Some fan favourites arising from the Good Friday drops include, ‘Christian Dior Denim Flow’, ‘Monster’ and ‘Devil in a New Dress’. Despite this, so much music was being made in the recording sessions that Kanye decided to be charitable, launching the ‘Good Friday Series’ a compilation of 14 songs, steadily building hype in the lead up to the MBDTF’s release. The relentless focus on perfection pursued meant that each song on the album took significant time to produce - the track ‘Power’ alone taking more than 5000 hours.
A mood designed to instil a work ethic that per Wu Tang’s RZA, was at the time almost unheard of in the production of Hip-Hop. In an interview with Sway in the Morning, Chris Rock recounted his experience: “He had his whole crew wearing suits … he set up a mood”. On January 1 2010, Kanye began his work, gathering a team of artists and sound engineers who would live and breath the album for its duration, developing a rigid routine and strict set of rules which included the now iconic ‘No tweeting please’, ‘No negative blog viewing’ and ‘No lacking focus whilst music is being played or being made’ set of rules. The Chicago native headed to the island of O’ahu, Hawaii, booking the famous Avex Studio for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, indefinitely. Having returned to the US from his self imposed exile, freshly inspired to make new music. To redeem his public image, he would need to produce a musical masterpiece - and he did just that, releasing his magnum opus, ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ just under a year later to widespread critical acclaim.
This time though, if West was going to make music he would be facing higher stakes than ever. Whilst claiming he was done with music, finding other mediums far more interesting to work in, West later revealed to Complex that he had been conceptualising music that would have melodies like those in ‘808s and heartbreak’, mixed with the raw drums of Mobb Deep. He then relocated to Italy, becoming an intern for Fendi - chasing a newfound interest in fashion design. It seemed the backlash was something only time could heal and so on the advice of fellow rapper Yasiin Bey (AKA Mos Def), Ye decided to take a hiatus from the public eye, moving to Japan far away from the glitz of the celebrity lifestyle and flashing lights of paparazzi. Criticism of the artist and his actions that night soon started to fly and in the eyes of the public to the president, West had turned from hero to villain.
In seconds, all respect he’d worked so hard for years to build was gone. Upon the announcement of Tayler Swift as the winner of the ‘Best Female Music Video’ award, Ye drunkenly stormed the stage, grabbing the mic out of Swift’s hand, and proceed with “ima let you finish” before proclaiming Beyonce’s ‘Ladies (put a ring on it)’ to be one of the “best videos of all time.” This was until his now infamous outburst at the 2009 MTV awards. The iTunes version currently sports the original version, as if the cultural war with Walmart (WMT) never happened.After the release of the hugely influential ‘808s & Heartbreak’ in 2008, it felt like Kanye was on top of the world - perceived to be at the height of his stardom with nothing left to prove. For instance, The Black Crowes' hit 1994 album Amorica raised a stink by showing a bikini bottom with some errant pubic hair sticking out - to the point where the band had to release an alternative cover with the hirsute region blacked out. The issue here isn't the cover itself, but what Apple hasn't done with other controversial album covers.
KANYE WEST MY BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED FANTASY ORIGINAL COVER DOWNLOAD
Regardless, when I looked on the iTunes store pre-order section, I noticed that Apple decided to blur out the image, so customers will presumably only get a heavily pixellated version of the cover when they download it Nov. It is crude and more than a little silly. The censored album art shows Apple is sliding into yet another dangerous arena of judgment.ĭesigned by critically-acclaimed artist George Condo, the cover features a cartoon West being ridden by a wingless, semi-nude phoenix. Controversial rapper Kanye West is being muzzled again, this time by Apple (APPL) over the semi-nude cover to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.