Kanye West Proclaims Himself Voice of Generation

With ten days until his fourth studio album, 808s and Heartbreaks drops, Kanye West told reporters that he is the voice of our generation. "I realize that my place and position in history is that I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade, I will be the loudest voice. It's me settling into that position of just really accepting that it's one thing to say you want to do it and it's another thing to really end up being like Michael Jordan." Kanye West, you are the Michael Jordan of rap. It makes me think that the Beatles should have used a basketball reference instead of that whole 'we're bigger than Jesus' thing. A lot less of their records would have been burned in the south.

West concedes that his role as 'the one' hasn't been inevitable, commenting that artists like Justin Timberlake had a shot at being the decade's musical MVP, but they didn't release enough music. "There were people who had the potential to do it but they went on vacation, so when Justin went on vacation I made albums." West will have put out four albums in five years while Timberlake has released only two in six years. But hey, Michael Jackson only released two albums during the entire 1980's and he's one of the decade's biggest icons.

After "Love Lockdown" peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, West released his album's second single, "Heartless", which debuted at #4 and became his sixth top 5 hit.