Now, I began this piece as a way of talking about some of Kanye West's less-finer points. So I figured, before I become a tool and start agreeing with the complaints about Yeezus from The Huffington Post, I should get my facts straight and actually listen to the album.
So I fired up Spotify and checked out Yeezus. The whole thing. And all I can say now is—Yeezus is good. He is a God. Not the most-siah, but a close-siah. He screams like a wicked terror (2:13 of "I Am A God").
Despite all the bad press West has received, to me, the fact that he can make an album as good as Yeezus kind of makes it all go away.
Musically—the minimalism. Genius. New musical styles that turn hip-hop on its ear. Really cool stuff, genre-changing. He doesn't rely on typical rap beats. He plays with sounds, he uses what he thinks sounds cool, and what's better is that he begins with a clean slate. He erases the chalkboard of what's been presented thus far in hip-hop and rhythm & blues (mostly—more on that later), and starts anew, minimally. He's just trying stuff out. I hate to say it, but I get a big Kid A vibe from the way this thing sounds. It's pretty groundbreaking. It doesn't take me up to the clouds and whisk me away, but it comes close-siah.
Lyrically—Kanye's pissed. It's awesome. If there's one thing I love, it's people who are pissed off and aren't going to take it anymore. I almost don't care if he says anything out of line, because he dares to be angry while staying classy, and he wants his problems addressed.
He's also really, really sexual. It comes out being raunchy, and it doesn't sound like he's lying. He's not trying to back up his words with anything bombastic. Kanye keeps it simple, using only a few sounds at a time, but they're really big sounds. It's stark and empty between them sometimes. The analogue quality of some of the beats makes them less than exact, and you realize West wanted that beat one 1/32nd note too fast or too slow—not enough to notice right away, but enough to throw you off, so you're questioning whether it's you or the song, while Kanye keeps playing on like a ninja.
As a listener, Yeezus takes you out of your element. It takes you to a place that's cold and frightening. The sounds aren't glossy or pretty. Sometimes it reminds me of the better parts of industrial and goth music, when they lose the pop appeal and get down to the nitty gritty of machine noise as human music and the idea of human machines. I realized that similar kinds of feelings creep into my own life, even when I think I'm having fun. And this kind of stuff messes with my head. And Kanye West is throwing it at me as the subterfuge underneath the entire Yeezus package!
"New Slaves" is one of the best tracks Yeezus has to offer.
My mama was raised in the era when clean water was only served to the fairer skin / During closure, woulda thought that I'd had help, but it wasn't satisfied unless I picked the cotton myself / You see it's broke nigga racism, that's that, 'Don't touch anything in the store' / And it's rich nigga racism, that's that 'Please come in, buy more'It's raw. It's unflinching. It's angry. Kanye West says what he thinks. I really respect that.
He's telling a black story, but he uses pieces like Nina Simone's cover of Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" that tell the black story. In doing so, he creates an interesting dichotomy.
I think that West's using "Strange Fruit" specifically during a relationship/love song is to illustrate that, in all things, even in the game of love, he can't stop thinking about black bodies swinging in the trees. How could any black person ever have a healthy, mentally unhindered relationship, completely psychologically free, with an ancestral memory like that hanging over your head?
For black men and women, that history of racism West references is something they experience deeply. It would help close the wound if white people would own up to it all more often. Perhaps one way would be to stop treating people differently in stores based on their race.
Recommended listening for further research on the black feeling in our post-race, current world: Paul Mooney's live standup album Race. It's on Spotify. You know you have Spotify.
Kanye West gives us Yeezus from a black perspective, from his perspective. And I believe that he wants to not only lift the black community up, but to wake it up as well.
I think it's good to raise issues within any group you identify with if you want to make that group stronger. Similar to West's approach here, white people ought to be complaining about fellow members of the white race when they see racism afoot. That's one thing white people typically avoid—admitting and openly discussing their whiteness.
Now is not the place where I delve into a discussion of my own whiteness, but I will say that I take responsibility for my ancestors' actions, not because I believe I'm personally accountable, but because there is almost no other way black people can get any kind of closure on this issue. And I want them to have closure. I want black people to feel like they've got their place here in America, that they don't have to have anything to do with Africa or Jamaica or any other black-identified place, that they can make their own place here, just like white people were allowed to do, not wanting to be identified with Britain and Europe in the 1700s.
Man, Yeezus is really getting me emotional about the black experience. But I can afford to be, because I can forget it all in a few moments because I'm white, and people don't treat me like I'm black. So I don't have the constant reminder. I don't have to live with it every day.
As white people, we've always been made to believe that we're special, that Jesus was white, that we're bound for heaven and we're the leaders of all men before we get there. We set the example and we are the most best. We've got to let that all go and come back down to earth.
Okay, now it's time for me to complain about Kanye West, like I originally planned to do.
One thing I've got to say is that West doesn't portray women in a very positive light. With too many male artists, the woman is the villain. It's bullshit, because female prejudice (from glass ceilings to child prostitution) exists world-wide and is a huge problem for women and girls.
I say give females the benefit of the doubt. If you're a straight man and you don't like how a woman treated you in your relationship, why do you have to air your dirty laundry out for the world to see? Who cares how much you're heartbroken? It's all just what you're telling yourself.
The problems the middle- and lower-classes face when a partner is unfaithful are far worse because they have harder times financially surviving the break-up, let alone landing new dates. You're way more datable when you've got a bunch of cash to throw around, right? You can also move to a new place and find another job. If you're poor though, your own finances aren't enough to cut it in your single life, which can mean bankruptcy or homelessness.
I don't like how West infused Yeezus with woman-as-villain story lines, calls women bitches, and basically didn't throw enough of the gangster rap playbook out the window when he made this new, groundbreaking music.
West has accrued a lot of money from his activist art, which he says was designed to inspire social change. Now that he has power at his disposal, I say it's time for him to enact social change. I'm thinking a black rights-related foundation or charity or something? Something that does more for people than art. Something with concrete results.
Maybe having a kid will calm him down. I'm glad he had a daughter. Daughters are really good for men.
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