Kanye West
Yeezus

With this new album, Kanye West certainly attempts to heighten the gossip and rumors about his psycho-mental stability, his unrestrainable egocentrism, his vibrant nonconformity, and his artistic claims not to follow, as a good artist-sheep, the commercial frenzy imposed by record labels. Starting from the assumption that West is probably the lifeline of a genre still immersed in the stereotypes of the gilded ghetto, of the indissoluble connection between pimps/managers and strippers/dancers and pseudo Notorious B.I.G. with diamond-encrusted dentures, Yeezus at first glance seems to confirm, at least aesthetically, the artist's new direction: physical format without cover, booklet or back, almost no promotion - aside from a few multimedia projections on the skyscrapers of the Big Apple, no singles released, and any information kept under a veil of deliberate and conscious ignorance. We are, in short, faced with a project that rejects any logic of marketing and forced advertising to favor a single intent: offering music and nothing more.

As I have already wanted to emphasize, Kanye West - with all the megalomania he's now surrounding himself with - plays the role of the last and only hip hop artist worthy of this genre, the only one capable of breaking free from the ghetto-style clichés and approaching international, transversal, rich, and full-bodied art-sound trends, from classic protest rap to more radio-friendly pop, passing through tribal music, rock in its best nuances and interpretations, old school soul, alternative electronic, folk, and even romantic-retro synthpop (see the delightful 808s & Heartbreak). This man's semi-genius also lies in attaching a string of manifestations and creations to the classic sound-recording resume that concern art in more facets and complexities. In short, just citing Mr. West's versatility, now a father to a child with the spellbinding Kim Kardashian, is enough to forgive all his psychological deviations, compulsive egocentrism, and deistic-mythomaniac tendencies.

Yeezus follows three years after the last solo work, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, as well as the collaboration with Jay-Z for Watch The Throne and the compilation Cruel Summer put together with his G.O.O.D. Music colleagues, and once again overturns the brief grooves of continuity traced by the protagonist. If Twisted Fantasy could emerge as the heir to the vibrant hip-hop offerings of Graduation, Yeezus completely strips away the Westian setup, retaining only the passion and desire to astonish and shock ever more disruptively. Enclosed in a transparent plastic container devoid of frills and artwork, the record gets lost in such raw, horrific, dark and mystical atmospheres that it seems like a sort of satanic-apocalyptic symphony complete with anguished screams and desperate cries. All of this is rendered through a radical digression into the industrial-hardcore context with which West is not, however, unfamiliar: within the cauldron of Yeezus find space ambient, experimental techno, gothic electro-metal, punk-experimental sympathies, and even some euro-synth ditties crafted by the masterful robotic hands of Daft Punk, the main midwives of Yeezus. The debut of the first track, On Sight, dominated by the cyber-techno distortions of the French duo, already marks a small explosion, the main detonation of which is still a handful of tracks away; with I Am A God, possibly the new Quran of the West ideology, the furious and syncopated swirl of synths announces a sequence of apocalyptic screams from a Blockbuster of horror films before transitioning to New Slaves, presented with the company of the rising star of black music Frank Ocean, a techno-dark piece slightly softened compared to the debut. However, the hardcore section is yet to come: Send It Up is the perfect anthem of industrial hip hop par excellence, marked by a series of pedantic metal distortions, Hold My Liquor continues the hardcore mission admirably, injecting it with glam-rock fragrances, I'm In It acts as the customs between rap and proto-metal, while Guilt Trip offers slightly more sugar-coated synthpop sensations, with moments akin to 808's & Heartbreak. It all concludes with Bound, the perfect antithesis of the dominant industrial scent, a small boogie-Rhythm & Blues piece in the Motown style.

Ego or not ego, madness or not madness, Kanye West remains and will always remain the example to follow as well as the legendary final destination for those who want to do hip hop the right way and break free from the ghetto's mundanity. In fact, we should expect that the aesthetic minimalism of Yeezus will be imitated by majors tired of filling the bank accounts of graphic designers and art directors. And it won't be long before Mr. West's missal is adopted as catechism by the pop horde.

Kanye West, Yeezus

On Sight - Black Skinhead - I Am A God - New Slaves - Hold My Liquor - I'm In It - Blood On The Leaves - Guilt Trip - Send It Up - Bound