To its detractors, 808s & Heartbreak was a novelty record which overused a tired modern rap cliché, but to the hip hop community, fresh life had been piped into an ailing scene. Hip hop has never been the most pensive of genres, with its stars usually trapped in a spiral of self-aggrandizing and bravado, so when West revealed an aching heart on his art-pop masterpiece, it broke the shackles of generations of one-upmanship. That’s not to say that Drake the rapper never would have happened, but would rap fans have been ready for something so damned introspective?
You see, without the crucial groundwork of Kanye West and his truly game-changing 8 08s & Heartbreak, this record and its predecessor would have never been possible. The Canadian actor-cum-rapper was right too, partly the rap game did indeed need change, but rather than providing its focus, Drizzy came up mid-shift and acted as a weighty re-enforcement. “The game needs change and I’m the motherfucking cashier,” Drake (born Aubrey Graham) exclaimed on last year’s breakthrough mixtape So Far Gone. Available on: Young Money Entertainment / Universal CD
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