10 Perfect Albums That No One Saw Coming

In the aftermath of Graduation, Kanye West was officially one of the biggest stars in the history of hip hop music. After already making his way onto the scene as a producer for Jay Z and his first few solo records, fans were shellshocked when he was able to blow 50 Cent out of the water on release day, complete with a space age live show on top of it all. And just when it looked like everything was starting to fall into place, Ye saw his entire world come crashing down in the space of a few months.

Losing his mother and watching his relationship with Amber Rose fall apart around the same time, Kanye poured all of his heart into 808s & Heartbreak, which left a lot of fans scratching their heads. After the layered rap production behind Graduation, you're not going to find any rapping on here, as Ye coats his voice in AutoTune throughout the entire thing and gets a lot more confessional than normal, having only the music to soothe his grief.

As much as this album may have gotten a lot of flak back in the day for being too much of a left turn, there's an entire generation of rappers that owe their careers to an album like this. In the wake of this album, almost every modern rapper from Lil Uzi Vert to JuiceWRLD finding a companion in this music and building their entire persona around them. Hell, if you go back and listen to Drake's first few mixtapes, you can hear him rapping over the backing track of Say You Will. Above all else, 808s was the prime example that rappers were allowed to be in their feelings if they needed to.