Kanye West: “808s & Heartbreak” Became “The Sound Of Radio”

With updates on Kanye West’s next studio album, which is currently titled SWISH, still scarce, the Chicago rapper was asked if he could offer any details on where he’s at music-wise in his career, during a recent interview on the Big Boy Morning Show.

Kanye did reveal that he’s actively working on the album, but along the way has given away tracks that were initially intended for the project to other artists, including Rihanna and The Weeknd.

“I don’t wanna overly describe it or overly try to hype it up or—The work is slow,” Kanye West said. “I’ve had a while to work on it. And I separated a couple of the tracks that were on my album and gave ‘em to other people. Like ‘FourFiveSeconds’ to Rihanna. Or the joint on The Weeknd album, ‘Tell Your Friends.’ And I still just kept working and trying to find the language that I wanted to say on my album. And just going in the lab every night, man. It sounded good. Like a painting, like a sonic painting. And it gets better and better every week.”

Later in the interview, Kanye was asked about his September performance at Hollywood Bowl. During the show, he performed songs from his 808s & Heartbreak album.

According to the rapper, performing songs from 808s & Heartbreak was vindicating, given the criticism it received following its release in 2008.

“For me it just let me express myself more and still do a creative jump,” he said. “There’s definitely some vindication in performing that album that got panned when it dropped. And people was just dissing me and calling me ‘crazy’ as usual. And now, it basically became the sound of radio. So, it was a vindication in that.”

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