When the ball dropped for 2016 we all got a SUPER SUBPAR track from Kanye West called “Facts”. For the first time that I personally remember, Kanye West hopped on a wave instead of creating it. It was kind discouraging and disappointing to keep it respectful.

During the first week of the new year, we also got a chance to see Kanye audition for American Idol and perform one of his dope “Golddigger” verses and he also had a couple more song snippets release with Real Friends featuring Ty Dolla Sign and No More Parties In L.A featuring Kendrick Lamar. From the Sound of those it sounds like songs from the Graduation period and 808’s period minus the autotune. In retrospect, this is the Kanye everybody wants to hear, or so they say. Many are speculating how “EH” the new Kanye album will be, especially when a seeming majority hated the Yeezus album.

When I take time to really think about every Kanye album that dropped, there’s always a certain level of doubt or even hate, but there’s always a casual “I’m Sorry” in the end.

College Dropout may be called classic now, but when Consequence and Rhymefest were noted as being writers on the album, people doubted Kanye’s true rhyming and hit-making ability. Add that to people “not wanting to hear about not going to school  for a whole album” and deeming Kanye as “soft” you would think a Sophomore jinx was inevitable.

Late Registration I feel is an undeniable classic, but this was the “Everybody hates Kanye the person” album. [Yeah I know, Deja Vu] His George Bush comments, his decision to roll with Jay and not Dame and him for the 2nd time saying that “his album is classic and deserves perfect scores or you media outlet isn’t credible”, all made everyone seemed to love to hate Kanye, but you couldn’t deny the music got much better after you heard it.

Graduation Kanye gave us about a 2 year break and came back with new bars, new sounds and quite a few hit records. He shifted his perception a tad, gave Common a great mainstream media boost the year before and for the first time, even the hood couldn’t act like they didn’t mess with Kanye. Beating the other rap villain by the name of 50 Cent helped his public perception a great deal as well. The fear of “Kanye going pop” was whispered when this album dropped. Not sure how, but it was.

808’s and Heartbreak Kanye: Kanye’s mom unfortunately passes away, he’s working with this Ohio cat named Kid Cudi and Amber Rose is his girl. In 2016, people will say this is possibly the best Kanye album in his discography, when it dropped, it was “Nobody wants to hear this depressed ish” and “Man Kanye lost me on this one”.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Kanye played it real smart. He did take a little more time off and in that time found Big Sean, Cyhi Da Prince and got close musically with Pusha T. Since he was getting judged for wanting to love Kim K and honestly musically had nothing to prove, he decided “I’ll work with everybody, even before they become somebody” I’ll also start G.O.O.D Fridays and basically gave us the whole album that when all packaged together, people again deemed it classic and go back and forth with this album and 808’s being the best of his work. Before this album dropped people swore “his relationship with a hoe was going to ruin his music”. However the relationship with his now wife, did anything but that.

Watch The Throne Kanye just did that cause he could and in hindsight it was possibly more about the Frank Ocean push and the twilight of Jay-Z the emcee.

Cruel Summer Kanye was all about G.O.O.D Music being the strongest team in the game, minus that Kid Cudi song.

Yeezus Kanye got nothing but slander. Yeah, it was definitely a different and less soulful Kanye, but I personally admired the shock to the system that it was. Everyone swore this album was so trash. Kanye was “the ni**a that lost it” “He’s got a God complex” “Kanye thinks he’s better than us”

Time goes by, then people admitted they liked Bound 2. Then liked Blood On The Leaves [Shout to the sample]. Then Black Skinhead makes car, movie and award show commercials. Then everybody started pointing out the slaves of today, then they called Pusha T’s album the best of that year, now Travis Scott is “next”. The irony of it all is crazy.

SWISH is set to come out in about 30 Days and I want and expect push the envelope Kanye. The guy the sets the trend and sets up the platform for the next big thing. I don’t want Kanye to go back to any of his previous albums sounds or ideology. I think that would take away from his true musical legacy.

Sure people hate Kanye “because he hates Papparazzi” “he’s a member of the Kardashian clan” “he spoke out of true knowledge about Beck” and “that satire site said he said Pac was overrated” [See what I did there] but in reality, Kanye is the embodiment of the creative person, the do before I think person and the “I just do things differently” person. Truthfully, for the past 12 years, Kanye has done anything but let us down when an album drops; And with the world seemingly hating him now more than ever, he may have the biggest year in music that this current generation has ever seen.