The Auto-tune gives Ye a way to be the sensitive, vulnerable singer, as opposed to the swaggering rapper. I haven’t quite put my finger on it, but I think the dehumanizing of the human voice is somehow a foil for the expression of inner turmoil. I think Auto-tune here is somehow protective for Kanye when he is expressing emotion in a genre where that is not really smiled on. Greg: I’ve been listening to 808s and Heartbreak and Twisted Fantasy. The exchange is lightly edited for clarity. Greg is a classical composer and performer with a much more avant-garde sensibility than mine. Here’s an email conversation I’ve been having with my friend Greg Brown about Kanye West’s recent albums. One song that jumps out at me is “ Super Rich Kids,” featuring the utterly affectless rapping of Earl Sweatshirt. Some of it is boilerplate R&B, some of it is wildly experimental. Does it merit the hype? I don’t know yet. It’s the first full album of new music I’ve bought since The Archandroid by Janelle Monáe. The online Frank Ocean buzz reached such a pitch that I finally took the plunge on his first major-label release, Channel Orange. In a world where Jay-Z’s voicing ambiguous support for gay marriage is headline news, Ocean’s open love letter is bold indeed. Some of his sudden fame is also due to his implicit coming-out moment, a remarkable Tumblr post talking openly about his feelings for another man.

He’s been releasing some good mixtapes too.

I first heard him in Jay-Z and Kanye West’s tremendous “No Church In The Wild,” which owes a lot of its intensity to Ocean’s vocals. Does he merit all they hype? There’s no doubt but that the man can sing. Frank Ocean is the R&B singer of the moment.

808s and heartbreak sweater