Those who predicted he wouldn't have a career were in for a rude awakening. Kanye was unfazed by the criticism, and he didn't let it get to him. His entire team would get up, eat breakfast together, go to the gym and play hoops together, and then begin their studio sessions at 4 p.m., which would last until 4 a.m. To make MBDTF, Kanye traveled with his crew to Hawaii.

He did leave the country, but not to flee, but to create his greatest work of art. He was chastised by everyone, and Mos Def even advised him to leave the country. The sole use of autotune here comes on the lovely, poignant 'Lost In The World', and that comes from the sample of Bon Iver's 'Woods' around which the track is built.Kanye endured one of the most trying periods of his life following the Taylor disaster on the 2009 VMA stage, which left him emotionally raw after the break-up of his romance with model Amber Rose.

Certainly no more of a surprise than finding he's now completely abandoned the wholesale electro/autotune approach of 808s & Heartbreak in favour of a return to the beats, band'n'samples style of his earlier albums, albeit in a grotesquely magnified manner.

Kanye has never been short on ambition or ego, so it's no surprise he should have his guests (including such hip-hop luminaries as Jay-Z, Swizz Beats and RZA) queue up on 'So Appalled' to confirm in turn how 'this shit is/fucking ridiculous'. Echoes and samples of everything from Gil Scott-Heron to King Crimson are littered amongst these tracks, along with myriad vaunting string and choral arrangements. Recorded in Hawaii at a rumoured cost of some $3 million, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of pop's gaudiest, most grandiose efforts of recent years, a no-holds-barred musical extravaganza in which any notion of good taste is abandoned at the door.

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