Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
I was 15 when My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy came out. 2010 was a year where a much younger looking Barack Obama still stood for hope in an America that I hadn’t taken the time to learn anything about yet. As a young white boy from the south of England I wasn’t savvy enough on social media yet to begin to see different ways of looking at life outside of my little Dorset bubble. My experiences with Hip-Hop were pretty much limited to whatever Eminem had put out (Recovery was huge at the time).
When I first hit play on the half an hour Runaway film (which has just turned 8 years old) I didn’t know what awaited me. What followed was a film which could be called a modern day ‘The Wall’ – it was beautiful, grand and something that I had no idea hip hop could be. Inspired by Picasso, The Louvre and Prog Rock as much as it is Wu Tang. The album inspired a host of upcoming hip hop artists who would go on to make some of the best hip hop of the decade (Kendrick Lamar) and inspired me to look outside of my own cultural landscape. It inspired me to listen to albums that would completely change my outlook on the world and would get me interested in politics including politics that wouldn’t directly affect me. All of this has made Kanye’s betrayal of supporting Trump even more heartbreaking due to the important impact he’s undoubtedly had on so many people like me around the world.
– Jack Keating
