10 Perfect Albums That Blended Different Music Genres
9. Late Registration - Kanye West
No one in the hip hop community was really prepared for Kanye West to introduce himself to the world on The College Dropout. The beats that he had been making for the likes of Jay-Z may have been fine for what they were, but this rough and tumble kid from Chicago with a pink polo had a lot to say, making the entire world of hip hop shift on a dime. Kanye wasn't looking to be a one album wonder, and his soul samples got replaced with jazzy beats on his next record.
Being the first collaboration with production guru Jon Brion, much of Late Registration thrives off of the live instrumentation mixed in between the beats. While you can hear different samples from the likes of Curtis Mayfield and Ray Charles here and there, the real crux of this album is almost symphonic at some points, turning songs like Diamonds From Sierra Leone and Roses into some of the most hard hitting songs of Kanye's career up until this point.
This wasn't just a wild experiment for Ye either. After listening to the likes of Fiona Apple, a lot of the bars that he spits on here have that sort of conversational quality, taking off the layers of bragging that you got all the way back on Jesus Walks. There has never really been a dull moment for Kanye since the moment he stepped onto the world stage, but this might be the most mellow album that any fan of music can get down on.