Kanye West Drops 'The Life of Pablo' Album After 'SNL' Performance
After years of waiting (and a day that felt like it could have been years more), Kanye West has released his highly anticipated new album, The Life of Pablo.
The album dropped late Saturday night following his Saturday Night Live performance. It's available on Tidal and kanyewest.com.
On Friday morning, West told his 18 million Twitter followers the album was being mastered and promised it would be out that day. He also posted a new and extended version of TLOP's track list. By Saturday, the album had yet to hit timelines and the blame seemed to fall on West's collaborator and fellow Chicagoan Chance the Rapper, who tweeted, "I fought everyone to keep Waves on the album. I spent all night finishing it. The world is better because of it." 'Ye even shared a different version of his album cover art that read "Blame Chance."
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 13, 2016
The Life of Pablo marks West's seventh studio album following 2013's Yeezus. He began working on the album first known as So Help Me God in late 2013 with an intended 2014 release date. That early version of the album was never released and a number of songs were later given to other artists or released as one-off tracks including "God Level" (released as part of an Adidas World Cup promo), "Tell Your Friends" (given to the Weeknd), "3500" (propert of Travis Scott), "All Day" and "Only One."
As the material changed, the album title did too. Last May, West announced the album's new name would be Swish and just last month it was titled Waves. Earlier this week, he announced it would be called The Life of Pablo.
On Thursday, West shared a 10-song version of the album at his Yeezy Season 3 event. It includes features by Chance the Rapper, Future, Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean, Rihanna, the Weeknd, Travis Scott, Swizz Beatz, Kirk Franklin, Kelly Price and others.
TLOP was released after West exited the SNL stage, where he performed "Ultra Light Beams" (with Chance the Rapper, Kirk Franklin, The-Dream, Kelly Price and a gospel choir) and "High Lights," with Young Thug, The-Dream, Price and El DeBarge.
1. “Ultralight Beam”
Right from the top, “Ultralight Beam” seems to signal to listeners that TLOP will be the anti-Yeezus. It even begins with a literal casting-out of devils: A recording of a young girl (apparently taken from Instagram), saying, “We don’t want no devils in the house! We want the Lord!”
The exorcism performed, the track quickly moves into the prophesied gospel: “We on an ultra light beam … This is a God dream … This is everything,” West sings. Though the track, a clear highlight, is packed with guests, the runaway star is Chance the Rapper. Even setting aside the rising star’s overflowing talent, featuring him at the top of the album was a brilliant bit of casting: Not only has Chance started combining hip-hop and gospel himself (the track also features gospel artist and past Chance collaborator Kirk Franklin), but he is a longtime Kanye superfan, for whom finally getting to work for West is itself a sort of religious moment. As Chance says, “I met Kanye West/ I’m never going to fail.”
Right from the top, “Ultralight Beam” seems to signal to listeners that TLOP will be the anti-Yeezus. It even begins with a literal casting-out of devils: A recording of a young girl (apparently taken from Instagram), saying, “We don’t want no devils in the house! We want the Lord!”
The exorcism performed, the track quickly moves into the prophesied gospel: “We on an ultra light beam … This is a God dream … This is everything,” West sings. Though the track, a clear highlight, is packed with guests, the runaway star is Chance the Rapper. Even setting aside the rising star’s overflowing talent, featuring him at the top of the album was a brilliant bit of casting: Not only has Chance started combining hip-hop and gospel himself (the track also features gospel artist and past Chance collaborator Kirk Franklin), but he is a longtime Kanye superfan, for whom finally getting to work for West is itself a sort of religious moment. As Chance says, “I met Kanye West/ I’m never going to fail.”
2. “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1”
After opening with the gospel sounds of Pastor T.L. Barrett’s “Father Stretch My Hands,”
this two-parter quickly moves from the sacred to the profane. As Wests
raps at the top of the opening verse, over a Metro Boomin beat, “Now if I
f--k this model/ And she just bleached her asshole/ And I get bleach on
my T-shirt/ I’mma feel like an asshole.”
3. “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 2”
After a sample from Street Fighter II (“Perfect!”) brings Part 1 to a close, Part 2 turns confessional, as West reflects on the calamities his family has faced, including his mother’s tragic death, his father’s struggles with money, and his own nearly fatal car crash. The day of the album’s release, West tweeted the lyrics, saying, “I cried writing this. I love my Dad.” But West has always embraced contradictions, and these confessional lyrics play over a repeated sample of “Panda”—a swaggering, a street-tough track from new G.O.O.D. music signee Desiigner—all before a melancholy vocoder coda that sounds like Imogen Heap.
4. “Famous”
3. “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 2”
After a sample from Street Fighter II (“Perfect!”) brings Part 1 to a close, Part 2 turns confessional, as West reflects on the calamities his family has faced, including his mother’s tragic death, his father’s struggles with money, and his own nearly fatal car crash. The day of the album’s release, West tweeted the lyrics, saying, “I cried writing this. I love my Dad.” But West has always embraced contradictions, and these confessional lyrics play over a repeated sample of “Panda”—a swaggering, a street-tough track from new G.O.O.D. music signee Desiigner—all before a melancholy vocoder coda that sounds like Imogen Heap.
4. “Famous”
Again, gospel and cursing, sacred and profane. This one opens with
Rihanna singing over church organ, seconds before West delivers what has
instantly became the most controversial line on the album: “For all my
Southside niggas that know me best/ I feel like me and Taylor might
still have sex/ Why? I made that bitch famous.” TMZ cites unnamed sources “directly connected with Swift”
to claim that Swift approved the line beforehand, understanding it was
just a joke. Swift’s publicist has denied this, saying, “Kanye did not
call for approval, but to ask Taylor to release his single ‘Famous’ on
her Twitter account.” The publicist continued, “She declined and
cautioned him about releasing a song with such a strong misogynistic
message,” and added, “Taylor was never made aware of the actual lyric, ‘I made that bitch famous.’ ” For his part, West is more or less sticking by his story:
The rest is, lyrically, fairly straightforward: West raps about being
famous and how it makes others jealous. But the sonic collage is all
over the place, from the Swizz Beatz beat to the samples of Sister
Nancy’s reggae classic “Bam Bam,” to, on the outro, a sample of Nina Simone’s “Do What You Gotta Do.”
5. “Feedback”
5. “Feedback”
This song finds another way to pun on the idea of the album as
gospel: “Y’all heard about the GOOD news?”, referencing the origins of
the word gospel in
order to make a pun about his own GOOD Music label. West raps over a
beat seemingly constructed from audio feedback, one of his best. The
subject matter, meanwhile, is wide-ranging, with West telling listeners
to “Wake up, nigga, wake up!” Is this a reference to staying woke?
It’s hard to say, but, elsewhere on the track, West leaves no room for
doubt about his allegiance to Black Lives Matter, rapping, “Hands up, we
just doing what the cops taught us/ Hands up, hands up, and the cops
shot us.”
6. “Low Lights”
“Low Lights” is essentially an extended intro to “Highlights,” with the two tracks returning to the same template set up at the top of the album: “Low Lights” is a jubilant one-minute intro that rejoices in God (albeit over melancholy piano chords, with DJ Mustard-style synth bass slathered on top), before “Highlights” brings things back down to earthly temptations.
7. “Highlights”
“Sometimes I’m wishing that my dick had GoPro/ So I could play that shit back in slo-mo/ Just shot an amateur video. I think I should go pro.” That begins to sum up the conceit of the song: for Kanye West, some nights are nothing but highlights.
For the most part, this possible first single (West has said that he and Young Thug will perform the song on Saturday Night Live on Saturday) maintains that jocular tone throughout, with memorable lines like “I bet me and Ray J’d be friends,/ if we ain’t love the same bitch./ Yeah, he might have hit it first/ Only problem is: I’m rich.” A reference to Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna’s sexercise regimen also suggests that this verse was recorded in the last two or three weeks. Of course, West has been making sexercise jokes since the first album, and he ends the song with another new workout plan.
6. “Low Lights”
“Low Lights” is essentially an extended intro to “Highlights,” with the two tracks returning to the same template set up at the top of the album: “Low Lights” is a jubilant one-minute intro that rejoices in God (albeit over melancholy piano chords, with DJ Mustard-style synth bass slathered on top), before “Highlights” brings things back down to earthly temptations.
7. “Highlights”
“Sometimes I’m wishing that my dick had GoPro/ So I could play that shit back in slo-mo/ Just shot an amateur video. I think I should go pro.” That begins to sum up the conceit of the song: for Kanye West, some nights are nothing but highlights.
For the most part, this possible first single (West has said that he and Young Thug will perform the song on Saturday Night Live on Saturday) maintains that jocular tone throughout, with memorable lines like “I bet me and Ray J’d be friends,/ if we ain’t love the same bitch./ Yeah, he might have hit it first/ Only problem is: I’m rich.” A reference to Rob Kardashian and Blac Chyna’s sexercise regimen also suggests that this verse was recorded in the last two or three weeks. Of course, West has been making sexercise jokes since the first album, and he ends the song with another new workout plan.
8. “Freestyle 4”
Remember when I said that TLOP isn’t all the anti-Yeezus? This “freak dream” would have fit right in on that album and marks the beginning of TLOP’s turn toward more nightmarish material. Like Yeezus’ “I’m in It,” this freaky sex fantasy is a mix of horror sounds (hear those Bernard Herrmann-esque strings?) and explicit lyrics (here they’re mostly about getting it on in public). Surely some fans will, as West later puts it, “miss the old Kanye.”
Remember when I said that TLOP isn’t all the anti-Yeezus? This “freak dream” would have fit right in on that album and marks the beginning of TLOP’s turn toward more nightmarish material. Like Yeezus’ “I’m in It,” this freaky sex fantasy is a mix of horror sounds (hear those Bernard Herrmann-esque strings?) and explicit lyrics (here they’re mostly about getting it on in public). Surely some fans will, as West later puts it, “miss the old Kanye.”
9. “I Love Kanye”
This charming a-cappella interlude finds West speaking directly to (and for) his fans, as he addresses those who have been disappointed with West’s Yeezus-era sourness and aggression and want the cuddly, soul-sampling Kanye back. He returns to that friendlier mode here, while offering no apologies for his recent work. As he says at the song’s highly quotable closing:
This charming a-cappella interlude finds West speaking directly to (and for) his fans, as he addresses those who have been disappointed with West’s Yeezus-era sourness and aggression and want the cuddly, soul-sampling Kanye back. He returns to that friendlier mode here, while offering no apologies for his recent work. As he says at the song’s highly quotable closing:
What if Kanye made a song about Kanye
Called “I Miss the Old Kanye”
Man, that would be so Kanye. That’s all it was, Kanye.
We still love Kanye, and I love you like Kanye loves Kanye.
10. “Waves”
According to West, the late addition of this song is the reason the album got delayed an extra day, but the wait was worth it. Another uplifting/vulgar track in the vein of the Chance collaboration that opens the album, “Waves” finds West mixing braggodocious bars (“Step up in this bitch like/ I’m the one your bitch like”) with a more somber message about death, or the legacy of relationships: “Even when somebody go away/ the feelings don't really go away/ That’s just the wave.”
According to West, the late addition of this song is the reason the album got delayed an extra day, but the wait was worth it. Another uplifting/vulgar track in the vein of the Chance collaboration that opens the album, “Waves” finds West mixing braggodocious bars (“Step up in this bitch like/ I’m the one your bitch like”) with a more somber message about death, or the legacy of relationships: “Even when somebody go away/ the feelings don't really go away/ That’s just the wave.”
I wrote and arranged and fought for Waves, and I make great decisions. S/o to @chrisbrown I been a fan since day one 💯💯— Lil Chano From 79th (@chancetherapper) February 14, 2016
11. “FML”
Though the title of this one puns on the teen-slang acronym for “F--k my life,” make no mistake: This is a dark song that finds West pondering self-destruction. It’s only appropriate, then, that West also gets an assist from R&B’s leading poet of self-destruction, the Weeknd, who sings the titular phrase on the chorus, “Wish I would go ahead and fuck my life up/ Can’t let them get to me/ And even though I always fuck my life up/ Only I can mention me.” West even makes mention—not for the first time—of the anti-depression and anti-anxiety drug Lexapro, something with which he seems to have personal experience. Before, he complained about the side effects, and this time he talks about what happens when you go off it.
12. “Real Friends”
Though the title of this one puns on the teen-slang acronym for “F--k my life,” make no mistake: This is a dark song that finds West pondering self-destruction. It’s only appropriate, then, that West also gets an assist from R&B’s leading poet of self-destruction, the Weeknd, who sings the titular phrase on the chorus, “Wish I would go ahead and fuck my life up/ Can’t let them get to me/ And even though I always fuck my life up/ Only I can mention me.” West even makes mention—not for the first time—of the anti-depression and anti-anxiety drug Lexapro, something with which he seems to have personal experience. Before, he complained about the side effects, and this time he talks about what happens when you go off it.
12. “Real Friends”
This is the first song from The Life of Pablo that was available in a studio version before, and it doesn’t seem to have undergone any significant changes. As before, it’s a confessional song, with “Blame Game”-esque
production (built around another melancholy piano loop). But while
“Blame Game” was about a breakup, this one is about the struggle to
maintain relationships with friends. Once again, everyone is to blame:
West for staying too busy to keep up (“I guess I get what I deserve,
don’t I?”), and West’s friends for concealing hidden self-interests.
13. “Wolves”
13. “Wolves”
This is another one we’d heard before—both at Yeezy Season 1 and on SNL’s 40th anniversary special—but unlike “Real Friends,” it’s changed a lot.
The most notable change is that in place of the old verses from Vic
Mensa and Sia, the song now features a new verse from West and an outro
from longtime collaborator
Frank Ocean. That new verse—delivered over the same blend of heavy,
ominous-sounding bass and soaring (howling?) falsetto that anchored the
original track—fleshes out the song’s central metaphor. In it, West
imagines himself and wife Kim Kardashian as the rap game Joseph and
Mary, before worrying about his two children: “Cover Nori in lambs’
wool/ We’re surrounded by wolves … Cover Saint in lambs’ wool/ We’re
surrounded by the f--kin’ wolves.”
14. “Silver Surfer Intermission”
This interlude marks the transition from the album West played at MSG to what could almost be considered the deluxe-edition bonus tracks. In itself, it’s not much more than West trying to get the last word on a recent beef: After Wiz Khalifa came at West for naming the album Waves (briefly, before changing it once again), claiming that West was stealing from the so-called “wavy movement” pioneered by Max B., West plays a message from Max B. that gives the album his blessing.
15. “30 Hours”
This late addition, premiered on Friday, opens with a sample of disco producer and composer Arthur Russell’s “Answers Me,” which repeats in various forms throughout. The lyrics start with West’s smoothie-drinking life in the present day before he reflects back on an affair for which he drove 30 hours across the country, and then 30 hours back. An aura of disappointment looms over this flashback (and I’m not just talking about how West’s paramour eats all his Popeye’s), which also finds the rapper referencing Nelly and taking some typically unnecessary shots at an ex. (“My ex says she gave me the best years of her life,” he raps, “I saw a recent picture of her—I guess she was right.”)
14. “Silver Surfer Intermission”
This interlude marks the transition from the album West played at MSG to what could almost be considered the deluxe-edition bonus tracks. In itself, it’s not much more than West trying to get the last word on a recent beef: After Wiz Khalifa came at West for naming the album Waves (briefly, before changing it once again), claiming that West was stealing from the so-called “wavy movement” pioneered by Max B., West plays a message from Max B. that gives the album his blessing.
15. “30 Hours”
This late addition, premiered on Friday, opens with a sample of disco producer and composer Arthur Russell’s “Answers Me,” which repeats in various forms throughout. The lyrics start with West’s smoothie-drinking life in the present day before he reflects back on an affair for which he drove 30 hours across the country, and then 30 hours back. An aura of disappointment looms over this flashback (and I’m not just talking about how West’s paramour eats all his Popeye’s), which also finds the rapper referencing Nelly and taking some typically unnecessary shots at an ex. (“My ex says she gave me the best years of her life,” he raps, “I saw a recent picture of her—I guess she was right.”)
16. “No More Parties in L.A.”
Is this back on the album due to popular demand? The long-awaited first collaboration between Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West became a fan favorite after West shared it in mid-January, but it briefly disappeared from West’s ever-evolving tracklists. Thought it’s Lamar who’s known for rapid-fire raps, the Madlib-produced showcase centers around West rattling off rhymes for almost four minutes straight. As he says a few minutes in, “Some fans thought I wouldn’t rap like this again.” I guess this is that “old Kanye”?
Is this back on the album due to popular demand? The long-awaited first collaboration between Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West became a fan favorite after West shared it in mid-January, but it briefly disappeared from West’s ever-evolving tracklists. Thought it’s Lamar who’s known for rapid-fire raps, the Madlib-produced showcase centers around West rattling off rhymes for almost four minutes straight. As he says a few minutes in, “Some fans thought I wouldn’t rap like this again.” I guess this is that “old Kanye”?
17. “Facts” (Charlie Heat Version)
While many fans were outraged to see “No More Parties in L.A.”
briefly disappear from the tracklist, fewer were sad about the prospect
of losing this Nike diss track. In what amounts to a parody of “Jumpman”
from Nike pitch man Drake and his collaborator Future (West even
borrows the flow), West brags about the success of his Yeezy shoes. That
said, as West made extra clear as he debuted the new version of the
song (from GOOD music producer Charlie Heat), he has no beef with the
original Jumpman himself, Michael Jordan. (Still, he couldn’t help but
add: “People come to Madison Square Garden to see me play
one-on-no-one.”)
18. “Fade”Fans have been clamoring for the final version of this one ever since West previewed it at his Yeezy Season 2 event in September, and it’s not hard to hear why. After Yeezus’ adventures in acid house, “Fade” is pure house, opening with a sample of Rare Earth’s cover of the Temptations’ “I Know (I’m Losing You)” before pairing it with a sample of Hardrive’s “Deep Inside.” Though the two tracks are from different eras, they go together nicely, coming together at the end to form the phrase “I feel it … deep inside.”
The real highlight, however, is that climbing bass line, over which West, R&B singer-songwriter Ty Dolla Sign, and “White Iverson” singer Post Malone alternate verses. The lyrics, about trying to hold on to a love that’s fading, aren’t exactly the cleverest ones on the album, but it’s hard to care when that bass first drops. West isn’t always at his best lyrically on the new album, and he may no longer be the most popular rapper in the game, but there’s still no one who can step to him as a showman, as a lightning rod, and as a producer.
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