Kanye West continues to be pop music’s most interesting and thrilling paradox
Kanye West is the Harry Houdini of hip-hop. The controversial Chicago rapper and producer often relishes having his back against the wall as a result of his questionable behaviour and public comments.
But he has often extricated himself from trouble with his brilliant music. Over 15 years and eight albums, West, 40, continues to build an impressive body of work that has not only won over begrudging critics, but gives him status as one of hip-hop’s great innovators.
Yet with each new height scaled, it seems that West needs a bigger challenge and drama from which to emerge. And with his latest release, Ye, West may have executed his most daring manoeuvre yet.
In what has to be one of the most chaotic album promotional campaigns in recent times, West returned from his Twitter hiatus this year with a blizzard of posts praising everyone from US President Donald Trump to the Indian Hindi spiritual guru Amma Mata.
Then came that infamous television interview last month in which he suggested that 400 years of African-American slavery “sounds like a choice”.
With some US radio stations staging a boycott of West in protest, and sections of the press labelling him a celebrity of the Alt Right movement, it is safe to say nothing short of a showcase of musical excellence could divert the storm clouds threatening his career.
And on that score, Ye delivers – but on West’s own terms.
The new record is sonically expansive as it touches upon various phases of West’s career, yet is boiled down to a suite of seven songs that clocks in at less than half an hour.
West stated the brief running time was a way to maintain the focus of online listeners, yet at the same time, present a unified body of work. In short – it is an album for the digital era.
That laser-sharp focus definitely helps Ye because nothing is wasted here. All songs are fully realised and work together in painting a picture of a troubled artist aware of his debilitating shortcomings yet full of hope and love for those near and dear to him.
That paradox is clearly illustrated in the opener I Thought About Killing You. Over hushed and treated background vocals, West begins with a spoken passage illustrating the love and cruelty that coexists within before a marauding trap beat arrives and West launches into full self-analysis that includes the wry declaration: “I done had a bad case of too many bad days.” Yikes is even more wrenching. Over dark and dronish synths and chopped-up samples, we are taken into the hospital room where West is recovering from his reported nervous exhaustion in 2016, a period in which he became addicted to opiates. The lyrics are ominous,
At 30 minutes long, Ye is an album for the digital era – West wastes no time and does not miss any of his targets
with West summoning the spirits of Prince and Michael Jackson – both of whom fatally overdosed – to describe his sorry state of mind: “I think Prince and Mike was tryna warn me, they know I got demons all on me.”
It ends with West’s admission of his bipolar disorder, which he hails as “my superpower ... ain’t no disability”.
Not that West is using his condition as an excuse. On Wouldn’t Leave, we are in his mansion in Los Angeles with his wife Kim Kardashian confronting him about his infamous slavery comments.
Needless to say she was livid and, in what would have been a tasty episode in Kardashian’s reality show, West gives her an ultimatum: “had to calm her down ’cause she couldn’t breathe. Told her she could leave me now, but she wouldn’t leave”.
We get a sense of the premium West pays to loyalty. The track is celebration of his partner and is rendered in the type of lush soul we haven’t heard from West since 2005’s
Late Registration – fans of old school West will be swooning at this development.
West maintains that lovedup feel on No Mistakes, which features a streamlined RnB sound that recalls West’s 2007 album Graduation with guest vocals by veteran Gap Band crooner Charlie Wilson and West protege Kid Cudi.
While in the serene final track – with washed-out keyboards that wouldn’t sound out of place in an 80s ballad – West is having a difficult conversation with his two young daughters. He warns them of men’s dark impulses while addressing those of his own: “forgive me, I’m scared of the karma, ’cause now I see women as somethin’ to nurture, Not somethin’ to conquer”.
Ye’s album is bound to divide listeners. Fans should rejoice at the fact that West returned to his older, soulful sounds and more humanistic outlook; while there will be those who are understandably livid that West hasn’t paid a price for his recent damaging comments.
That said, West remains pop music’s most interesting paradox, with each album earning and losing him fans with equal measure. Ye is merely another chapter in one of pop’s most thrilling journeys.