After the wild success of 2010's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and 2013's Yeezus, Kanye is at it again. His new album, SWISH, is scheduled to be released on February 11, and it has members of the hip-hop and rap community on the edge of their seats.
In preparation for the album, Yeezy's wife, Kim Kardashian, announced last week that a new track from the album would be released every Friday until the album comes out. So far, we've gotten a decent glimpse at some of these tracks, and what we can therefore expect on this album. One of these tracks, “Real Friends,” is a very authentic, sobering song that offers a lot of insight into the real Kanye. Here, he discusses what it’s like for him to not know who his real friends are, and how the negative aspects of fame have stripped a lot of his friends away from him and, inversely, brought fake friends closer.
A completely unrelated snippet of another track, “No More Parties in L.A.” offers a more soulful, classic-rap feel, featuring acclaimed rapper Kendrick Lamar. From what we can tell so far, this song is one of the more upbeat tracks in terms of both overall sound and theme (a conversation with a girl leaving the next morning against a 90's hip-hop beat, reminiscent of something very Tupac-esque). West also recently released his song “Facts,” a diss track to Nike after Ye's long-time feud with the company. The beat is derived from Drake’s wildly popular “Jumpman,” itself a tribute to Nike Jordan shoes.
It is unclear whether or not this was released as a single, serving to stand on its own against the Nike brand, or if it is part of the album; regardless, this track didn’t actually get too great of reviews, especially not compared to the other two tracks. Personally, I liked the song; the lyrics were caustic and clever, and Kanye had a lot of really impassioned vocalizations, which is just fancy-talk for, "Uh he made a lot of weird noises and it sounds really cool and authentic." But other listeners complained that Yeezy sounded more like Nike's jealous ex-girlfriend as opposed to world-renowned business mogul working with major shoe company, Adidas.
Either way, these newly released tracks have fans like myself waiting even more eagerly for the new album than before. I'm sure you'll deliver yet again, Yeezy.
