10 Albums Where Hip Hop Got Real

Towards the end of the '00s, Kanye West didn't really have that much to complain about. After turning in Graduation, Ye had become one of the biggest artists of his generation, completely demolishing the bling era of rap and making a space age-sounding experience on his last record, creating soundscapes without ever claiming to be a gangsta behind that pink polo shirt. Just as he was riding high though, everything crashed in around him once he hit his peak.

After losing his mother during surgery and separating from his wife in the span of a few months, Kanye was lost and channeled every piece of his broken heart into this record, taking a much more clinical approach to every one of his songs. For all of the pedigrees that he had as a hip hop artist, this was a much bolder move, soaking every single song in AutoTune and singing throughout the majority of the record, pouring his heart out to his ex on Heartless and even trying to make peace with his mother on the song Coldest Winter.

Even though some major hip hop heads lost their mind when this dropped, the rest of the rap game became born out of this record, from Juice WRLD talking about how much it influenced him to Drake taking the first mixtape he had and spitting over the backing track of Say You Will. 808s and Heartbreak might not be the most uplifting record that Kanye has ever made, but this is the kind of raw vulnerability that most of us are never going to see again from him.