My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: Part 4
The next song on the list is “All of the Lights” by Kanye featuring Rihanna.
“All of the Lights” was produced by Kanye West and Jeff Bhasker. Genius describes “All of the Lights” as a “massive composition”. It contains features from 14 other artists. Some of theses are Drake, Alicia Keys, John Legend, and many more. There is also an “All of the Lights Interlude” which captures the musical amazement of the beats used in “All of the Lights”. The interlude contains the beat of the regular song but is composed by cellos and a piano with no vocals. It reflects how musically composed “All of the Lights” was. Here is what the interlude sounds like:
In the album the interlude is almost seen as a preparation for the real song. Its deep low cellos and piano prepare you for the song that comes. The two instruments come together to create a beautiful song that matches the greatness and success of “All of the Lights”. The intro of “All of the Lights” is very similar to the interlude. Except of having cellos and pianos, it starts a little more up beat. Kanye has the song start of with trumpets build up to Rihanna’s lines. Rhianna’s part starts with some interesting sounding drums. These drums always play when Rhianna enters, causing the beat to sound fuller, because Rhianna’s part is the chorus.
After the Rihanna’s part, but still apart of the chorus, a very important part takes place. Kanye eventually echos back to this later on in the song, so pay attention. Another feature comes in and her name is Elly Jackson.
Elly Jackson is describing the “lights” of fame. She uses Vegas as a archetype, of a garden. She describes that in Vegas, you finally made it, were all of the lights will be. She is showing the good sides of fame and how amazing it can be. Also at the beginning she says, “Fast cars, shooting stars”, comparing the good lights of fame (remember this because this shows up later in the song).
After Rhianna’s and Elly Jackson’s chorus, the song does straight into Kanye’s first verse. The second line in this verse is very important to help you understand the song:
I slapped my girl, she called the feds
Prior to this song, Rihanna was dating Chris Brown. They got into an argument and she was beaten up by him. Kanye includes this line on purpose, and eventually bases the whole entire song off of this situation. In reality many people don’t know why Chris Brown beat Rihanna. Kanye believes that part of it was fame, the whole topic of this album. So Kanye being Kanye, decides to use this complication as part of his song, to show the negative impacts of fame and glory, and it somehow, also connects to his own life.
If you remember, in one of the earlier medium posts, Kanye was struggling with fame. Genius mentioned that fans didn’t think he created anything as up to par as “Through the Wire”. Kanye was falling from the spotlight as one of the best, and he shares this with us in his story of the man (basically Rihanna’s situation).
I did that time and spent that bread
I’m heading home, I’m almost there
I’m on my way, heading up the stairs
To my surprise, a *****replacing me
In Kanye’s story the man is on his way home from prison after being locked up for quite a bit. When he arrives home to meet his girlfriend, he finds out someone is replacing him.
Your probably wondering how this connects to Kanye. Do you remember Kanye’s old realtionship with Amber Rose? Like I said, Kanye was losing supporters during this time and struggling with a deteriorating realtionship. In the song/story, the guy finds out someone is replacing him. This is exactly what happened with Kanye. One of the new rappers that stole the spot light from Kanye, was Wiz Khalifa. And you wouldn’t guess who he was dating. Yep, Amber Rose. So in Kanye’s story the man finds out he has nothing, very much like what Kanye had during this time.
Next, Kanye describes some lights. As lame as it sounds, it exactly has some meaning to it.
(All of the lights) Cop lights, flashlights, spotlights
Strobe lights, street lights (All of the lights, all of the lights)
Fast life, drug life, thug life
Rock life, every night (All of the lights)
In this verse Kanye is describing the negative effects of fame. More specially, the negative lights of fame. He put Elly Jackson’s part in, so you could see the two different ideas that Kanye has for fame. Also, if you recall, all of this is apart of the story of the man. Right now he is having a flashback of what all he did, remembering the lights.
I will be continuing “All of the Lights” in the next post, as I think this is a good stopping point.
