Kanye West - Yeezus [2013]

"Y'all throwing contracts at me
You know that niggas can't read."

I jumped on board the hype train hard for this album, I thought My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was awesome and I was looking forward to Kanye's new album, moreso after the slight disappointment of Cruel Summer. This release goes in the opposite direction of Dark Fantasy; instead of going for the multilayered, orchestral sound, Kanye stripped everything down for Yeezus.


The album had some great production and some really fantastic beats. The album as a whole sounds pretty raw and heavy. Yeezus is quite a departure from Kanye's previous work and is a somewhat harsh listen: With the loud bass, heavy distortion, vocal manipulation, pulsating synths and drums. The whole album has an industrial feel to it.

I felt that the album was pretty weak lyrically. From the interviews, it seemed like Kanye was aiming to go more outside the mainstream box, creating "art" and not really caring about sales, but I believe that he failed to deliver lyrically on a majority of the songs. I don't mind that he doesn't really break the generic "rap topics" mold, I don't mind the bravado or the ego but if he names the album Yeezus, his lines should be up to par. While there were some (unintentionally?) hilarious lines, it seems like the whole process was rushed quite a bit.

Expanding on how Kanye was going for a harsher album, on both "On Sight" and "New Slaves" he makes some jarring cuts, which to me, just kills the momentum of both songs and seemed sloppy. Especially, the very distorted, autotuned ending of "New Slaves", the entire buildup of the song is wasted. I also didn't like the autotuned Chief Keef hook on "Hold My Liquor", it sounded pretty bad to me. It's not even the autotune itself because I didn't mind it on "Blood on the Leaves", which brings me to my final nitpick. The sample on "Blood on the Leaves" really felt strange given what it stood for versus Kanye talking about popping molly with a girl (I'm sweatin'), especially since it links back to "New Slaves". I thought he could have gone somewhere with that but I loved that track a lot anyway.

Even though it seems like I found a lot wrong with the album, I enjoyed most of the tracks, except "Bound 2", yeezus christ I didn't like that song, just didn't jive for me. The first 4 tracks start off strong, my favorite being "New Slaves", especially because Kanye is super aggressive on the track and starts practically screaming, combined with the thumping background beat and the heavy distortion, really sealed the deal for me. "Blood On The Leaves" with it's TNGHT beat is killer and the horns coupled with Kanye's autotuned singing mesh together really well and got me pumped up. The 2nd half of the album was a bit weaker but it was still pretty good. "Hold My Liquor" is an alright track, even though I didn't really go for the Chief Keef hook. "I'm In It" has a ton of uninspired lyrics but the vocal effects, distorted bass line and supporting vocals from Assassin and Justin Vernon really save the song.

Kanye West is one of the few mainstream hip-hop artists that remains consistent and continuously tries to change his sound and that in itself is impressive. I enjoy the spectacle of his entire popular persona, it's all part of the fun of his music. A solid release from Mr. West and I look forward to his next release. [8.5/10]

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