Music Review: Kanye West "Stronger"

Kanye West

Stronger

Album: Graduation

Year: 2007

                Kanye West has his sights set on getting the girl in the intelligent “Stronger.”

           
         The Daft Punk sample “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” opens the single, setting a determined  tone. In the chorus, he says he’s been rejected by plenty of women before. However, there is only one he wants right now. He’s been talking to her all night, trying to get her to go home with him. But to no avail.  (“Now that that don't kill me/Can only make me stronger/I need you to hurry up now/Cause I can't wait much longer/I know I got to be right now/Cause I can't get much wronger/Man I've been waiting all night now/That's how long I been on ya (I need you right now!”)
 
               She’s the ideal woman. They can do some role playing and she’ll can forget he is a rap superstar for a moment. He knows she will hear talk. He wonders out loud to her about the state of rap. He boasts that he still does. He does the promotional tours and participates in the interviews but he’d rather be an artist. (“Let's get lost tonight/You could be my black Kate Moss tonight/Play secretary, I'm the boss tonight/And you don't give a fuck what they all say, right?/Awesome, the Christian in Christian Dior/Damn, they don't make 'em like this anymore/I ask, cause I'm not sure/Do anybody make real shit anymore?/Bow in the presence of greatness/Cause right now thou hast forsaken us/You should be honored by my lateness/That I would even show up to this fake shit/So go ahead, go nuts, go apeshit/'Specially in my Pastel, on my Bape shit/Act like you can't tell who made this/New Gospel homie, take 6, and take this, haters.”)
 
               The chorus is sung again.
 
              He hasn’t learned much about her personal life. Is she single? Is she planning to go to another bar with some friends later? Will she stay in his life? She laughs his offer off, saying she has other things to do. Miffed, he says he can anyone like her. Tonight was supposed to be his perfect night and she ruined it for him. He needs someone hungry enough for fame. (“I don't know if you got a man or not/If you made plans or not/If God put me in ya plans or not/I'm tripping, this drink got me saying a lot/But I know that God put you in front of me/So how the hell could you front on me?/There's a thousand yous, there's only one of me/I'm tripping, I'm caught up in the moment, right?/Cause it's Louis Vuitton Don night/So we gon' do everything that Kan like/Heard they'd do anything for a Klondike/Well, I'd do anything for a blonde dyke/And she'll do anything for the limelight/And we'll do anything when the time's right/Uh, baby you're makin' it (Harder, better, faster, stronger)”
 
                 The  chorus is sung again.
 
                In the final section, he says he’s liked her for a long time.  She has to know how he feels. (“You know how long I've been on ya/Since Prince was on Apollonia/Since O.J. had Isotoners/Don't act like I never told ya.”)
                 
                  The  chorus is sung again to end the single.
 
                  The final section is sung twice to end the single.
              
       West is surprisingly humbled in his delivery. He turns the womanizing cliché on its head by him being turned down by her. It then in backs up his point about generic rap. However, the homophobic slur is uncalled for. He does get some great lines in, specifically the final section. The pop culture references serve their purpose, giving a sense of time.              
 
            The sampling of Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Stronger, Faster” is clipped into a firmer loop, taking the claustrophia out of the original. It is flat out a terrific beat and he is able to make it into his own confidence-building anthem.
 
                 The  fantastic “Stronger” brings out the best in West: love of fashion, skilled sampling, creativity in topic. It’s a side that unfortunately, is not seen often anymore.