808s and Heartbreak is the fourth studio Album by Kanye West. It is widely considered to be his most influential album and one of the most influential albums in Hip Hop’s history because of its revolutionary electronic production, use of autotune, and new idea of singing or rapping about your feelings and problems in Hip Hop. So lets delve into why he made this record, how he made the record, and how it had that extreme influence on this genre.

808s and Heartbreak dropped on November 24, 2008. It sold 450,000 copies its first week, but was not very well received at the time because of how different it was compared to his past three albums. Anthony Fantano, the host of the music review channel “The Needle Drop” on YouTube  said “people assumed that this was Kanye’s complete departure from hip hop that everyone’s assumptions that they were pulling out of what Kanye was doing on Graduation had been confirmed”

Tough Times

Kanye West made 808s and Heartbreak because he was going through a very hard point in his life. This hard portion of his life came from two main reasons: His mother, Donda, passing away who Anthony Fantano claims was the reason Kanye made 808s “during a time when he was going through a lot of personal turmoil due to losing the most important person in his life: his mother.” 

The other main reason is, according to Rolling Stone, a newspaper famous for their coverage of music, was that “his engagement broke up” with his then-fiance, Alexis Phifer. The music really reflected the struggles and sadness he had at the time because of these events. These events resulted in Kanye making 808s and Heartbreak instead of his planned fourth album “Good Ass Job” (which eventually evolved into his 5th album- “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”). 

New Ideas

Kanye West made 808s and Heartbreak using three main experimental tools: Autotune, Electronic Production, and the Roland TR-808 Drum Machine. He used “hyper emotional and autotune balladry” as stated by Anthony Fantano and revolutionized autotune in Hip Hop. Autotune was originally meant to be used to make all songs perfectly in tune, but later artists like Kanye West used it to intentionally distort vocals.

Kanye also used electronic production as stated by Rolling Stone, saying he used “digital processing; beds of spare synths used to balance a mix of singing and rapping.” this gave the album a futuristic and very different feel than anything ever before it. 

And finally, what the album is named after, the Roland TR-808 Drum Machine. Kanye was one the first to use the 808 machine the way that he did, and according to Ethan Scholzen, a devoted Kanye listener, “Everybody at the time thought that that 808 machine was terrible, and that there was no point to it. But Kanye heard it, and he made an entire album off of it because he liked it so much.” People thought the machine was bad because of its bizarre and artificial sound, which sounded nothing like real drums. Kanye was so innovative with tools nobody else thought were worth using, and saw things in them that others just did not.

Influence

Kanye influenced many artists and in a sense created the modern hip hop we see today. Anthony Fantano agrees with this, saying “some of 808s most pivotal tracks I think still serve as a blueprint today for a lot of the very tuneful trap that’s climbing the charts right now, even if the artists making it aren’t fully aware of that.” A track like “Heartless” is so influential because of his emotional vulnerability, and a track like “Love Lockdown” is so influential because of the way it blends the Hip Hop, Pop, and Electronic genres into one.

Some of the most significant artists he influenced include Drake who, according to Rolling Stone, “cited West as his budding sound’s “most influential person”” as well as “artists like Future [who] further tweaked the idea of using Auto-Tune as a way to convey emotions that evoke too much feeling when spoken of explicitly.” also from Rolling Stone. 

In addition to Drake and Future, this project has also influenced the likes of Travis Scott, The Weeknd, Young Thug, Lil Uzi Vert, Juice WRLD, Playboi Carti, Frank Ocean, Tyler the Creator, and Kid Cudi, who was also a significant contributor to the album itself. All these extremely prominent artists in the modern R&B and Hip Hop scene, especially the emotional trap subgenre that this album created, were all influenced at least in large part by just this one, 51 minute Kanye West album.

Importance

In Conclusion, I and many others believe that Kanye West’s “808s and Heartbreak” is one of the if not the most influential album for modern hip hop. I believe that so much with current music would be very different right now had this album never been released. I also believe that it introduced making music about your feelings and using autotune and 808 drums into the mainstream. And not only is it extremely influential, it’s one of the best listens in Hip Hop, and is certainly worth your time to listen to if you have not already.