But most of all, in 2008, it seemed impossible for a Canadian who sings love songs to run the rap game. In 2008, it was very hard to find minimal, back-to-basics production amid all of the state-of-the-art Swizz Beatz, DJ Toomp and Drumma Boy beats that were in demand.

In 2008, singing and/or rapping about your deepest emotions was not a commercially viable strategy for selling records.

In 2008, auto-tune was still the stuff of T-Pain and 'Lollipop'-era Lil Wayne, a technology most rappers wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. We're not here to debate the merits (or lack thereof) of 808s & Heartbreak, but rather the sea change its arrival heralded. Most critics and fans wrote off the album as an emotional low-point between two better albums ( Graduation and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy), but nearly six years after its release, 808s & Heartbreak's greatest triumph has been its reverberations around the hip-hop and R&B landscape.Ī piece of art doesn't have to be 'great' to inspire many others of its kind. And why should it be? It sticks out like a sore thumb in West's discography, the lone, alien outlier among certifiable hip-hop masterpieces. Though fans regularly butt heads about the 'best' Kanye album, 808s & Heartbreak is rarely (if ever) included in the equation. West's musical output has always been a pretty good gauge of where hip-hop is headed, whether it be his early mantra of having a 'Benz and a backpack' or his drill-invigorating remix of Chief Keef's 'I Don't Like.' But in a career filled with moments of trendsetting and breaking the mold, one era and album stand out as far more influential and forward-thinking than anything West's ever done.

Starting with him and Just Blaze making 'chipmunk soul' a hot sound in Roc-A-Fella's prime, Mr. In 2014, it's no secret that where Kanye West goes, the rest of hip-hop follows. 2008's '808s & Heartbreak' is certainly far from Kanye West's best-loved album, but it may have had a more widespread effect on hip-hop as a whole than any of his 'classic' albums.

808s and heartbreak meaning