Love Lockdown

If you're any sort of Kanye fan, I'm sure you've heard about the release of Love Lockdown, which is available for streaming on Kanye's blog. If you haven't heard it, I will warn you that it's not quite what you would expect from him. It does, however, become extremely catchy after one or two listens. The heartbeat drum pattern in the back is genius, and that chorus gets stuck in your head like whoa.

More importantly, that album is not going to be called Good Ass Job, as Kanye has previously stated, continuing his trend of titling albums after his rise to fame as a metaphor for a normal life. It's reported to be called 808s & Heartbreak. Other than the fact that the title is awesome, consider this: have you ever heard a hip-hop breakup album? That's because they do not exist. Being emotional is generally viewed as weak by hip-hop artists, and in turn, hip-hop listeners. Kanye's taking a huge chance here if he releases an album all about his struggle with the end of his recent relationship. Forgive me for sounding fifty years old, but here are all these rappers yammering on about violence and sex and how tough they are, and here comes Kanye, crying into his cereal bowl and burning all her photos and throwing her clothes out the window, and you know he's going to completely blow them out of the water. He always does, which is why his "I'm better than you" persona works so well for him, and also why I buy everything he does.

I mean, imagine if Kanye came out with Tidal for the gangster set, and it sold three million copies? It would completely blow the industry wide open, because it destroys every established hip-hop convention there is. I mean yeah, LL Cool J came out with "I Need Love" and everything, but no one's ever really done this. It's been Apple Bottom jeans and boots with the fur for years now. It's all become eye-rollingly predictable, and this is exactly what needs to happen.