Twisted Fantasy is an album that has achieved a task that was seemingly impossible: presenting the un-presentable. From the vast amount of positive reviews, it would appear that this album is truly one that serves as an important cultural marker and a pivotal moment for music. This album also received a full five-star review from Rolling Stone and a 9/10 in Spin Magazine.

They also claimed that it is “a blast of surreal pop excess that few artists are capable of creating, or even willing to attempt” (Dombal). Pitchfork Media rewarded this album with a full 10.0, marking the first album to receive such a review since Wilco’s 2001 release of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. This album saw an immediate response from critics delivering praise. But disappearance and retirement was not the fate of Kanye, as he returned in 2010 with a Twitter, as 35 minute music video/short film and a new album: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Following the ceremony he canceled a headlining tour featuring pop sensation Lady Gaga. In contrast, one figure that seems to always draw controversy is rapper Kanye West, a masterful sampler and musical genius.Īfter the events of the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, it seemed as if music would lose Kanye West, that he was going into a permanent retirement. In this way, the sample serves to broaden the musical experience and is not unlike literary allusions or re-presentations, which do not seem to cause controversy. The use of sampling was not new, revolutionary, subversive, or artistically criminal to music, but rather opens up the possibility of obtaining an infinite amount of interpretations and meanings from a particular piece. Some claimed that this was a form of musical theft or copyright infringement. This release, though very well received, drew much attention from music purists and traditionalists who claimed that the use of the sample was too unoriginal, unskillful, or tasteless. In 1990, a rapper named Vanilla Ice released his monstrous single “Ice, Ice, Baby” which heavily featured a sample from “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie. More so than an artist, I am a real person and real people grow so I’m going to sing my growth.”-Kanye West

“So few hip hop artists have ever advanced, their songs on their 7th, 8th album sound exactly like the songs on their first album. In Defense of The Sample: Intertextuality in Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

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