The notion of a hip-hop artist singing in a tuned-up voice was unprecedented, nonetheless paved the way for artists like Drake and Future to become musical institutions down the road, using a similar style of crooning rap. Though the likes of Daft Punk and Radiohead had spent the early 2000s veiling their performances in vocodorised, robotic vocals, 808s saw this technique as a medium to express human emotion in a haunting way, and crucially ushered it into R&B and pop music. “Welcome To Heartbreak” swells with submarine chords and marching 808 beats, all tied up with a fluttering piano lead that sounds graceful, a quality that is not just unusual for hip-hop, but to R&B too - Kanye was crafting a unique sound in a genre that he didn’t regularly associate with. In order to effectively channel his emotions, he abandoned rapping altogether, instead grabbing autotune - a contentious tool that had already been popularised in hip-hop by T-Pain and Lil Wayne - by both hands, and twisting it to create sublime but mechanised despair. Pile on a ended engagement with Alexis Phifer and swarming media scrutiny, and the result was a downward spiral for Yeezy.
However, it was also the year in which his mother, Donda West, passed away. He dethroned 50 Cent to become the biggest rapper in the world with the release of his synthesized third album, Graduation. 2007 was one of a pivotal year for Kanye West in a myriad of ways.
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