It’s been a hell of a week for Kanye West, in which he’s dominated a news cycle for doing everything except what he actually does – release music. However now he’s done that....sort of?
“I’m going to drop a song with a verse that will bring Ebro the closure he's been seeking” he tweeted, a reference to the radio host who alleged that Kanye at one point suffered from an opioid addiction, and had told him so.
That song is here, it’s...OK, and it’s not really a song, rather what appears to be more ephemeral pranking. Titled “Lift Yourself”, it’s a chop up of 1973 track “Liberty” by R&B group Amnesty, and features Kanye only at the very end, with the bars that he promised failing to offer a great deal of insight into anything that’s taken place this week, given that the lines are simply “scoop ditty poop poop ditty scoop poop”.
However, the sample line “we need to strive for liberty” is likely to be a direct reference to Kanye’s public determination not to be trapped by “monolithic thinking”, and it’s no coincidence that it came from the Amnesty album “Free Your Mind”, given that that’s his current mission.
Later that day, Kanye dropped a more serious song, “Ye vs. the People”, with a guest spot from T.I. representing ‘the people’. Kanye gives his clearest reason for supporting Trump so far (“ever since Trump won, it proved that I could be President”) amongst some other nonsense, while T.I. is on somewhat stronger form (“Fuck who you choose as your political party / You representin’ dudes just seem crude and cold-hearted”). Listen to both tracks here, and check out the original sample below.