He's a dreamer like me.

“If you ever wanted to ever be anything, there’ll always be somebody that’ll shoot down any dream.” -Kanye West, Bring Me Down

There's something about Kanye West that engulfs my curiosity. It could be his unparalleled creativity, daring artistic choices, and overly-assertive ways that pique my interest, but I know it goes beyond the obvious. While others see a cocky, careless, self-proclaimed divo, I see a genuine dreamer like myself - and it is perhaps that which draws me to Kanye and his music. His dreams are reflected in his albums; his very desires and innermost feelings thump through every beat, flow through every hook, swim through each melody. His songs, charged with content so utterly incomparable to the rest of what today's industry has to offer, bring together the memories of the past, the warmth of the present, and the hope of the future. Clearly, Kanye is more than a musician, and is way beyond a celebrity - to me, he is the ultimate artist: unpretentious and confidently authentic, he is constantly reinventing the wheel he made himself. With the release of his new album, 808s and Heartbreak come an array of opinions ranging from good to bad. Some may find this poignantly different record a mistake on Kanye's part; but only those like myself, who recognize his malleable craft, are the ones who will be able to truly appreciate it. 808s and Heartbreak is different because it reflects a different part of himself - perhaps the part which he discovered during the tragic death of his mother. Heartfelt and personal in a true-hip-hop kind of way, Kanye West's fourth album is proof that as a genuine dreamer, not even a broken heart can stop him from turning his every artistic ambition a reality.

Kudos to Mr. West.