#RAP GEMIUS COMMON FINDING FOREVER FULL#

Dilla mightвЂ™ve never done anything as obvious as those two samples, but both of those tracks are fluid and ethereal, and Kanye and Common do moving things with them mostly because they donвЂ™t interfere much with their source-material. I love the way the vocal samples and weird elevator-music keyboards cascade over muted drums on вЂњThe People.вЂќ Lily AllenвЂ™s voice floats beautifully through the staccato keyboards on вЂњDrivinвЂ™ Me Wild.вЂќ I love the nakedly populist dentistsвЂ™-office one-two punch of the instantly recognizable Nina Simone and Paul Simon samples on the last two songs.

#RAP GEMIUS COMMON FINDING FOREVER FULL#

More often than not, the final effect is really full and pretty. Kanye takes those same sounds and makes them sound like theyвЂ™re suspended in amber, hovering inert above drum-shuffles and airy synths. Dilla took snatches of noise from old jazz and soul records and refashioned them into a sort of diffuse psychedelic boom-bap, layering them up in all sorts of disorienting ways. fucking sucks.) Kanye might not be able to recreate DillaвЂ™s thick, heavy bass, but that doesnвЂ™t end up making his work on this album any less weirdly powerful.

(LetвЂ™s set aside for now the indisputable fact that A.I. A.I., after all, turned out nothing like an actual Kubrick movie, but it wasnвЂ™t that much like most Spielberg movies either. But thatвЂ™s sort of whatвЂ™s interesting about Finding Forever in trying to find common-ground with a dead master, KanyeвЂ™s figured out some new corners and eddies in his own sound. Most of the negative reviews for Finding Forever correctly note that Kanye basically comes nowhere near meeting his goal. was Steven SpielbergвЂ™s attempt to make a Stanley Kubrick movie. Kanye West has been saying in interviews for a while that his production for Finding Forever is an attempt to recreate J.

LetвЂ™s Get It is a much better album than Finding Forever, just like Resurrection is, but I still like it way more than I expected to. LetвЂ™s Get It went for overblown gothic melodrama just like Finding Forever goes for soothing soft-pop languor, and lyrics are almost irrelevant to the success of both. In a weird way, Finding Forever reminds me of Young JeezyвЂ™s LetвЂ™s Get It: Thug Motivation 101 because of the way both albums so single-mindedly pursue a certain aesthetic. The album is all surface, and I mean that as a compliment. But I like him on Finding Forever, and I like him because of the way he disappears into the music. Resurrection might be a great album, but Common even sort of pisses me off there, if only because his intonation has this unbearable smugness, like everything he says is this divine jewel of knowledge that heвЂ™s deigning to bestow upon us. Speaking as someone who sort of hated Be, with all its tweeting flutes and somnambulant drums and flat righteousness, I had pretty much no expectations for Finding Forever.

But hereвЂ™s the thing: I sort of like the way the album fades into the background. ThereвЂ™s no urgency in his delivery, and combined with all the pillowy Fender Rhodes noodling in the beats, the album fades right into the background. As plenty have already pointed out, CommonвЂ™s pop-culture references have somehow become so boring and mainstream that they distract: the first verse of вЂњI Want YouвЂќ is a really evocative meditation on the physical sensation of absence that comes with a breakup, but then he gets to that вЂњitвЂ™s kinda like The Breakup with Jen and Vince VaughnвЂќ clanger and everything goes to hell immediately. Virtually every song falls into one of three cliched conscious-rap subjects: the vague and nebulous for-the-people non-statement, insight-free world-gone-wrong cautionary tale, and the sickly and pandering loverman song. ThereвЂ™s certainly plenty to dislike about Finding Forever.

Rap gemius common finding forever