Kanye West’s 808’s And Hearbreaks is often written off as his one of the weaker projects but what is not considered is the amount of impact 808 had on the hip-hop scene.
808’s and Heartbreaks was a melancholic pop-rap album released in 2008 in which Kanye rapped about love and heartbreak. It was one of first type R&B rap albums and laid the foundation for a new wave of hip-hop artists iwho generally eschewed typical rap braggadocio for intimate subject matter and introspection.
In 2007, Kanye amazed everyone by outselling 50 Cent’s generic hood rap album, Curtis with his futuristic album, Graduationand essentially expanded the subject matter of hip-hop songs. This is exactly what 808’s did but on a much larger scale. It is one of the majot reasons we have famous R&B hip-hop artists like Drake, Frank Ocean, Childish Gambino and Kid Cudi.
Jake Paine of HipHopDX dubbed the album as “our Chronic”, noting West’s effect on hip hop with 808s & Heartbreak as “a sound, no different than the way Dr. Dre’s synthesizer challenged the boom-bap of the early ’90s.”
It is arguably the most influential we have ever had after the 2000’s. It was a experimental album, which was sucessful, Unlike Yeezus.