Tag Archives: kanye west

#1098: Kanye West ft. Ty Dolla $ign – Real Friends

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So it actually has been eight years since Kanye West initially released The Life of Pablo, before making some fixes to the mixes some of the songs, adding a few new ones too, and then released it again a few months after. That was a hectic time to be a Kanye West fan. When is it not, really? This new record that eventually became TLOP was constantly being renovated and shaped up even in the lead up to its unveiling. It could have been released in 2014 as So Help Me God, which fans will still say is West’s best unused album title. It was going to be called SWISH for the longest time, up until a week before the release West announced on Twitter that it would indeed be named The Life of Pablo. Think there was meant to be a prize for any Twitter use who guessed what the “new” title would be after West announced that “TLOP” were the initials of the album’s official name. Wonder if that person ever got their prize.

Yeah, I was there when it was all happening. Was a hectic time. I was in my year out of university doing work at Songlines magazine, August 2015 – July 2016. A month before that February ’16 release of Pablo, even though I can’t remember this specific part myself but it’s what Wikipedia says, Kim Kardashian announced that the GOOD Fridays weekly music release that West had previously utilised in the run up to Dark Twisted Fantasy was back. The song that marked its return was today’s subject, ‘Real Friends’. Now, I have a vivid memory of loading up the exclusive page dedicated to the song on Kanye’s official website and playing it at least three times on repeat. Thought it was the best thing he’d done since anything on Dark Fantasy. Yeezus has never done much for me. And the standalone singles from 2014/15 were okay. This really felt like the Kanye return I had been waiting for for years.

This is a sad, sad song. The sample loop that continues throughout set the icy tone from the very beginning, but the sense of desolation is only reinforced by Kanye’s lyrics concerning his own failures in being a less than awesome friend and family relative, something that fans were quick to jump on when thinking about great being in the family sounded when exploring that theme on ‘Family Business’, and his inability to trust anyone he may come across knowing that at any moment they could take advantage of him. Singer Ty Dolla Sign comes in in various places, lending his heartfelt vocals to the proceedings, particularly to the choruses in which West jokingly states that he deserves all the hate and bad treatment he gets because of… well, everything he’s done that gets people talking. This and ‘FML’, a track that I would have written about too had the stars aligned, are the one-two punch of sincerity in what was the tail-end of the original album before the “bonus” tracks were added on (“Wolves” was meant to be the true album closer, but things changed), and both hit me right in the gut every time I hear them both. Kanye would get sad on records that followed, but there’s something about them that can truly make a heart sink on one of those days.

#1056: Kanye West – POWER

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Man, to be a fan of Kanye West in these times. I’m not a huge fan of the guy myself, not like those stan-like, crazy ones you can find out there. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a full solo Kanye project since 2016’s The Life of Pablo. Everything since then has been met by me with a firm shrug of the shoulders. But the man’s made some good music, you have to admit. He said some things all those months ago that you can’t excuse. Heck, he might have even said another by the time this is out. I’m not looking to excuse them. I honestly couldn’t care that much about the guy. I mean he doesn’t know I exist, right? Not much point in investing too much time into what he’s doing. But ‘POWER’ is the song that I’m writing about today because it’s the track that’s next up in the list, so if you’re aggrieved by the mere mention of Ye’s name, might just wanna skip this post and wait for the next.

I have a small, small memory of seeing the ‘listen to the new single ‘Power’ by Kanye West’ webpage – I think on NME – when the track was released in the summer of 2010, a few months before My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was released. Obviously, this was the first thing West had released since the whole Taylor Swift/VMAs controversy, which had also happened a few months before. And to the 15-year-old I was at the time, the main thing I took away from it was that I was glad that he was just rapping again. No matter how influential 808s & Heartbreak is considered to be, singing Kanye has never the era of his that I’ve ever looked on too fondly. On ‘POWER’, he was back doing what he does best, sounding like he had nothing left to lose with the amount of confidence in his delivery. I didn’t realize the magnitude of this track off that initial listen on the NME website, and it wasn’t until I heard it within the context of the full album that I did. When that moment came, it all sort of started to make sense.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, here was Kanye West returning with a huge middle finger to anyone who criticized him in the aftermath of the VMAs incident – using the hate as fuel to write a cinematic hip-hop song telling you why he’s actually one of the greatest to have ever lived. Like he says in the lyrics, it’s essentially a supervillain’s theme song. Barack Obama called him an jackass. He was mocked by the cast of Saturday Night Live. He was one of the most disliked people in the US. That title still hasn’t faded that much since that time. And yet with ‘POWER’, he bathes in the glory that he was able to make so many people react so negatively as they did, literally laughing it off before telling them how small-minded in comparison to the treasures within his vault of a mind. This track also introduced me to King Crimson’s ’21st Century Schizoid Man’, which I have to thank it for. Not saying that I would never have listened to that particular song. But I would have heard it much, much later had it not been used as the main sample in ‘POWER’. Only made sense to have one extraordinary track be utilized so effectively in another.

#976: Kanye West – On Sight

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Ah, Yeezus. If you want to see two naive 18-year-olds listening through Kanye West’s album for the first time, check out the opening to my post on ‘Bound 2’. Copied and pasted directly from my Facebook messages, there’s obviously a few statements and claims that are exaggerated for comical effect. A lot of all-caps in there too. We were both very excited. Now, I can’t speak on behalf of my mate from that chat, but I really don’t care for Yeezus at all despite the classic-labelling it gets by many of Ye’s fans. A lot find it to be music that’s forward-thinking, sounding like it could be from the future. On the contrary, it always reminds me of 2013 when he was angry a lot of the time, and going on every radio show talking about how he was being marginalised by the fashion industry. Plus, I just don’t enjoy the songs that much. I did posts for ‘Bound 2’ and ‘Black Skinhead’, the two of them coming not so far after Yeezus‘s release. A few months, something like that. Both songs had lost their effect on me even at that point.

The sole survivor from the album that I obtain a lot of enjoyment from to this day is, maybe surprisingly, ‘On Sight’. I remember very clearly hearing the introduction to the track after I downloaded the link for the Yeezus link and thinking, “I’ve been scammed./This is a troll.” I was very close to stopping the track at the first blast of incomprehensible noise. But then that noise started having a rhythm to it, and then the techno beat kicked in with that offbeat bloop which seems to go on forever. My suspicion was still high. Then Kanye actually started rapping, to which I was still confused because what I was hearing was definitely not what I was expecting. But even with the incessant blooping in that beat, Kanye was sounding good. “Yeezy season approaching, fuck whatever y’all been hearing/Fuck whatever y’all been wearing/A monster about to come alive again” is one of his best album-opening lines just for sheer confidence. Then there’s the questionable line about getting “this bitch shakin’ like Parkinson’s”, which shouldn’t be laughed at, but within the context is pretty chuckling-inducing. A few more lines that amount to the meaning of being a Black man who’s looking to take over your home and wife, and you’ve got yourself a first verse that could only ever be delivered by Mr. Kanye West.

It’s so clear how self-aware Kanye West is being throughout this track. You don’t think he didn’t know what he was doing making this abrasive electro-hip-hop track the first on his new album, the one coming right after what fans and critics alike immediately deemed his instant classic? Come on, now. He clearly wanted to annoy some people. To prove how much he doesn’t care what anyone thinks, he briefly switches the beat in ‘On Sight’ to a gospel sample – a move that would have literally music to the ears of a standard Kanye fan – before going back to the techno beat as if it never happened. That decision right there sold me on the track on that first listen all those years ago. Once that gospel switch happened, I had a feeling it wouldn’t last for very long. It wouldn’t have been the Kanye way to just follow through with that change. Once that bait-and-switch happened, I understood what the track was trying to achieve. Just like its introduction, the track seems to not know when it wants to officially end, cutting out and dropping in again and abruptly increasing in intensity after Kanye throws out that reference to ‘Stronger’. I appreciate this track for being the introduction to what was essentially the anti-Dark Fantasy. I just can’t vibe with the whole package though. This is like the edgy Kanye album, and, to me, he properly gets it right on this one.

#904: Kanye West ft. Jay-Z & J.Ivy – Never Let Me Down

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Early memories I have of this track are hearing it play from my old computer’s speakers loudly as my sister ran through The College Dropout album. Would have been back in 2004 when the album was fresh and new, I think she got it for a birthday or something. But while she was watching MTV Base and into hip-hop and R&B, I was into bands and watching MTV2 and other channels of the like. As a result, ‘Never Let Me Down’ was never on my radar. It was always cool when Kanye came out with a new music video or something though.

Nah, it wasn’t until years later that I sat down and properly gave it a listen. I once had a YouTube channel where I would upload albums, back when copyright on there was a lot less strict. The College Dropout was one I put on there, and that allowed to revisit the tracks with new ears. I was 13 at that point, and when it came to ‘Never Let Me Down’ its hook came back to me straight away from those times I heard my sister singing it. Taking ‘Maybe It’s the Power of Love’ by 80s rock band Blackjack and pitch-shifting it to that iconic chipmunk tone that he was all over at the time, Kanye alongside Jay-Z and J.Ivy shift that song’s general message of ‘love conquers all’ to focus on their own respective personal perspectives on things they are thankful for and that have never let them down.

Now I could go all Genius on you and break down every line or whatever. But that’s what Genius is for. I’ll just make known some personal highlights for me from the track. I believe it’s said that when it comes to Kanye, he likes to use vocals as instruments. This isn’t just a new thing that’s arrived. He’s been doing it from the start. It’s clear on here yet again. There’s autotuned vocals, church choir vocals, ‘ooh’ backing vocals that follow the chord progression. It’s a vocal showcase. Then there’s spoken-word poet J.Ivy’s verse that he apparently got on the second take. Quite possibly the emotional centerpiece of the whole track. And although it was recorded for The Blueprint 2, the track was released after Jay-Z had “retired” from the music business, so I think people got excited when he appeared on here with not just one, but two verses. Years have gone on and I’ve seen that fans don’t really rates Hov’s verses ’cause they don’t match the overall tone of the track. I think they’re fine. The way he closes out the track with the sample looping fading out is cold stuff. And Kanye… well, he has a pretty heavy verse too. Pharrell Williams thought so too, judging by his reaction from the video below.

#796: Kid Cudi ft. Kanye West & Common – Make Her Say

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‘Make Her Say’, a song by Kid Cudi featuring Kanye West and Common, leaked in the early months of 2009, I remember that happening quite well. I was in Year 9, couldn’t tell you the US equivalent, and my friend who was always visiting websites for new music ended up downloading it. He showed it to everyone. When you’re 14 you’re trying to impress anyone you can. That he was able to get this download was a big deal for him, I guess.

Anyway, ‘Make Her Say’ was originally titled ‘I Poke Her Face’, reflecting the sexual content in the lyrics and also as a nod to the Lady Gaga sample that is heavily featured in the track. The title wasn’t appropriate for radio, thus the change in name. It features Cudi, West and Common rapping about having their eyes on women and detailing their own sexual fantasies about them. It’s all in good heart, even if it’s all a bit dirty. Talk about threesomes and spitting/swallowing is all in there, but the main act that’s highlighted is fellatio and how satisfying it is.

The track is actually very minimal in production, I’ve realised. I think this video is what Kanye took the ‘Poker Face’ sample from, and he just spliced it up, put a drum beat over it and made it a new song. Work’s greatly, though. Especially the way that Gaga’s vocals pop up here and there and work alongside the verses from Cudi, West and Common. The original leak had a full minute of Lady Gaga singing at the end; that’s the version I still listen to today. That was cut down for the album for reasons I don’t know.