TITLE • GRADUATION

An album that sparked me to begin music would have to be Kanye West’s Graduation. Believe it or not, this album was my official introduction into Hip Hop. This album was so creative from the choice of samples, to the flows, the cover art, the music videos and the way everything was structured and put together. Me being a very heavy Motown listener growing up, the sounds were something that I attached to very easily when listening to this album. Hearing songs like “Homecoming,” the story telling from him growing up in Chicago and what the city means to him, made me want to start telling stories about what I was going through or how I saw a lot of things.

This album is also important to me because the very first thing to catch my eye was the cover. With my first love being visual art that’s something that is always important to me when you put together a body of work and that was very special when I saw it and the music matched. This album is still important to me until this day because I still follow the structure from it. I make sure the music that I make has a purpose, the music is cohesive, and it makes sense as a whole. The project then comes together once you have an image that can capture what it sounds like. So, if it’s any album I could have to set the spark for me making music, I’m glad it was Graduation.