Your Guide to Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo—All eighteen Tracks of It
Your Track-by-Track Guide to Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo
After three name switches and more than a year of taunts, Kanye West premiered his very first album since 2013`s Yeezus on Thursday. In an unprecedented event, West debuted the album, which he once taunted as «the best album of all time,» in a sold-out event at Madison Square Garden. According to Def Jam, more than twenty million attempted to stream the event, which also included the unveiling of West`s Yeezy Season three apparel line (not to mention appearances from everyone from Anna Wintour to Frank Ocean to the entire Kardashian clan to Naomi Campbell). But West still wasn`t out of surprises (or last-minute switches of mind) and on Friday morning he exposed a fresh tracklist that expanded the album from eleven tracks to 17. Then, on Saturday, he expanded it from seventeen to Eighteen. The album is eventually streaming, exclusively on Tidal, now.
Album art forThe Life of Pablo
Right from the top, «Ultralight Rafter» seems to signal to listeners that TLOP will be the anti-Yeezus. It even embarks with a literal casting-out of satans: A recording of a youthful doll (evidently taken from Instagram), telling, «We don`t want no satans in the house! We want the Lord!»
After opening with the gospel sounds of Pastor T.L. Barrett`s «Father Spread My Forearms,» 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 strike, «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.»
Again, gospel and cursing, sacred and profane. This one opens with Rihanna singing over church organ, seconds before West produces 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 hookup/ 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, telling, «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:
Very first thing is I’m an artist and as an artist I will express how I feel with no censorship
2nd thing I asked my wifey for her blessings and she was cool with it
3rd thing I called Taylor and had a hour long convo with her about the line and she thought it was funny and gave her blessings
4th Bitch is an endearing term in hip hop like the word Nigga
5th thing I’m not even gone take credit for the idea… it’s actually something Taylor came up with …
She was having dinner with one of our friends who’s name I will keep out of this and she told him
I can’t be mad at Kanye because he made me famous! #FACTS
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 strike 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.»
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 strike seemingly constructed from audio feedback, one of his best. The subject matter, meantime, 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, «Palms up, we just doing what the cops trained us/ Mitts up, forearms up, and the cops shot us.»
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 comebacks to that friendlier mode here, while suggesting no apologies for his latest work. As he says at the song`s very quotable closing:
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.
I wrote and arranged and fought for Flaps, and I make good decisions. S/o to @chrisbrown I been a fan since day one 💯💯
This is the very 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 switches. 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 fight 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.
This is another one we`d heard before–both at Yeezy Season one and on SNL`s forty th anniversary special–but unlike «Real Friends,» it`s switched a lot. The most notable switch is that in place of the old verses from Vic Mensa and Sia, the song now features a fresh verse from West and an outro from longtime collaborator Frank Ocean. That fresh verse–delivered over the same blend of strong, 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 wifey 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.»
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 across. The lyrics begin with West`s smoothie-drinking life in the present day before he reflects back on an affair for which he drove thirty hours across the country, and then thirty hours back. An aura of frustration looms over this flashback (and I`m not just talking about how West`s paramour slurps 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 eyed a latest picture of her–I guess she was right.»)