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Kanye West’s discography is widely regarded as one of the best in hip-hop history. His career began with the college trilogy of The College Dropout, Late Registration, and Graduation in 2007. These albums sprung Kanye to the top of the rap game very early in his career. Tragedy then unfortunately struck in 2007 when Kanye’s beloved mother Donda West passed away from surgery complications. This changed Kanye and his music forever and his work took a much darker turn after the incident.

In 2008, West released 808s and Heartbreak, which detailed his pain and heartbreak from his previous experiences. The album got mixed reactions at its release but ended up aging very well commercially, with Kanye earning a VMA award in 2009 for his work. However, Kanye’s career would change forever when an intoxicated West interrupted an award speech from 16-year-old Taylor Swift and called out the committee for not choosing popular artist Beyonce instead of Swift for her music video on the hit “Single Ladies”. This move was mindless and West received heavy backlash following his actions. President Barack Obama even voiced his displeasure with West publicly. West also lost his tour with Lady Gaga and many promotional opportunities.  This level of hate and negativity sent West into a deep depression, which caused him to quit music and move to Hawaii and live on his own for months.

Ironically, these unfortunate events would lead to Kanye creating his best album, and possibly the best in hip-hop history with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, an album  that changed music forever. After 6 months living off the grid in Hawaii, Kanye decided to make music again. He invited all of his good friends to come down to Hawaii to create with him, referring to the process as “rap camp”. The star-studded group included Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Pusha T, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Kid Cudi and countless others, among them producers and artists known worldwide like as Mike Dean.

The amount of effort put into this album by West is most likely unmatched in the history of hip-hop, with $3 million spent on production, which made the album the most expensive of all time. These efforts certainly paid off with the album earning #1 on the billboard 200 list. In fact, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy remains on that chart 11 years after the release. The album sold 500k units in its first week of release and took the top spot in America.

The album has received heavy recognition for its beauty, earning the #1 spot on “Top 100 albums of the 2010s” by magazine Rolling Stone. It also won a 2011 Grammy for Album of the Year, the song “All of the Lights” from the album that features Kid Cudi and Rihanna also won 2011 Grammys for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Collaboration.

The album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a masterpiece from top to bottom. Kanye really captured the feeling of regret and shame from his previous action very well in this piece. Towards the end of the album, Kanye turns to more of darker type of music and production, which closes out the album with mystery and wonder of  what to expect next from Kanye.

Most people believe the album to be an apology from Kanye, which he later confirmed. This further proves the amount of passion and effort that West put into his work here. This album is widely considered as one of the all time greats. It also sprung Kanye into the GOAT discussion for the history of hip-hop and rightfully so. The influence on future artists this album had is unmatched and maybe the biggest contribution that this album had, influencing other great pieces of work from great artists for years to come.

This album was one of a kind and may never be seen again in rap history.