By shelz.

Kanye West has managed to wheedle his way into the pop culture consciousness better than most artists before him.  We feign disappointment with his outbursts and disdain for his over the top hubris, but we hang on every word.  He’s the catalyst of water cooler conversation, whether you appreciate what he does as an artist or not, and we miss him when he’s ghost. He’s not right now of course. 2010 has seen his presence blossom into all day, all night, all Kanye everything.

In the past 30 hours Kanye has released “Don’t Look Down” and “Dark Fantasy.” His film Runaway was premiered on his blog, a rough version of a song allegedly written for Taylor Swift started floating around the net and #askkanye is the top trending topic on Twitter. It’s a total immersion process that has slowly drawn even non-fans into Team Yeezy.

So for everyone who needs their Kanye fix and want to get it all in one post, Planet Ill has your back.  First up is “Dark Fantasy.”

Dark_Fantasy_(Produced_by_The_RZA,_Co-Prod_by_No_I.D._&_Kanye)

The track is a combo production job from RZA, No I.D. and Kanye with the RZA contribution setting the tone.  The stuttering thump plays foundation for the sliding string loop and some floating, hazy piano tinkering.  The chorus brings in a more straightforward piano chord and some layered vocals.  “Dark Fantasy” changes slowly throughout; taking on subdued elements like the embedded humming on the 2^nd verse or the orchestral strings on the bridge.  Well done. The hook is a bit boring, but you can’t have everything.

Kanye’s lyrics don’t really evoke anything dark or fantastic.  He covers his once budding fascination with conspicuous consumption and it’s break out into reality once he had the dough to feed it.  There are self big ups about how awesome he is lyrically. “I’m just a Chi-Town n*gga with a Nas flow.”  Sure Kanye.  Sure.

We get some sex talk and a trip down the road to his alcoholism, but mainly some cute, unrelated word play and some interesting metaphors. “So much head I woke up in Sleepy Hollow.”  Granted, the Sleepy Hollow horseman was headless, but an interesting flip nonetheless.  Without the huge cast of rapping characters, this song is less theatrical than what we started to expect from Kanye, but the change of pace nice.  Every song can’t be a seven minute, 20-person Hip-Hop hootenanny.

Next up is “Never See Me Again.” I don’t know if this is stream of consciousness freestyle or just taking it from the pad to the mic to see what’s up, but it sounds like he captured this with a tape recorder.  The track has a retro R&B feel, almost gospel.  It seems to just loop around and around instead of growing but after 7 minutes I couldn’t take it anymore.  If the last two minutes provide something mind blowing I lost.

Never_See_Me_Again_(No_Tags)

The point is simple.  You want me to grovel incessantly over my mistakes, but it’s not going to happen.  Yes, I’ve made some mistakes, but so have you. Stop worrying about me and my bottle and worry about what’s relevant to you.  I’m dope and I’m out. “Never See Me Again” probably will find no place in Kanye’s catalogue since he hasn’t ever been gone long enough for it to make sense. However, it’s interesting to see how he takes to the studio to work out his personal issues.

Last, but not least is Runaway, the short film that Kanye has been going on about for the last few months.  I can’t explain it, so a simple intro will have to suffice.  Here you go. Enjoy.

[pro-player width=’425′ height=’344′ type=’video’]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7W0DMAx8FY&feature=player_embedded[/pro-player]

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