“Y’all fuck with the new shit?” is the question posed by Kanye West to the crowd at Governors Ball. I was somewhere in that mess and my sweaty, tired response was, “fuck yeah.” Judging from the sound of the crowd that night, everyone seemed to be in agreement. When I left, the euphoria and adrenaline finally wearing off put things in a clearer view. Sure, it was amazing to hear the songs that I’d been listening to on YouTube live with Yeezus himself in front of me, but it was also a jarring experience. Maybe that’s the way Kanye wanted it. It took a lot of guts (or ego) to pair “Jesus Walks” with “I Am A God.” The other new songs I’m talking about are, of course, “Black Skinhead” and “New Slaves,” two harsh, dark, and significantly un-Kanye tracks. Yeezus in its whole is not much different.
The weekend before the release of Yeezus, I spent some time listening to West’s first record (and my favorite), The College Dropout, released nine years ago. It is amazing how different the two records are side by side. It almost feels like they were made by two completely different people––especially when you listen to “Last Call” on The College Dropout, where Kanye and Jay-Z basically have a 12-minute conversation about how Kanye West even came to be a Grammy-winning and critically adored rapper. Yet, there are so many crucial lines in that song that point to who Kanye West is now. When Kanye says, “Some say he arrogant / Can y’all blame him?” Well, can we?
Sure, Yeezus is a self-indulgent, narcissistic, and at times pornographic (in ways that Kanye has never really been) record, but it is also a record full of dissent and nonconformity, both in its social consciousness and musical dissonance. Name any other artist who could perform songs titled “Black Skinhead” and “New Slaves” on live TV. I doubt there is anyone else. Just like he does with “Spaceship” and the series of school skits on The College Dropout, West is attacking the status quo and social class. Put more bluntly, Kanye West is presenting himself as something that White America should fear. Or as he puts it on “New Slaves” (which is basically “All Falls Down” with nothing held back), he is going to fuck your wife in the Hamptons. I mean the “Cause they make us hate ourself and love they wealth” attitude is all over “New Slaves,” is it not? I could write so many more paragraphs on all the race and class implications that surround Kanye West’s entire career––whether in his personal life or in his lyricism––but this a simple album review, and I am not that self-indulgent.
Anyway, the first four tracks on the album, “On Sight,” “Black Skinhead,” “I Am A God,” and “New Slaves,” create a perfect thread thematically that West abruptly cuts with the mediocre “Hold My Liquor” and “I’m In It.” “Hold My Liquor” just sounds like a typical weekend for the cast of Jersey Shore, and “I’m In It” is basically three minutes and fifty five seconds of porn lyrically. Admittedly, I would love to hear it without the vocals because the beat is probably one of the more interesting ones on the album. I mean “more interesting” in the fact that is probably the standout song to mark as the extreme change in Kanye’s sound. A redemption of sorts comes from “Blood on the Leaves” sampling the Nina Simone version of the protest song, which is mostly a genius display of Kanye’s talent as a producer. The song uses the Nina Simone sample, MBDTF-esque horns, and 808s era auto-tune. I really doubt that any other human could do all of those things in one song.
Yeezus is disturbing and at times painful to listen to. It is also a record that was a long time coming in Kanye West’s career. If you were paying attention to anything that he’s been saying both in his lyrics and in person, you knew that it was only going to get darker and heavier. I’d like to tell you that I have dissected this record enough to tell you that I know everything about it. I wish I could say that the brutal misogyny is West’s way of calling out all of the other misogyny in music, but I really doubt that’s what he was going for. Even calling himself a god seems to be a misnomer because Yeezus is one of the most godless things I’ve ever heard. Yeezus is still the most culturally stimulating and interesting releases from a popular artist this year — and there was a Bowie record released! For all the hypocrisy, misogyny, and sacrilege, Yeezus stands as the most compelling record in Kanye West’s career––a career that has been full of them so far.
Review by Alex Martinez
