The impact that 808s and Heartbreak has made on the hip-hop and rap communities cannot be understated. Before West’s groundbreaking fourth studio effort, rap was seen as something that very few people could relate to because much of the subject material centered on inner-city struggles, gangland violence, and drugs. Some of the icons from this era included Notorious B.I.G., Tupac, NWA, and the Wu-Tang Clan who embodied this “rough and tough” style focusing on their early life struggles and the decadent lifestyles following their eventual success (Pillai 2021).
Notorious B.I.G. (left) and Tupac Shakur (right)
Chang, Rachel. “How Biggie and Tupac Went From Friends to Music’s Biggest Rivals.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 22 Feb. 2021, https://www.biography.com/news/biggie-tupac-friends-rivals-east-coast-west-coast.
808s and Heartbreaks broke this mold by crafting an album that focused on things like loss, sadness, and insecurities. For example, the song “Heartless” was a masterfully crafted breakup song outlining the effects that a breakup can have on a man, leaving him feeling inadequate and vulnerable (Pillai 2021). This shift to a more expressive tone divided the hip-hop community, with the older generation and critics bashing the album and its new style while the younger generations applauded its reliability. Younger listeners welcomed how West tackled the difficult subjects that were oftentimes disregarded by other artists to maintain the image of the cutthroat bravado-driven persona that the contemporary rap industry desired.
Young fans begged for more of this new sound and they were answered almost immediately. In the years that followed, numerous rappers including Drake and Kid Cudi began implementing softer R&B tones, vulnerable lyrics, and aggressive 808 percussions in their repertoire. In fact, it was Kid Cudi who helped West create 808s and Heartbreak, which saw massive chart success.
Kid Cudi (left) and West (right)
Klinkenberg, Brendan. “Kanye West, Kid Cudi Release Joint Album ‘Kids See Ghosts’.” Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone, 25 June 2018, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/kanye-west-kid-cudi-release-joint-album-kids-see-ghosts-628870/.
Emotional expression and calmer rhythms quickly became the norm in the 2010s as songs such as “Take Care” by Drake and “Pursuit of Happiness” by Kid Cudi topped the charts as opposed to the old-school hard-hitting styles from the golden era (Devops 2011). Artists like Drake, Juice WRLD, Post Malone, and Trippie Redd are only a handful of the dozens of rap stars that attribute their sound to Kanye West, with many of them directly citing 808s and Heartbreak as the largest influence on their early rap careers (Genius 2018). 808s and Heartbreak single-handedly changed the course of modern hip-hop and R&B music and laid the groundwork for emotionally expressive rappers that have followed suit, further highlighting the monumental importance of West’s passion project.