an ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks’ falsetto.

‘Stronger’ too is a triumph, even if it partially belongs to Daft Punk (they wrote the hook).

Hooks, of course, have never been a problem for Kanye. It’s the rapping.

His shortcomings as an emcee are well-documented and were often covered up by guest appearances from Lupe Fiasco to Mos Def to Common.

But left alone for most of the record – with the notable exception of Lil’ Wayne flaunting his wackiness in ‘Barry Bonds’ – West flounders in spots.

He still has the unfortunate habit of rhyming words with themselves, and his rhyme schemes are often derailed by their cutesiness.

In ‘Big Brother,’ West says, ‘I told Jay I did a song with Coldplay/Next thing I know he got a song with Coldplay/Back in my mind, I’m like damn, no way/Translate to Espanol/No way, Jose.’

Again, the criticism may seem like nitpicking against the backdrop of brilliance that he does often create. But for someone who boasts of his talents as loudly and brashly as West, better is expected.

For ego is a funny thing – a double-edged sword.

Ego propelled Ali through his wars with Joe Frazier and George Foreman, and that gave him the courage to confront the myth of Sonny Liston head-on. But it also led to a past-his-prime fighter fending off the likes of Earnie Shavers and Larry Holmes. They sizzled his brain with punches until he became a ring magician whose tricks had decayed.

Likewise, ego powers West’s best work, beat-laden thrill rides such as ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ and ‘Family.’ Yet it’s also the cause of his temper tantrums: he threw another when he went home empty-handed after Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards – the biggest rapper on the planet reduced to a petulant child.

Ego is both a builder and a destroyer, and it’s something that West has yet to master.

50’s ‘curtis’ strays from roots without losing strong rhymes

50 Cent is an artist trapped by his own talents.

What he does best – gritty vignettes from his former life dealing cocaine in South Jamaica, Queens – succeeds because it is drenched in reality.

50, aka Curtis Jackson, lived that life. He sold rock. He’s been shot nine times. And he was strong enough as an emcee to make that life real for listeners. It didn’t hurt that his image is impressive – all muscles, tattoos and bullet wounds.

But because he made that reality come alive in living rooms across the country, because of his skills as a wordsmith, that reality is gone.

50 is rich. His debut sold more than seven million copies and his second album, ‘The Massacre,’ sold more than five million in the United States. He has his own record label, G-Unit Records, and an accompanying clothing line.

He no longer has to hustle the streets of Queens for cash; he can just be a guest on one of his G-Unit protege’s albums or shoot a commercial for Reebok when he needs a paycheck.

For that reason, it’s difficult to believe most of the songs off his latest disc, ‘Curtis.’ It’s not that 50 has lost a step; it’s just hard to take seriously.

It’s a problem most rappers who rose to the top based on their previous exploits faced. Jay-Z’s rhymes were dexterous to shift away from his past life. DMX’s weren’t.

On ‘Curtis,’ 50 finds his career almost in purgatory. He’s now forced to churn out hits to match previous ones like ‘In Da Club’ and ‘P.I.M.P.’ in order to stay relevant, while searching for a new palette on which to place his flow.

But his days as a thug have passed. The menace of ‘My Gun Go Off’ and ‘Fire’ has an appeal, but it’s all hollow.

Later, in ‘I’ll Still Kill,’ for example, he rhymes: ‘I got an arsenal, an infantry, I’m built for this mentally/That’s why I’m the general, I do what they pretend to do/Front on me now n*gga I’ll be the end of you.’

When? In between takes of the latest Vitamin Water commercial?

The songs aimed to be crossover hits work better. ‘Ayo Technology’ lets 50 throw his hat in the future-rap market that Timbaland and Justin Timberlake cornered. Mary J. Blige is impressive as ever on ‘All of Me.’

Others are less successful. ‘Peep Show,’ featuring Eminem as producer and guest star, suffers from a tepid beat, and ‘Follow My Lead’ is a slow-jam mess.

The album drags as it goes on. ‘Curtis’ suffers from a problem common to rap albums: it’s too long. By the time ‘Touch the Sky’ closes the show (the album’s 17th track), the listener is weary.

Too much of the past and not enough the present, it would seem.

Published on September 10, 2007 at 12:00 pm