My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

The studio sessions for this record were basically a revolving door of paranoia and genius. You have Mike Dean doing the heavy lifting on the synths while guys like RZA and Q-Tip were flying in just to consult on a single drum break. It’s a claustrophobic, maximalist wrecking ball. You’ve got the jazz chops in your collection to appreciate how they mangled those samples, but this isn't jazz. It’s a sonic middle finger to the industry that was trying to box him in. The label was sweating bullets the whole time. They didn't know if they were funding a masterpiece or a career suicide note. It turned out to be both. You've got Jay-Z on the label, but this is a far cry from the surgical precision of The Black Album. This is messy, ego-driven art that refuses to be ignored. It fits right into that high-concept, high-stakes era of 2010s hip-hop where the budget was unlimited and the artists were finally allowed to lose their minds.

source: the clerk