“Scott Storch was down the street having a party and so ‘Ye and I decided to go and check it out,” Esthero said. Esthero, the Canadian singer-songwriter who voiced Jane the spaceship on The Glow In the Dark Tour, remembers the Chicago artist telling her his plans for his next career move after the L.A. “The main things that triggered the idea of 808s was when we were doing the Glow in the Dark tour, and there was the ‘Good Life’ part of the show, and he said, ‘I want to do the T-Pain part in the show.’ So we put the Auto-Tune on so he could do it live, and when he had that, it was like Christmas, you know? Because now all of a sudden he could play an instrument.”īy April of the tour’s first month, Kanye had solidified the idea for his singing album, his first departure from rap. Photo: Marty Melville/Getty Images Marty Melville/Getty Images Kanye West performs during his “Glow In The Dark Tour” on Decemin Wellington, New Zealand. Jeff Bhasker - a keyboardist and producer who was part of West’s live band and would end up producing and writing on nearly half of the album - witnessed the project taking shape as West began trying new things in his performances. The space opera via stadium tour found West experimenting more live, especially with his singing voice.
The genesis of 808s & Heartbreak began on 2008’s The Glow In the Dark Tour. You gotta go through the process and heal. He wanted to get the project out, but some people were like, ‘Give Kanye time to heal.’ I’m like ‘Nah, man.’ You gotta heal through it. “And yeah he went deep inside himself and addressed those utterly dark, sick emotions that exist, the doubts, the fears, which makes for obviously a great tale. So him trying to go inside himself is difficult, because he could easily write from a place of stardom, of fame, of the industry.” Yusef said. “Him fighting his fear, fighting depression, kind of for real, for real thrown into the public eye. “That was the first time that we knew exactly where he was emotionally.” -Tony Williams The achievements of 2007’s Graduation - beating 50 Cent in a highly publicized first-week sales battle, selling 957,000 copies in the first week, the crossover success of “Stronger” and “Good Life” - turned West into what Yusef describes as “not just rap fame, superstardom.” Malik Yusef, one of Kanye’s oldest writing partners, remembers an inflection point between the tragedy of West’s personal life and his ascension to a new level of fame. “A lot of it was not ever voiced verbally to us in those situations.” “I think because he doesn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve a lot of time that a lot of us that are very close to him in his inner circle, that was the first time that we knew exactly where he was emotionally,” Tony Williams, Kanye’s cousin and frequent collaborator said. Its creation was a long-winding and often rushed road, according to the seven artists who spoke to Rolling Stone about its inception. 808s’ influence, though, was never guaranteed. The precise, synthetic and attractive bass quirks of the Roland TR-808 became the heartbeat that fueled heartbreak. The untrained voices and unsung melodies of countless artists - mostly men and women of color - were let loose upon the world to rewrite the foundations of pop. The warbled and robotic voice once meant to denote distance and detachment has now been warmed over. Somehow, the Chicago artist’s most experimental and idiosyncratic work became his most seminal. Kanye West’s fourth studio album raised an entire generation: wide-eyed child actors, hardened Atlanta drug dealers, elusive bedroom producers. Its influence never really ceased reverberating, and its imprint still appears with some frequency across hip-hop (and pop music writ large). Ten years after its release, 808s & Heartbreak is an absolute. “It flowed the most effortlessly because we basically did it in three weeks.” 808s & Heartbreak was their first collaboration, and likely the most memorable. “It was probably the easiest Kanye West record that ever got made,” he said. The producer and songwriter Jeff Bhasker has worked on four albums with Kanye West.
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