West has described Yeezus’ musical style as “trap and
drill and house,” but it sounds more like a mixture of ‘90s industrial
rock—think Nine Inch Nails—and ambient-electronica, e.g. Aphex Twin. The French
electronic duo Daft Punk produced four tracks on the album and if their latest
LP, Random Access Memories—a breezy ode to the funky ‘70s—goes down like a
smooth daiquiri, Yeezus is like jungle juice.
Opening track “On Sight” kicks things off with a bang.
Over thrashing sonic beats—that sound eerily similar to LFO’s “Freak,” which
played during the opening credits of Gaspar Noe’s film Enter the Void (West had
previously copied that film’s title sequence in his music video for “All of the
Lights”), West raps, “Real nigga back in the house again / Black Tim’s all on
your couch again / Black dick all in your spouse again.” A hazy choral
interlude follows, followed by more nasty beats and acerbic lyrics. “On Sight”
is the only potential club banger on an otherwise avant garde album.
Unlike his previous solo effort, 2011’s My Beautiful Dark
Twisty Fantasy, this LP is devoid of radio-friendly anthems like “All of the
Lights”; there are no coquettish hooks sung by Rihanna or any other chanteuses.
They’ve been supplanted by, say, samples of Nina Simone crooning about
lynching, as on the mesmerizing six-minute track “Blood on the Leaves,” which
transforms the politically charged ballad “Strange Fruit” from an anti-lynching
tune into a vitriolic ode to a star-fucking mistress.
“Black Skinhead” contains a galloping beat layered with
heavy breathing, tribal drums, CAW! sounds, and lyrics tackling racism in
Middle America. It’s last twenty seconds feature West grunting “God!” The
influence of Rubin is most evident on
Yeezus sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard before. West
started out as a producer, crafting songs like Jay-Z’s “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” and
Talib Kweli’s “Get By” before, by his own admission, becoming an overnight
celebrity with Twista’s “Slow Jamz,” which he raps very slowly—and
hesitantly—on. The production on Yeezusblows Random Access Memories out of the
water. By assembling several mega-producers, including Daft Punk’s Thomas
Bangalter, Skrillex, RZA, Rick Rubin—who did some last-minute tinkering, West’s
mentor No I.D., and, of course, himself, each track is imbued with it’s own
thrillingly unique sonic identity, yet all ten tracks still flow together to
form a cohesive whole. In an era of singles, this is an album, and must be
listened to all the way through.
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