Kanye West Yeezus. Def Jam, 2013.
Did Kanye West deliver the politically charged, racially conscious, sonically radical rap album hinted at by his performances on SNL this spring?
No.
Maybe?
Partially, but it’s wrapped together with another album that’s pretty gross, not as funny as it thinks it is, and, Kanye being Kanye, self-absorbed as hell.
Yeezus is a pretty frustrating listening experience. It features tons of exciting, deadly production, as on “Black Skinhead”, so devastating in live performance, here stripped down to a Navy Seal night assault of a beat — in, out, maximum devastation, minimum ammunition expended. It’s rap as programmed by Throbbing Gristle and Skinny Puppy. Not everything is original, though; some of the noise just sounds like second-generation El-P (or third-generation Bomb Squad, if you like).
Sadly even the best of the beats are put in service behind lyrics that are…questionable. Yes, I think Kanye has moments of inspiration. He manages to paint vivid pictures in tiny spaces, he lashes out as his natural enemies (the paparazzi, the haters) with taut lines like “ya’ll niggas can’t fuck with Ye/I’ll move my family out the country so you can’t see where I stay” (a reference to his stated desire to raise he and Kim Kardashian’s new daughter out of the watchful eye of the media). In what may be Yeezus‘ best moment, the first verse of “New Slaves,” he returns to themes from The College Dropout and adds some new commentary on celebrity and wealth, and particularly celebrity and wealth of the black variety:
You see it’s broke nigga racism
That’s that don’t touch anything in the store
And this rich nigga racism
That’s that come in, please buy more
What you want, a Bentley? A fur coat? A diamond chain?
All you blacks want all the same things
Used to be only niggas now everybody playin’
spendin’ everything on Alexander Wang
But the moments clarity, when Ye seems to be a trickster figure unafraid to speak truth and Fight the Power, are quickly overshadowed by the bad jokes (“In a French ass restaurant/Hurry up with my damn croissants!), the limited hate-laced vocabulary, the misappropriated cultural-historical references (“I’m going 300/like the Romans”), and just pure, unnecessary racist-misogynist filth (there are a dozen examples that I see no need to repeat here). Worst of all, I think, are the uses of important bits of grave cultural iconography (Nina Simone’s version of “Strange Fruit,” Martin Luther King’s “Free at last!” speech) in the service of songs that unapologetically degrade and dehumanize.
Maybe we need this Kanye, though. He fulfills a role for us as a kind of collective id. Or a pop culture villain, or an advocate for the devil, or a scapegoat. He says things that frighten us — frighten us perhaps because they are thoughts we have ourselves. I think he goes too far, too often, and I do wish he’d develop some kind of filter mechanism (it’s astonishing to me that such a notorious studio perfectionist could be so blasé when it comes to editing some of his downright ignorant lyrics). But I don’t want him to filter out his rare moments of vulnerability, when ego gives way to honesty: “Got the kids and the wife life, but can’t wake up from the night life.”
***
Quick reviews of new and new-ish tracks:
Wavves, “Demon to Lean On” from Afraid of Heights. Mom + Pop (Warner Bros.), 2013.
This is one of those songs, for me, where when I heard it the first time I just assumed I had heard it before, because the melody is just so right that OF COURSE I’ve heard it before, who is this by again? I love this song! Wavves? Is that a new band? No? They have like four albums out and they’re so popular that they’re on a major label now? Oh my god, am I old? IS THIS THE FUTURE? I guess the kids know how to find this music with their Vevo and their Soundcloud and their American Express commercials or whatever, but I had to wait for good ‘ol terrestrial radio to catch on before I discovered this band. That’s who I am now, the guy that doesn’t even know what’s popular until the radio countdown tells me. I feel free.
Tricky, “Valentine” from False Idols. False Idols/K7 2013.
This is kind of an interesting counterpoint to “Blood on the Leaves,” the Yeezus track where Kanye samples “Strange Fruit”. “Blood on the Leaves” takes a big risk with such a charged sample and falls flat on its face when the rest of the lyrics seem to have no connection to the source material (the beat is HOT though with those big Crimson Tide marching band horns). On “Valentine,” Tricky samples what has to be the second most-famous male jazz vocal of ALL TIME, Chet Baker’s “My Funny Valentine,” which seems like just a goofy, boring choice of a sample, except, Tricky is pretty smart and he makes it work really damned well. He builds a velvet trip-hop rhythm around the sample and turns it into an insistent, sad refrain to a character driven song about Tricky’s perennial subject, “what it’s like to be British and to live in a city.” This is where I plug the whole False Idols album, because it does crazy stuff with samples like this all the time and it kinds of sounds like an even better mix of Maxinquaye and I feel like Tricky is a million times edgier than like any big American rappers right now.
The-Dream ft. Fabolous “Slow it Down” from IV Play. Def Jam, 2013.
I didn’t mean for all my ranting about Ye earlier to make it sound like I don’t like hip-hop music about sex. Lets’s be clear, guys: I LOVE HIP-HOP MUSIC ABOUT SEX. I just think Kanye’s version of sex is scary, too violent, and a little racist. The-Dream, though? Here’s a guy I can fux with (no homo?). This is a slow jam about slow jams: “enough with the motherfuckin’ dance songs/you gotta slow it down,” and although “I know they ain’t gonna play this on top 40 radio,” we will definitely be playing it through my car speakers at a loud enough volume for nearby pedestrians to enjoy as well. Plus: Fabolous, resurgent.
disastercouch 