I’ll admit it—I’m a nerd, and only recently have I embraced that label. I completely agree with Donald Glover’s description of the experience of being a nerd, and being black, during Steve Urkel and Carlton Banks’ heyday. He talks about how things have improved for us black nerds over the last few years since at least a couple of our current exemplars—Barack Obama and Kanye West—are considered cool, in part, because of their nerdiness. Kanye is a black nerd because he likes strange specific stuff (robots and teddy bears)—the definition of nerdiness according to Donald Glover. I like that definition. It’s all about context and expectations. If your passions and interests don’t correspond with convention, then you’re probably a nerd. When his white friends in high school expect him to know all about sneakers and rap, Glover feels stifled. He’d rather talk about The Cranberries. Similarly, I’d rather talk about The Knife and David Lynch. Strange specific stuff.
I see 808s and Heartbreak (808s) as the unfiltered manifestation of Kanye West’s inner nerd: his sort of corny, heartbroken, grieving inner nerd, and therein lies its appeal to me. One reason why 808s interests me so much is because most of the material is mined from Kanye’s tragic experiences in the world, yet it feels universal. I can empathize with the album’s emotional undercurrent of love, loss, pride, and grief. The tracks Welcome to Heartbreak, Paranoid, Street Lights, and Coldest Winter are what make 808s especially memorable for me. Street Lights’ chorus in particular strikes me not just because of its content, but also its delivery. The catchy drum beat and backing soulful vocals both complement Kanye’s robotic tone and give the song a sense of urgency. “All the streetlights glowing/Happened to be just like moments/Passing in front of me.”
It’s clear from his body of work that Kanye has a thing for using lights (All Of The Lights, Flashing Lights, Street Lights) to help create his lyrical imagery. At first, “Lights” brings a few images to mind: the glow of fame, hip hop ballerdom in general, and omnipresent paparazzi. However, in the case of Street Lights, I picture driving alone at night and seeing the passing glint of street lights as I speed by, perhaps not considering my surroundings in the moment, but reflecting in the aftermath and eventually regretting that I didn’t appreciate that part of my journey as it unfolded. This is the point where the album gels together for me. I don’t know what it’s like to deal with the flashing lights, but I get the down-to-earth personal pathos underlying 808s’ lyrics and feel.
The offbeat technical parts of the album (Auto-Tune, singing instead of rapping, absence of traditional hip hop sound effects, etc.), combined with Kanye’s obsession with publicly unpacking his personal baggage are strange (nerdy) given what the vast majority of his hip hop contemporaries were putting out at the time. Another highlight for me is “Coldest Winter” when Kanye samples the Tears For Fears song “Memories Fade”. The vocals on “Coldest Winter” are just as hammy and melodramatic as on “Memories Fade.” To me, Kanye seems particularly moved by Memories Fade’s chorus, “Goodbye my friend. Will I ever love again?” because he repeats the question over and over then answers it with a statement, “I won’t ever love again,” followed by a gorgeous synth hook refrain. I can almost picture Kanye humming that hook to himself while walking Charlie Brown style with his head down missing his mom and brooding over his failed relationship. Or maybe I’m just projecting…
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