How do you follow up a masterpiece? As one of the most widely appreciated hip-hop albums ever, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy saw Kanye West rise from the ashes of celebrity embarrassment like a phoenix, proving that despite his debacle at the 2009 VMA's, he still had a response for every 808s-bashing, “fish-dick” mocking naysayer: You can hate me, but I’ll be damned if you hate my music. And oh yes, his message was delivered. While the album failed to do as well commercially as some of the others in his catalogue, both critics of Kanye and hip-hop as a whole could not turn away from his endearing douchebaggery (“Runaway”), brash grab for the crown (“Power”), and uncanny ability to get the absolute best out of himself and his hand picked team of all-stars (“Monster”, “Devil In A New Dress”, “So Appalled”). Following that up with two huge summers featuring a victory lapwith one of the greatest rappers of all time and an ambitious effort that saw him carry his G.O.O.D Music brothers on his back, Kanye West kept doing the unthinkable, raising the bar higher and higher to places that he knew only he would one day be able to reach.
Fast-forward to June 2013, following a series of jarring projections of West’s face on citybuildings across the globe and a bone-chilling SNL performance. Yeezus, the title and album cover alone stirring up unparalleled press for rap, was the album of the summer even before people had heard any actual studio recordings. Kanye worshipers such as myself searched the catacombs of the web only to find nothing more than a minute and change of “New Slaves.”
And then the shit hit the fan. Vines galore sprouted up chronicling his Governor’s Ball performance. Primal screams? Blasts of synth? What does this man have in store for us? Is this what the future of rap sounds like? The album would leak shortly after, as people around the world stopped, put on their head phones, and turned the volume all the way up. Some loved it. Some hated it. The only thing anyone knew for sure was that this was new ground for hip hop.
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Yeezus stands as a drastic shift in sound for the king of Chi-city. While Kanye’s calling card has always been his
lush, beautiful soul samples, he is insistent on flaunting his newfound love of
new wave. “How much do I not give a fuck?” he asks in the middle of “On Sight”
before dangling a rich gospel melody from the Holy Name of Mary Choral Family Singers over our heads. Apparently not much, as he abruptly switches back to
nothing more than piercing synthesizers and a drum machine. This can’t get any
more out of control, right? Wrong. Each of these first four tracks make the
last seem like horseplay, as we’re invited to buckle up for the Marylyn Manson
sampling “Black Skinhead.” “I’m going 500 there’s no way to slow down!” he
screams, letting us know that if we want to back out of Yeezus, it’s too late now, because we’re already witnesses. Next
comes the declaration from Mount Olympus, “I Am A God," easily the most
unsettling and controversial song by a man who is GREAT at creating unsettling
and controversial songs. Ye has his defenses set on high for this one, taking
on the many heretics who have told him what he can and can’t say, where he can
and can’t go, and worst of all, what he can and can’t wear. Ending this four
song suite with “New Slaves,” a song so unbelievably raw and lyrically cut
throat that the man himself has deemed the second verse the greatest of all-time (a stretch, I know), you can’t help but wonder if you can take another
right hook to the chin and live to see the rest of this album. Luckily, “New
Slaves” comes to an end with the first signal that Kanye will in fact let his
guard down and be personable on this album, as he desperately tries to break
through to us in one of his trademark autotune solos, followed by the sweet
crooning of Frank Ocean and guitar play by Hungarian rock band Omega. Yeezus is
tired of being a god for now.
The next four songs give us an honest look at the rap mogul, or at least an insight into how he sees himself. West’s desperation to be good and tendency to be bad are at complete odds here, which is shown by pairs of features that are so strange you need to hear them to actually believe that they exist. Downtrodden Justin Vernon of Bon Iver wallows while Chicago street soldier Chief Keef shouts in a drunken stupor on “Hold My Liquor.” A horrified Nina Simone belts out the Billie Holiday classic “Strange Fruit” on “Blood On The Leaves,” pitted against the trap producer Hudson Mohawke’s hard hitting drums and blaring horns. On the whirling “Guilt Trip”, dark and distorted voodoo emanates from the Pusha T song “Blocka,” only to be met head-on by the hopeless romantic Kid Cudi, begging for an answer to the question “If you love me so much then why’d you let me go?” It’s an epic battle of good vs. evil, and along the way, our host speaks of over-indulgence, infidelity, and Hollywood-scale heartbreak.
By the time we reach the crowd-pleasing conclusion “Bound 2,” a song that would fit right in with the likes of “Through The Wire,” “Slow Jamz,” and other College Dropout cuts, we are left wondering if Yeezus was some amazing fever dream, just a big ole’ practical joke. He returns to that all too pleasant “prom shit…that red cup all on the lawn shit,” like a pro, reminding us how he made his name in the first place. He’s still that “immature adult, insecure asshole” that we love to hate. But the rest of Yeezus did just happen, it’s all too real, and those interjections of Charlie Wilson singing “Nobody to love,” for dear life serve as a reminder that Yeezus has done what any great Kanye West album must do, which is to challenge rap music and himself to move forward and to sound great while doing it.
The next four songs give us an honest look at the rap mogul, or at least an insight into how he sees himself. West’s desperation to be good and tendency to be bad are at complete odds here, which is shown by pairs of features that are so strange you need to hear them to actually believe that they exist. Downtrodden Justin Vernon of Bon Iver wallows while Chicago street soldier Chief Keef shouts in a drunken stupor on “Hold My Liquor.” A horrified Nina Simone belts out the Billie Holiday classic “Strange Fruit” on “Blood On The Leaves,” pitted against the trap producer Hudson Mohawke’s hard hitting drums and blaring horns. On the whirling “Guilt Trip”, dark and distorted voodoo emanates from the Pusha T song “Blocka,” only to be met head-on by the hopeless romantic Kid Cudi, begging for an answer to the question “If you love me so much then why’d you let me go?” It’s an epic battle of good vs. evil, and along the way, our host speaks of over-indulgence, infidelity, and Hollywood-scale heartbreak.
By the time we reach the crowd-pleasing conclusion “Bound 2,” a song that would fit right in with the likes of “Through The Wire,” “Slow Jamz,” and other College Dropout cuts, we are left wondering if Yeezus was some amazing fever dream, just a big ole’ practical joke. He returns to that all too pleasant “prom shit…that red cup all on the lawn shit,” like a pro, reminding us how he made his name in the first place. He’s still that “immature adult, insecure asshole” that we love to hate. But the rest of Yeezus did just happen, it’s all too real, and those interjections of Charlie Wilson singing “Nobody to love,” for dear life serve as a reminder that Yeezus has done what any great Kanye West album must do, which is to challenge rap music and himself to move forward and to sound great while doing it.
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