I’m not making it easier for myself by constantly reviewing amazing albums – especially My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – but I’m okay with that. One of the many great things about music is that no matter how old an album is, it can still be appreciated as if it was just released. Unlike films and video games that rely heavily on CGI and advanced graphics, time has little to no negative impact on music.

Up until MBDTF, Yeezy had already given us The College Dropout, Late Registration, Graduation and 808s & Heartbreak. With a flavour for his creative and lyrical capabilities already demonstrated, MBDTF was next and it is one of the most amazing albums I have ever heard.

In 2009 – as we are all aware – Kanye went on stage at the VMA awards as Taylor Swift received an award for “Best Female Video”, and interrupted her saying that he thought Beyoncé’s video for “Single Ladies” was one of the best videos ever made – twice.

He received immense criticism for his actions and exiled himself for a period of time. MBDTF is the result of said exile, among other contributing factors such as his failing relationship with Amber Rose. Regardless of what people think of Kanye – and anyone else for that matter – the best works of art often occur when an artist is at their very lowest.

Setting the scene in “Dark Fantasy”, to discussing racial injustice in “Gorgeous”, to putting 5000 man-hours into “POWER”, to home and fame struggles in “All of the Lights”, to the highly controversial “Monster” with 4 lyrical beasts wrecking the mic, to the last-minute-opposite-of-appalling “So Appalled”, to the religiously and sexually intertwined “Devil in a New Dress”, to the evocatively beautiful “Runaway”, to the troubling “Hell of a Life”, to the entire double entendre that is “Blame Game”, to the poem that was addressed to Kim K used on “Lost in the World” because he had no lyrics for the beat, to concluding and addressing the haters and unreasonable critics on “Who Will Survive in America” – we were given a Masterpiece.

The album can only be described with the title it was duly given. It truly is a beautiful dark twisted fantasy. Combining all those elements, we get an insight into Kanye’s mind and ultimately a truthful account into the darkness that comes from his status, but that it is what it is and if someone doesn’t like it, it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t really care, it’s like that sometimes, I mean ridiculous.

Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, Pusha T, Raekwon, and Jay-Z all have some of their best verses on this album. Legendary producers such as Swizz Beatz working on one of my favourite songs (So Appalled) and exceptional artists such as Bon Iver, Justin Vernon and Teyana Taylor further add flamboyant colours to this dark project. 

I can’t express how it feels listening to this album 10 years after it was released and appreciating it on a different level. I banged out So Appalled when it first came out and it was – and still is – one of my favourite tracks of all time. It is a project that flows coherently, that changed rap in numerous ways and that won many awards and even went Platinum in Australia – a country with a population of only 22.5 million in 2010.

To conclude, MBDTF is one of the best rap albums to have ever been released. It is arguably Kanye’s best project and it marries the four themes of beauty, darkness, twistedness and fantasy like a just Muslim man with four wives. When people told me that they thought this album was one of the most complete projects they had been blessed with hearing, I didn’t believe them. Today, I believe them.

This is one of the most complete projects I have ever heard.

As a result, I score this album:

Favourite Tracks:

• Dark Fantasy
• Gorgeous
• All Of The Lights
• POWER
• Monster
• So Appalled
• Devil In A New Dress
• Runaway
• Lost In The World
• Who Will Survive In America

Least Favourite Track(s):

• Hell Of A Life

Favourite Bars:

Beyond the truest, hey, teacher, teacher

Tell me how do you respond to students?

And refresh the page and restart the memory?

Re-spark the soul and rebuild the energy?

We stopped the ignorance, we killed the enemies

Dark Fantasy

America was a bastard

The illegitimate daughter of the mother country

Whose legs were then spread around the world

And a rapist known as freedom; free-DOOM

Who Will Survive In America

I’m living in the future so the present is my past

My presence is a present, kiss my ass

Monster

Dark Knight feeling, die and be a hero

Or live long enough to see yourself become a villain

I went from the favourite to the most hated

But would you rather be underpaid or overrated?

So Appalled