Kanye West released 808s and Heartbreak, his fourth studio album, on November 24, 2008. Kanye West’s heavy dependency on the Roland TR-808 drum machine and slow tempo throughout his 808s and Heartbreak album paved a path for hip-hop and male rap artists to move towards an aesthetic of sounding emotionally vulnerable with their music. The album was a watershed moment for rap as West’s somber and autotuned lyrics deconstructed the genre’s ideal masculine rapper-persona driven by bravado and exchanged him for a heartbroken, unguarded victim of emotional trauma.
This website will provide examples of how West accomplished this featuring snippets of key songs from the album, coupled with in-depth written analyses of their respective impacts. Also, embedded interviews and excerpts from articles will be included to provide pertinent background information on the contemporary rap world that attests to the impact that 808s and Heartbreak had on other artists such as Drake, Kid Cudi, and The Weeknd. Ultimately, the website will key in on four essential elements of 808s and Heartbreak that made it such a groundbreaking album in the rap universe: background information, instrumentation, album development, and artistic impact.