Everyone knows that Kanye West's acclaim is based on way more than just his lyrics. The amount of work and thought that go into his instrumental portions is crazy, even when much of it is built up of samples. The Verge has built up a "a listenable history of Kanye West's samples" for its site, which allows readers to scroll through, listen to the West track and then the sample used within. Tracks from all of the emcee's solo albums are available for perusing.
Although entire books could be written on West's sampling choices, The Verge sticks to a sentence or two when describing a particular clip. And not every bit is in praise of the rapper. While the site may praise "Stronger" and its Daft Punk sample—"There's a lot of contention over whether Kanye's song or his sample is better. Let's just agree that they're both pretty sweet"—they also take shots at his weaker work, such as "Never Let Me Down" and its use of a Jay Z sample for Jay Z to rap over: "Kanye plays off of Blackjack, and Jay Z just borrows from himself."
West as a sampler has been newsworthy since his use of Ray Charles' "I Got A Woman" in his hit track "Gold Digger," and fans have been curious to see where he'll go next. Unfortunately this feature doesn't cover music produced for Watch The Throne or Cruel Summer, but we can only hope it will expand in the future.
For now, check out the catalogue and comments at TheVerge.com.
