It has been nearly 10 years since Kanye West dropped his debut album “The College Dropout.”

The album instantly climbed Billboard’s charts and his single “Jesus Walks” even broke the hip hop top 20 list.

He was rapping about social issues like religion’s role in music and the crime rates of his hometown of Chicago.

A decade later he still raps about those same issues yet his music sounds completely different than it did back then.

His upbeat melodies and smooth flow has been replaced by darker beats and edgier rhymes.

The reason? Fame.

His amount of popularity has earned him an infamous ego the size of Illinois.

West’s long awaited seventh solo album “Yeezus” was a disappointment to many people still hoping for the Kanye of old to come back.

The sad fact is that he is not that same person at this point in time.

That happy artist who got his start with “The College Dropout” and “Late Registration” has grown up, and the change can be seen in his music.

What made this receive such bad reviews is the very thing that made it great, it’s different.

It is not the usual smooth beats and soft sung choruses you hear on the radio.

It is loud and provocative and it is his sound.

“Yeezus” is an acquired sound.
I honestly was not so fond of the album my first listen through.

But once I stopped and listened to the lyrics and the message he was sending, my perspective changed.

He is rapping about social issues and his life that he’s transitioned from egocentric self-proclaimed musical genius to, well, all those things and the messiah of hip hop music.

Kanye is sending a message of something like, “I am going to say what I want to and I don’t care what you think because I am Kanye West.” And I respect him for it.

“Yeezus” is different.

There are tracks like “New Slaves” in which he talks about big corporations, record labels, the government and other elite groups that are taking advantage of Americans.

And he refuses to be sucked in.

He opposes the media’s representation of minorities in America, and uses his voice to call out those who use their higher status to oppress.

Then there is the egotistic song “I am a God.” He basically brags about how great he is, how much money he has and how many haters his success has brought him.

Within the rap he narrates a casual conversation he has had with his God, and then in the chorus he brags about how his fame has put him on the same level with God as he says, “I am a God, even though I’m a man of God.”

Besides the self centered base of the song, the beat comes from a dark place incorporating synthesized drums and random screams.

It is a low point in the album but it is respectable.

For anyone to be bold enough to make a song titled “I am a God” in today’s critical society, deserves props.

There is one track that still shows that Kanye is still the same person on the inside.

“Bound 2” sounds different from the others, like he wrote it 10 years ago back in his happier days.

In this song he acknowledges his past mistakes, when he says, “I know I got a bad reputation, walk around always mad reputation.”

He even references his stunt with Taylor Swift when he says “make a pretty girl sad reputation” later in the verse.

This song is the pride and joy of the album.

It is a representation of Kanye at his best and shows us that maybe the humble artist we came to enjoy may be still in there somewhere.

I like “Yeezus.”

The fact it is so different gives it an edge over other artists and makes me enjoy the fact that I am listening to something new.