Yeezus was initially promoted with an unorthodox, minimalist marketing campaign that included worldwide video projections and live television performances. Nosingles preceded the release; "Black Skinhead" was released as the lead single in July 2013, followed by "Bound 2" in August. West embarked onthe Yeezus Tour to support it between October 2013 and September 2014.Yeezus received acclaim from critics, who considered it among West's best work and commended its brash direction, though its departure from West's prior soundscape divided general audiences. It was the most acclaimed album of 2013, according toMetacritic, and topped numerous end-of-year list rankings.
West was influenced primarily by minimalist design and architecture during the production ofYeezus, and visited a furniture exhibit in theLouvre five times.[1] A singleLe Corbusier lamp was his "greatest inspiration".[1] West worked closely with the architect Oana Stănescu, and took "field trips" toLe Corbusier homes. Fascinated by Stănescu's comments on the unusual and radical nature of Corbusier design choices, West applied the situation to his own life, feeling that "visionaries can be misunderstood by their unenlightened peers".[5] West also met with architectJoseph Dirand and Belgian interior designer Axel Vervoordt, and had "rare Le Corbusier lamps,Pierre Jeanneret chairs and obscure body-art journals from Switzerland" delivered to the loft.[5] West also wanted a deep hometown influence on the album, and listened to 1980shouse music most associated with his home city of Chicago for influence.[1]Alejandro Jodorowsky'sThe Holy Mountain was also an inspiration for the album and itsensuing tour.[6][7] The album was originally titledThank God for Drugs.[8]
In 2012, West began recording his sixth studio album with collaborators, includingNo I.D. andDJ Khaled.[9] The first recordings were held in January 2013, in the living room of his personal loft at a Paris hotel, referred to in the album's credits as the "No Name Hotel". West kept compositions simple in order to hear the tracks more clearly; too much bass or complexity would simply overpower the room's pooracoustics.[1] The beats emanating from the loft space, which sometimes lasted through the night, provoked complaints from neighbors.[5] Reports emerged that he and his then-girlfriendKim Kardashian had moved to the loft in order for West to begin work on the album.[10]
The atmosphere in the studio was described by contributorEvian Christ as "very focused", and West once again brought in several close collaborators. Producer Hudson Mohawke noted the inclusive "group" atmosphere of the sessions, in which multiple contributors would work on similar pieces, with different elements ultimately selected from each.[11] All involved were given a song to work on and return the next day to sit and critique, a processAnthony Kilhoffer compared to an art class.[12] ProducerArca described being initially asked to send West music, noting that she purposefully sent perhaps the strangest material she had, with West happening to be excited by it.[13] Describing West's collaborative style, Arca stated:
It was a lot of coming up with design, like solving riddles. If the song called for something aggressive, it was up to three or four people to design what in their head was the best solution for that aggression in that moment. Everyone would approach it in completely different ways, and ultimately, it would all be edited by Kanye himself.[13]
The record production is characterized as raw and dark. West maintains a stripped-down approach while continuing to use eclecticsamples.
Determined to "undermine the commercial", several tracks were left off the finished product that were deemed too melodic or more in line with West's previous material.[12] West set parameters regarding sound and style, insisting that there be no "bass wobbles" reminiscent ofdubstep.[12] The album's recording process was described as "very raw" byThomas Bangalter of the Frenchelectronic duoDaft Punk, who produced four songs for the album, adding that West was "rapping – kind of screaming primally, actually".[14] While previous albums, particularlyDark Fantasy, took considerable time in the studio,Yeezus was described by Kilhoffer as "the fastest record we ever made".[12] In May 2013, Def Jam executives listened to the "final product", (only later to be changed) describing the album as "dark".[15] American musician Travis Scott opined that the snippets he'd heard ofYeezus were from the year 3000 and recalled "crazy memories" from being around West during the recording of it.[16]
W writer Christopher Bagley reports that West's creative process often bordered on perfectionist. In March 2013, West described the album to Bagley as near completion, only to revise this statement one month later to the album being "only 30 percent complete".[5] West made several last-minute alterations toYeezus, enlisting the co-founder ofDef Jam Recordings,Rick Rubin, as an executive producer for additional recording mere days before its release; changes included re-recording whole songs and rewriting entire verses.[17] The rough cut West played Rubin ran nearly three and a half hours long.[18] West's orders to Rubin were to take the music in a "stripped-down minimal direction", often removing elements already recorded.[1] In a September 2013 interview with radio DJZane Lowe, West said of Rubin that "he's not a producer, he's a reducer".[19]
For several days in late May and early June 2013, West and a "rotating group of intimates, collaborators and hangers-on" holed up at Rubin'sShangri-La studio inMalibu in service of completing the record.[1] Rubin thought it impossible to meet the deadline and all involved ended up working long hours with no days off in order to complete the record. West had intended the album be 16 tracks until Rubin suggested cutting the album down to fewer tracks, from 16 songs to 10, saying the others could be reserved for a follow-up.[18][20] Rubin gave as example "Bound", which was "a more middle of the roadR&B song, done in anadult contemporary style" before West decided to replace the musical backing with a minimalistic sample, "a single notebassline in thehook which we processed to have a punk edge in theSuicide tradition". Two days before the album had to be delivered to the label, West wrote and sang the lyrics to two songs while also recording the vocals to three others in just two hours.[21]
Music and composition
Described as West's most sonicallyexperimental work, the album is driven by abrasive electronics while drawing from an array ofindustrial,punk andhip-hop subgenres.
According toChicago Tribune criticGreg Kot,Yeezus is a "hostile, abrasive and intentionally off-putting" album that combines "the worlds of" 1980sChicago acid-house, 2013Chicago drill music, 1990sindustrial music, and the "avant-rap" ofSaul Williams,Death Grips, andOdd Future.[22]The Independent,Mass Appeal, andThe Village Voice described it as anexperimental release,[23][24][25] while Meagan Garvey ofThe Outline described it as West's "industrial album".[26]Rolling Stone described it as "an extravagantly abrasive album full of grindingelectro, pummeling minimalisthip-hop,drone-y wooz and industrial gear-grind",[27] whileVulture called it a "punk rap opus",[28] andRolling Stone called it an "industrial-rap opus".[29]Slant Magazine critic Ted Scheinman described the album as "built on alien, angular beats, slowly morphing drones and sirens, abrupt periods of silence, and a pulse-quickening style of delivery from Yeezy himself", writing that West reconceives the "notion of what kind of music (or noise) can underpin hip-hop".[30] According to Charles Aaron ofSpin,Yeezus is "a hip-hop album, not a rap album", because of how its sounds and subject matter are assembled together, and although listeners can hear "'punk' or 'post-punk' or industrial'" throughout, "hip-hop has always been about noise and dissonance anddance music as agitation".[31] The album also incorporates elements of industrial andtrap music.[32] The record "most closely resembles" 1990sindustrial rock, during which the genre had a significantpop culture impact, with artists such asNine Inch Nails,Ministry, andMarilyn Manson gaining success. The industrial scene created a "vast global underground community", andEsquire notes that one of its epicenters was in Chicago, where West was raised.[33] Evan Rytlewski ofThe A.V. Club characterized its opening series of songs as electro andindustrial hip-hop.[34]Billboard andSpin additionally observedhorrorcore elements, such as synths and screaming.[35][31]
Referencing the sound ofYeezus in September 2013, West stated: "For me as Kanye West, I got to fuck shit up... I'm going to take music and try to make it three dimensional... I'm not here to make easy listening, easily programmable music".[19] At the same time, he viewed himself as artistically being "here to crack the pavement and break new ground, sonically".[19] West would later go onto describe the sound of the album as "a protest to music".[36] West elaborated, claiming that he "was like 'I'm gonna take my ball and go home'".[36]
Yeezus is primarilyelectronic in nature, and boasts distorteddrum machines andsynthesizers that sound like they're malfunctioning, low-resolution samplers that add a pixelated digital aura to the most analog sounds.[33] To this end, the album incorporates glitches reminiscent ofCD skips or corrupted MP3's, andAuto-Tuned vocals are modulated to a point in which they are difficult to decipher.[33]Esquire cites "On Sight" as an early example of the album's connection to electronic music, citing its "droning synthesizer tone", which is "modulated until the signal starts throwing off harshlytreble-heavy spikes and begins toclip, as if it were overloading adigital audio processor".[33]
A sample of the opening track, "On Sight" exemplifies the album's abrasive electronic music. It features a droningsynthesizertone, one that is modulated until the signal gives off harshtreble-heavy spikes and begins toclip.[33]
Yeezus continues West's practice of eclectic samples: he employs an obscureHindi sample on "I Am a God", and a sample of 1970sHungarian rock groupOmega on "New Slaves". "On Sight" interpolates a melody from "Sermon (He'll Give Us What We Really Need)" by the Holy Name of Mary Choral Family, although the track originally sampled an old vocal track from the original recording.[17] "Bound 2" features heavysoul music samples and has been described as the only song onYeezus which recalls the sound of West's early work.[39] "Bound", a 1971 song by Americansoul groupPonderosa Twins Plus One from their album2 + 2 + 1 = Ponderosa Twins Plus One, serves as the primary sample used in West's track.[40]
The album's second track "Black Skinhead" has alternately been called an industrial hip-hop song[34][37] and "a galloping punk-rap manifesto".[38] "I Am a God" was inspired by a "diss" from a major fashion designer, who informed West of his invitation to a widely anticipated runway show on the condition he agree to not attend other shows.[5] "I'm in It" began with a different sample and melody, but West removed the sample and Rubin edited the track down from a six-minute arrangement.[12] "Blood on the Leaves", which samplesNina Simone's 1965 rendition of "Strange Fruit" and was the first track in the first incarnation of the track list, is an example of West's signature dichotomy in which he melds the sacred and profane.[12][41] "Strange Fruit", first recorded byBillie Holiday in 1939, brought thelynchings of black Americans to a "startling poignancy", creating "one of the most towering, important songs of the 20th century". West's anthemic re-telling instead details anMDMA-fueled hookup and the perils of fame.[41]
Promotion and release
A video projection of "New Slaves" in Los Angeles in May 2013.
On May 1, 2013, West usedTwitter to post a single message reading "June Eighteen", leading several media outlets to speculate that the post referred to the release date of West's upcoming album.[42] On May 17, he began promotion of the album by unveiling the previously unreleased song "New Slaves" through video projections in 66 assorted locations.[43] The following day, West appeared on the American late-night live television sketch comedy showSaturday Night Live and performed the songs "New Slaves" and "Black Skinhead".[44] West subsequently revealed the album's cover and title,Yeezus, on his official website.[45] Fellow rapperKendrick Lamar offered his opinion on the title in an interview that same month, stating: "That's crazy, I want to hear that. That's that creative Kanye genius stuff out the box".[46] He also claimed that the album's "whole marketing scheme is crazy" and "very inspiring".[46] TheiTunes Store madeYeezus available for pre-order on May 20, but the listing was subsequently taken down for unknown reasons.[47] On May 29,A.P.C. founderJean Touitou unveiled an advertisement forYeezus which stated that the album would not be available for pre-order.[48] Speaking about the album's minimal promotion, West stated: "With this album, we ain't drop no single to radio. We ain't got noNBA campaign, nothing like that. Shit, we ain't even got no cover. We just made some real music".[17]
In May 2013, American rapperJ. Cole called West "one of the greatest artists of our generation" via Twitter, with him following this by tweeting: "Which is exactly why I'm moving my release date up.Born Sinner June 18th".[49] He explained releasing his second studio albumBorn Sinner on the same day asYeezus during an interview that same month, saying: "I'm not going to sit [here]... I worked too hard to come a week later after Kanye West drops an amazing album. It'd be like, 'Oh and J.Cole dropped too, a week later.' Nah. I'm going to go see him on that date. He's the greatest".[50] The next month, J. Cole gave further context, claiming for the coinciding release to be "more about the statement" than the sales.[51] J. Cole elaborated on this, admitting that the music being competed over "is art" and he "can't compete against the Kanye West celebrity and the status that he's earned just from being a genius", though stated: "But I can put my name in the hat and tell you that I think my album is great and you be the judge and you decide".[51] A lyrical reference to releasing on the same date as West is included in the track "Forbidden Fruit" fromBorn Sinner.[51]
The physical CD edition ofYeezus was released in a clearjewel box with noalbum artwork, reflecting the minimalist tone. The packaging consists of little more than a piece of red tape and a sticker affixed to the back, with sample credits and the album'sUPC. Other versions of this release have different colors of stickers, with green, yellow and orange being some of the other colors. The front is affixed with aParental Advisory label.[52]The Source pointed out a resemblance between theYeezus CD packaging and a packaging concept designed for the single "Crystal" by the English bandNew Order in 2001.[53] In a 2016 BBC interview withAnnie Mac, West explained the album cover; "The whole concept for theYeezus album is that we're not going to be using CDs in the future and since this is the last time we're going to see it, this is an open casket for the CD."[54]
Def Jam confirmed in late June 2013 that "Black Skinhead" would be serviced to American radio as the album's first single on July 2, 2013, and that a music video for the track was being produced.[55] It was officially released to radio in the United Kingdom on June 19.[56] The song peaked at number 69 on the USBillboard Hot 100 and 34 on theUK Singles Chart.[57][58] In August 2013, it was revealed that "Bound 2" would be released as the second single fromYeezus.[59] "Bound 2" features vocals from American soul singer Charlie Wilson and incorporates numerous samples into its production, including prominent elements of the song "Bound" (1971) by soul group Ponderosa Twins Plus One.[40] "Bound 2" received general acclaim from music critics, who referred to the song as one of the highlights of the album and compared its soul sample-based production to West's early work from his debut studio albumThe College Dropout (2004).[34][60] The song has since peaked at number 55 on the UK Singles Chart.[61] In November 2013, producer Hudson Mohawke revealed that "Blood on the Leaves" would serve as the album's third single.[62] West subsequently made the announcement in an interview on New York's92.3 NOW.[63]
On September 6, 2013, West announcedThe Yeezus Tour, a North Americantour to take place between October 19 through December 7, 2013; two months prior to West's announcement,Yeezus co-producer Mike Dean had announced a tour for the album.[64][65] The tour was marketed as his "first solo tour in 5 years", and featured Kendrick Lamar, Pusha T,A Tribe Called Quest, and Travis Scott as the supporting acts.[64] On October 30, 2013, while on the road toVancouver, a truck carrying custom-made video screens and equipment for the show was involved in a car accident, the crash damaged the equipment beyond repair.[66] The tour resumed on November 16, 2013, at theWells Fargo Center inPhiladelphia. The missed Chicago and Detroit shows were rescheduled however, the rest of the missed dates were cancelled, Def Jam cited routing logistics as the reason.[67]
Yeezus was met with widespread critical acclaim. AtMetacritic, which assigns anormalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received anaverage score of 84, based on 46 reviews.[69] Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 8.2 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.[68]
Reviewing the album inThe Guardian, lead criticAlexis Petridis found it "noisy, gripping, maddening, potent",[73] while Helen Brown fromThe Daily Telegraph said it was "the most exciting album" she had heard in some time.[71] Jon Dolan fromRolling Stone called it a "brilliant, obsessive-compulsive career auto-correct" that made other abrasive records by "mad geniuses", such asIn Utero byNirvana andRadiohead'sKid A, seem tame by comparison.[27]Pitchfork critic Ryan Dombal viewed it as a "razor-sharpened take" on West's fourth studio album,808s & Heartbreak, concluding that "cohesion and bold intent are at a premium onYeezus, perhaps more than any other Kanye album. Each fluorescent strike of noise, incongruous tempo flip, and warped vocal is bolted into its right place across the album's fast 40 minutes".[76] Randall Roberts of theLos Angeles Times felt it was his most ambitious piece of music yet,[79] and Evan Rytlewski fromThe A.V. Club said it was his most uninhibited record: "Even by the standards of an artist who reinvents himself with each release, it's a drastic departure".[34] In a highly positive review,AllMusic's David Jeffries opined that the album was an "extravagant stunt with the high-art packed in, offering an eccentric, audacious, and gripping experience that's vital and truly unlike anything else".[70] Ann Powers ofNPR described the album as "juxtaposing avant-garde industrial and electronic innovations with the high romantic hip-hop West had already perfected."[80] Rock artistLou Reed reviewedYeezus in July 2013 shortly before his death, describing it as majestic and inspiring. "He's really trying to raise the bar. No one's near doing what he's doing, it's not even on the same planet".[81]
Some reviewers expressed reservations. InThe New York Times,Jon Pareles said West's innovative transfiguration of his music—with unrefinedelectronica anddrill elements—was undermined by his distasteful lyrics and appropriation of1960s civil rights slogans "to his own celebrity or to bedroom exploits".[82] InRobert Christgau's opinion, the combination of harsh rock and hip-hop sounds onYeezus was as bold asPublic Enemy's music during the 1980s, but West's lyrics were grotesquely off-putting. "He's wordsmith enough to insure that his sexist imagery is very hard to take", Christgau wrote inThe Barnes & Noble Review,[83] looking at the album as an "alt-rap also-ran".[84] Chris Richards fromThe Washington Post found West's lyricism perhaps "his least compelling" yet and "drunk on bitterness", though viewed the album as "West at his most wasted, stumbling through rubble".[85] Alex Griffin ofTiny Mix Tapes expressed similar feelings, describing it as "a nebulous, dense, paranoid web of utterly unfiltered expression that's utterly or negligibly fascinating depending on how much you care about Yeezy".[86] InThe Times,Will Hodgkinson surmised thatYeezus could have been West's masterpiece had he not become "so hopelessly self-important".[78]
Accolades
Yeezus was the most critically acclaimed album of 2013. It managed to top 18 lists and polls.
Based on 146 individual year-end top ten lists compiled by Metacritic,Yeezus was the most critically acclaimed album of 2013, appearing on 61 lists and being named first on 18 of them.[87] In October 2013,Complex namedYeezus the sixth best hip-hop album of the last five years.[88]Yeezus was rated as album of the year by nine publications.Spin named it the best album of 2013, writing, "Yeezus was a thorny tangram puzzle of boxy headbanger blats that exemplified a year of equally stripped-down, basal pleasures".[89]The A.V. Club named it the best album of 2013 saying "It's magnificent, and it sounds like absolutely nothing else".[90]Rolling Stone named it the second best album of 2013, comparing it in concept to Reed's polarizing 1975 albumMetal Machine Music: "No wonder the late, great Lou Reed embracedYeezus, since it's basically theMetal Machine Music concept translated into futuristic hip-hop, all industrial overload and hypertense egomania and hostile vibes".[91]Exclaim! also named it the hip-hop album of the year.[92]NME named it the second best album of the year calling it "his most sonically challenging album to date".[93]Stereogum,Time, andComplex were also among the publications that namedYeezus the best album of 2013.[94][95][96]
In January 2014,Yeezus was named the best album of 2013 byThe Village Voice'sPazz & Jop annual critics' poll.[103] By topping the poll, West attained his fourth album to do so, following on fromThe College Dropout,Late Registration, andMy Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2004, 2005, and 2010, respectively.[103] On the same poll for singles, "Bound 2", "New Slaves", and "Black Skinhead" were ranked in the top 10.[104] In 2020,Rolling Stone rankedYeezus as the 269th album on their500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.[105] In 2025,Resident Advisor ranked it at number 16 in their list of "The Best Electronic Records 2000–25";[106] contributorKieran Press-Reynolds credited West for introducing a wider audience to uncommercial sounds, saying he "smuggled industrial beats into more homes than surely any other record this century, converting an unquantifiably large number of casuals."[106]
Yeezus debuted at number one on the USBillboard 200, becoming West's sixth chart-topping studio album and selling 327,000 copies in the United States in its first week.[118] The album failed to reach the 500,000 sales projections, and marked West's lowest solo opening week sales in the US.[118] However, it still had the third-best first week sales of 2013 at the time of release and marked the highest first week sales by a hip-hop album sinceDrake's 2011 albumTake Care.[119] Simultaneously,Born Sinner entered at number two on theBillboard 200 with sales of 297,000 copies, selling 30,000 less thanYeezus.[119] The second week sales saw the album fall dramatically; although it descended two places to end at number three on the chart, sales dropped by 80% to 65,000 units, makingYeezus the largest second-week percentage drop for a number one-debuting album in 2012–13 and the fourth-largest for a number one-bowing album in theSoundScan era.[120]Billboard's Keith Caulfield attributed the diminished figures to the non-traditional marketing, considering that the lack of singles and public appearances led the album to find "difficulty in sustaining its momentum".[120] That same week,Born Sinner remained at number two on theBillboard 200, outsellingYeezus by nearly 20,000 units with sales of 84,000 copies.[121] The following week,Born Sinner climbed to number one on the chart, tying the peak position attained byYeezus previously.[122] On August 12, 2013,Yeezus was certifiedgold in the US by theRecording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of over 500,000 copies.[123][124] By September 19, 2013, the album had sold 537,000 copies, being outperformed by the 599,000 copies sold ofBorn Sinner.[125] J. Cole responded to this by commenting that he doesn't "live for the accolades" and claiming: "I'm more so about the music. Making it, and putting it out. Those are the two best feelings".[125]Yeezus was later certified platinum in the US by the RIAA on January 8, 2014, for shipments of one million albums shipped to stores and digital retailers.[124][126][127]Yeezus was ranked as the 37th most popular album of 2013 on theBillboard 200.[128]
On theARIA Albums Chart,Yeezus initially debuted at number two after selling 9,500 copies in three days, entering behindThe Great Country Songbook byTroy Cassar-Daley andAdam Harvey at the summit. However, after a data error was found, a re-count of sales was done.[129] The re-count found thatYeezus was actually the number one album of the week. ARIA issued an apology and the chart was fixed.[129] The album stood as West's first chart topper in Australia.[130]Yeezus reached number one on theCanadian Albums Chart, becoming West's fifth chart-topping album in Canada.[131] In the United Kingdom, the album experienced a chart-topping performance, with it debuting at number one on theUK Albums Chart and giving West his first number one on the chart sinceGraduation in 2007, as well as his fourth top ten album in the UK.[132] The following week,Yeezus descended five places to number six on the UK Albums Chart.[133] The album was ultimately certified gold in the UK by theBritish Phonographic Industry (BPI) on February 20, 2015, for sales of 100,000 units.[134]Yeezus was also a chart topper inDenmark,New Zealand andRussia.[135][136][137] The album was the ninth best-selling cassette album in the US in 2017.[138]
Public reaction toYeezus, including its unorthodox and deliberate lack of promotion as well as its brash and aggressive sound, was mixed.Yeezus was noted as one of the most anticipated releases of 2013 by major publications, but the lack of a major radio single was regarded as a risky move.[139] Regardless, radio stations still played tracks fromYeezus on air, despite it being a departure from the normal playlists found on hip-hop stations.[140] "When I listen to radio, that ain't where I wanna be no more", stated West at hisheadlining June 9, 2013Governor's Ball performance, where he unveiled several tracks from the record for the first time.Rolling Stone summarized the audience's response: "Half the crowd cheered, half almost audibly rolled their eyes".[141] West's June 11 interview withJon Caramanica ofThe New York Times was similarly viewed with a mixed reaction, with many outlets mocking West's seemingly vain statements.[142] In the article, West compares himself toApple co-founderSteve Jobs and refers to himself as "the nucleus of all society".[143]
Within four days prior to the release,Yeezus wasleaked online.[144]The New York Times wrote that the leak "stirred up a Twitter frenzy" and received widespread media coverage.[82]The Washington Post commented on the significance of the leak: "Kanye West’s new album didn’t leak online over the weekend. It gushed out into the pop ecosystem like a million barrels of renegade crude — ominous, mesmerizing and of great consequence".[85] Critics were very kind toYeezus regarding critical reviews, but others viewed the release as "musical and commercial suicide", and "fans live-blogged their own befuddlement on Twitter andFacebook".[145]The New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones suggests thatYeezus may be preferred over any of West's previous works in coming decades by a new generation due to the "lean vibrancy" of the album.[142] "One of the most fascinating aspects ofYeezus' arrival is the discursive crisis it's caused, produced by a fast-react culture colliding with a work of art so confounding", wroteThe Atlantic's columnist Jack Hamilton.[145]
West was criticized by the UK and USParkinson's disease Associations for controversial lyrics in lead-song "On Sight".[146][147]Oasis lead memberLiam Gallagher criticizedYeezus over its title, saying of West: "He's a fucking idiot. You'll never seeJesus banging his head".[148] American rapperHopsin dissed West over the album within the lyrics of his single "Hop Is Back" in October 2013, while the music video included Hopsin reenacting one of West's numerous encounters with the paparazzi.[149] That same month, Hopsin went on to explain the diss, admitting that he is a fan of West who likes a lot of his older music and viewingYeezus as West "on some straight up [bullshit]".[150]
Jay-Z describedYeezus as "polarizing", though claimed "that's what great art is" and that West "pushes the genre forward" with his experimentation.[151] Expressing his thoughts on the mixed reception of the album in October 2013, fellow rapperLupe Fiasco viewed himself as not facing the same difficult struggle.[152] Lupe Fiasco continued, assuring that his then-upcoming studio albumTetsuo & Youth (2015) wouldn't be as open for interpretation asYeezus.[152] In February 2014, English singerLily Allen announced that she would title her third studio albumSheezus. In an interview with Australian radio stationNova, Allen stated that she is terrified that West would think it's "a diss rather than a tribute". She said that she thinks West is brilliant and praised him for speaking his mind all the time.[153] That same month,Jack White, a vocal advocate ofanalog recording, remarked thatYeezus "is obviously recorded onPro Tools but sounds unbelievable, because it is very simple and there aren't a lot of components going on, and this really allows the songs to shine. Plus he mixed using analogue components".[154] West went on to make the claim in October 2015 that despite many people ratingMy Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy as his best album,Yeezus is "so much stronger" in comparison.[155] In 2013,Yeezus was voted as both the year's "Most Overrated Album" and "Most Underrated Album" byPitchfork readers.[156]
"Bound 2" contains interpolations of "Aeroplane (Reprise)", written by Norman Whiteside, performed by Wee; samples of "Bound", written by Bobby Massey and Robert Dukes, performed byPonderosa Twins Plus One; a sample of "Sweet Nothin's", written byRonnie Self, performed byBrenda Lee.
Personnel
Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.[4]
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
^Christgau, Robert (January 24, 2014)."The Consensus Has Consequences".The Barnes & Noble Review.Archived from the original on February 8, 2014. RetrievedJanuary 28, 2014.
[73]
[27]
