Kanye West needs no introduction at this point in time, and neither does his incredibly diverse discography. While everyone and their spoilt LA-girl daughter knows the lyrics to ‘Gold Digger’, it’s worthwhile noting that Kanye’s discography has so many hidden gems that the average music listener would never even know existed.
Of course tracks like ‘POWER’, ‘Monster’, ‘Famous’ and ‘Heartless’ are phenomenal, I mean, that’s why they’re popular, but anyone who has spent some time exploring the winding caverns of Mr. West’s discography could tell you that the man’s talent is so much deeper than he actually gets credit for.
So here are eight of the most underrated songs in Kanye West’s discography, which don’t get as much love as they really should. First off, the incredible ‘Drunk and Hot Girls’. Okay now that the jokes are out of the way, here is the actual list.
1. ‘Freestyle 4’
Anyone who says ‘Freestyle 4’ isn’t anything short of excellent is simply lying to themselves. It fits perfectly into the frantic, juxtaposition-focused The Life of Pablo, and the lyrics are just absolutely infectious. Plus, after Kanye went through and fixed the album, the beats on this thing became even more amazing. And don’t forget that Kanye asks the real philosophical questions on this freestyle, making us wonder, what IF they started fucking at the Vogue party?
2. ‘XTCY’
“You got sick thoughts? I got more of ’em. You got a sister-in-law you would smash? I got four of ’em.” Admit it, you are either apart of two parties, either the one that was disappointed that ‘XTCY’ never landed on an album, or the group of people who just found out this song existed. There is no in-between.
3. ‘Diamonds From Sierra Leone’
Now one could argue this song isn’t that underrated, but it often isn’t talked about that much when Kanye West is brought up by the masses. This song showcases Kanye’s excellent sampling talents and producer skills, and sounds way ahead of its time considering it came out in 2005.
4. ‘Guilt Trip’
In my eyes, Yeezus is a perfect album from start to finish, which in itself is an unpopular opinion, considering how many people find this album hard to listen to. However out of all the songs on this album, one often gets ignored the most, and its poor old ‘Guilt Trip’. This is hands down Kanye’s most futuristic and experimental song released, and any disrespect that it gets is completely undeserved. I’ll be taking DMs to argue in the case of Yeezus starting today.
5. ‘Gone’
Just listen to the last verse that Kanye offers up on this song. Just do it. Absolutely incredible stuff. (Plus the whole song is just perfection.)
6. ‘Street Lights’
808s & Heartbreak gets a lot of flack, and is widely considered to be Kanye’s worst album, but that can’t be true because Kanye West has no bad albums, so jokes on them right? Well, it’s pretty fair to say that 808s has its moments, but ‘Street Lights’ is a golden moment on the album that nobody can deny as pretty monumental.
7. ‘RoboCop’
Look, this song probably influenced 50% of your favourite rappers today, so just accept it and relish in how good ‘RoboCop’ is.
8. ‘Lost In The World’
How come when we talk about My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, we don’t talk about ‘Lost In The World’? The song is tremendous in what it achieves, and crafted a sound that was completely unique for the time, and still is. I mean, Bon Iver is only just now embracing the sounds he explored alongside Kanye, so we can thank this song for that.
