Kanye & Modern Art

Kanye West’s latest album, The Life of Pablo, is very different from his other work. Many critics called it messy and blatantly imperfect but at the same time applauded him for telling such an authentic story. The reason why the album gets such conflicting and complicated reviews is because it’s not the typical hip-hop mixtape. Instead, The Life of Pablo is a piece of modern art.

Most people can appreciate classical art but have trouble understanding modern art. This is because modern art is much more experimental and less established. Modern art is all about pushing the boundaries of what constitutes artistic expression. Take painting for example. We’re all familiar with classical paintings. These paintings depict a scene using familiar objects and, when we see the scene, it elicits a response from us. Whether the scene is dramatic or tranquil, it makes us feel something. Well abstract paintings attempt to take this one step further. They still try to make the viewer feel an emotional response but they try to elicit it through color and shape alone. Instead of a defined and familiar object, they use amorphous splatters of color. What’s remarkable is that, when done right, they manage to capture an emotion without using any preconceived symbols or ideas.

Kanye was acting just like an abstract painter when he produced The Life of Pablo. He already proved that he could create highly polished and thought-provoking music with his earlier albums like My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy so he decided to try and push the medium of hip-hop as far as possible. In doing so, he explored questions like where is the distinction between music and noise? When does a song become unintelligible? How far can a song be deconstructed and pieced back together? These are the kinds of questions that push both hip-hop and music in general forward. Unfortunately they are also the kinds of questions that do not have concrete answers.

And that is why The Life of Pablo is such an unusual and oddly reviewed album. Kanye, by experimenting with music the way an abstract painter does with acrylics, created a piece of art that challenges what we think of music. In some songs, like Famous, he toes the line between music and noise perfectly. These songs really resonate with people and still manage to make us feel something despite their more unconventional and abstract nature. But not every song is like this. I’d even say that his best songs still have moments where they push too far into the realm of noise. But that’s to be expected with art that is pushing a medium into the unknown.

And that's why his next album should be quite interesting. The Life of Pablo was only Kanye’s first attempt at a more experimental artistic expression yet a lot of it really resonated with people. I expect his next attempt will only build upon that as he further hones his craft. Either way, Kanye is progressing modern art and making it more accessible than ever before.