808s and Heartbreak and Its Undeniable Influence Kanye West remains one of the most successful and influential rappers of all time, amassing a fanbase of hundreds of millions of people. But while Kanye has a boatload of success, he also has just as much, if not more, controversy. The root cause of his modern influence, personality, and controversy can be traced back to the 1980s and Heartbreak era of his music, which was Kanye’s fourth studio album released on November 24th, 2008. Other artists took heavy inspiration from Kanye’s work on 808s and Heartbreak and used it to create a whole new genre of hip-hop known as emo rap, while Kanye himself changed for the worse following the events that led to him creating the album and began down a dark path that would eventually …show more content…
His mother was the love and light of his life, every time he would write a new song or album, his mother would always be the first to support and help him, she even eventually began to manage his music. After holding it in, Kanye West confessed to all his wrongdoings and personal problems and confronted them head-on. What would originally seem like any other Kanye West album, became an emotional cry for help, “Kanye encapsulated his emotional pain and sorrow into the album by using robotic, minimalistic production and icy, auto-tuned vocals” (Genius). Using these new techniques and using the motivation of his mother’s death gave him a new sense of resurgence and now the world can understand him. This album marked the point in which Kanye West told the public that he had problems like everyone else. However, it also marked the point in which Kanye’s identity became a duality between being overly confident in himself for overcoming these problems and creating such an iconic and influential album, and still reliving what he once had, the love that he