“You can’t control me” is Kanye West’s message to corporations, the music industry, the fashion industry and anyone who listens to his sixth albumYeezus.
It’s experimental, complex, interesting and designed to shock listeners. West gets his message across the only way he knows how: by offending as many people as possible and by being really, really narcissistic.
A few weeks ago, fans had probably only heard two of Yeezus‘s songs, “Black Skinhead” and “New Slaves,” but the tracks aren’t really singles because they weren’t released for sale. Most thought West was righteously denouncing his own overindulgence: He raps his frustration at institutional racism and the consumer culture that encourages listeners to spend everything on fur coats, diamond chains and Alexander Wang clothes.The beats behind both songs — primal drums, claps, panting on “Black Skinhead” and syncopated, quick-hitting electric beats on “New Slaves” — abandon the grand orchestral arrangements of West’s past albums.
Just listening to “New Slaves” and “Black Skinhead,” exposes West’s rejection of maximalism and taking up the cause of racial justice with even more fury than he did on The College Dropout and Late Registration.
But now, the rest of the album is here.
West samples a Civil Rights era song about lynching, Nina Simone’s cover of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” to back a somewhat superficial rap about his problems with women in “Blood on the Leaves.” In the same song, West compares those problems to racial segregation in South Africa (“Now you sittin’ courtside, wifey on the other side / Gotta keep ’em separated, I call that Apartheid”).
West goes on to employ the black power fist to describe a sex act. He brags that he should have used sweet and sour sauce when he was getting with an Asian girl in “I’m In It.” He blasphemes on “I Am a God,” and he says, “We get this bitch shakin’ like Parkinson’s” in “On Sight.”
The main point of the album isn’t racial justice or anti-consumerism or minimalism (although those are all present).
It’s all for shock. Why? Because West has a huge ego, because he wants so badly to prove how much he gives “no fucks at all.” But as Los Angles Times’s Randall Roberts guesses, Kanye also wants to alienate his audience so he can live as an artist and not a paparazzi target.
Almost every track has jarring, even frightening, instrumentals. West speaks through a heavy voice distorter on “I Am a God” as an ominously growling saw wave bass plays. Then it gets really disconcerting when the beat falls away, and West just shrieks into the mic. When he performed that part for the first time at a major venue last week at the Governors Ball, it silenced a massive cheering crowd — exactly the shock he intended.
Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon contributes to the disturbing vibes, sounding more intimidating than anything else. The Eau Claire native appears on Yeezus three times with his organ-like vocals: He slurs as a drunk driver trying to get ahold of his woman on “Hold My Liquor,” provides eerie outro vocals on “I Am a God” and tells off an insincere admirer on “I’m In It.”
“I’m In It” brings together all the experimental strangeness of Yeezus. The track subtly blends threatening bass pulses, a distorted demon voice and some of the filthiest lyrics West’s ever written. The rhythm abruptly changes five or six times as the mic passes between West, Vernon and Jamaican rapper Agent Sasco. It’s abrasive, dark and strangely satisfying to listen to.
Other tracks, like “Send It Up,” with its air horn-based beat, have fewer redeeming qualities. But any experimental album has to have a flop or two.
West’s already gotten plenty of credit for taking risks with Yeezus. He’ll also get outraged letters for months and he’s going to lose a lot of fans. But, listening to Yeezus, it’s easy to imagine that’s exactly what he wants.
