A lot of famous musicians reach a point where their muse becomes the nature of fame itself, resulting in obligatory leave-me-alone kiss-off songs dedicated to the press, hangers-on and haters.
On his seventh solo album, Kanye West does the Michaels and Madonnas one better by paying an album-long tribute to the joys, the anxieties, the energy and the extremes required to achieve the far-reaching ambitions he has laid out for himself as a nexus of music, art, technology and fashion.
Most pop stars are content with a me-against-the-world mentality, but The Life Of Pablo posits a mantra more like me-against-myself, expressed as a mainline rush of gospel, rap, soul, house, noise and pop, and full of digressions into the highest highs and lowest lows.
It’s not a far leap from the choral ecstasy on gospel opener Ultralight Beam to FML, a sparse song that references marital strife and anti-depressants, or Freestyle 4’s horror-movie violin riff (sampled from Goldfrapp’s Human) that soundtracks bleary-eyed sexual fantasies.
This is territory we’ve been to before with West, on 2013’s Yeezus and 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, but this time the stylistic turns are more jarring, wild and exuberant. Freestyle 4 follows the rousing oratory of Lowlights, which intros the celebratory banger Highlights, with its lyrics about using GoPro cameras to film a sex tape. (Apparently, there is no greater thrill for Kanye West than watching Kanye West have sex.)
Meanwhile, Famous opens with Rihanna singing Nina Simone and then bounces into Sister Nancy’s reggae jam Bam Bam Fade pays homage to Chicago house classics Facts is straight-up strip-club trap and No More Parties In L.A. and 30 Hours nod to the heads with sample-driven beat collages courtesy of Stones Throw-affiliated producers Karriem Riggins and Madlib.
These mood changes are both freewheeling and deftly calculated, articulating a manic struggle between responsibility and temptation. Of course, West is not short on pointed punch lines or crudeness. The Taylor Swift MTV interruption is unnecessarily dredged up (“I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / I made that bitch famous”) as is his wife’s sex tape and its co-star, Ray J (“He might have hit it first / only problem is I’m rich”).
So much popular music at the moment is about emotional numbness, but even when West’s going in uncomfortable directions, his music feels alive. It’s a reminder that ugliness, joyfulness and craziness are essential to the grand success and heightened experiences he craves.
There are also moments of pure rapping – on No More Parties In L.A. and 30 Hours – but West frequently cedes the mic to an ensemble cast of collaborators, from singers and MCs like Rihanna, Frank Ocean, Kelly Price, the Weeknd, Chance the Rapper and Kendrick Lamar. These supporting players fuse generations, genres and styles, and further emphasize The Life Of Pablo’s constantly overlapping emotions.
And yet, the most compelling song is a sad, solitary musing on the meaning of friendship. Real Friends is the kind of specific and probing confessional West has excelled at from the beginning. Despite the media controversies he incites, the song shows he’s still good at taking an idea that could be construed as a famous-person problem and exposing the universal human experience beneath it.
kevinr@nowtoronto.com | @kevinritchie
