Yeezus
| Kanye West
Yeezus
Yeezus is the sixth studio album by American rapper Kanye West. It was released on June 18, 2013, by Def Jam Recordings. West gathered a number of artists and close collaborators for production on the album, including Mike Dean, Daft Punk, Noah Goldstein, Arca, Hudson Mohawke, and Travis Scott. Yeezus also features guest vocalsfrom Justin Vernon, Chief Keef, Kid Cudi, Assassin, King L, Charlie Wilson and Frank Ocean. Fifteen days before its release date, West enlisted the help of producer Rick Rubin to strip down the record's sound in favor of a more minimalist approach. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
Marking a blunt break with the filigreed maximalism he nailed on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye's sixth solo album trades smooth soul and anthemic choruses for jarring electro, acid house, and industrial grind while delivering some of his most lewd and heart-crushing tales yet.
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Rolling Stone
Every mad genius has to make a record like this at least once in his career – at its nastiest, his makes Kid A or In Utero or Trans all look like Bruno Mars.
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Consequence of Sound
Its an album for the books, one that indicates Wests hunger for exploration while always sounding like it could become extraordinarily popular, even for him. This is the level that things could be at.
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Genius
The album is not for anyone, it’s different, but in a good way. I think this album is important and it showed that mainstream hip hop can also takes twists and turns in its sound and production ways.
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Billboard
“Yeezus” is a medley of several genres -- new wave, punk, rock, and of course hip-hop. Those looking for vintage soul sounds or even full-on raps from start to finish will be thrown several curves here.
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NME
Expecting blockbuster artists to reinvent the wheel every single time is a pointless endeavour. Kanye's 'Ye' would be classed ‘business as usual’, if Kanye’s usual business wasn’t so revolutionary
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The Guardian
Harsh rhythms crash, dance beats drop out, soul samples grate, voices warp. Is West's dementedly contrary album the sound of a music star just doing his job?
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The A.V. Club
“Harder, better, faster, stronger”: It was years ago that West first took to that mantra, but it’s on the visceral, unrelenting Yeezus that he fully internalizes it.
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The Telegraph
As the most exciting album I’ve heard in a long time, I recommend that strong-stomached music fans buy it. Lay out a little psychological plastic sheeting first, and you’ll soon find yourself bizarrely comfortable amid the blood spatter.
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Talk House
Kanye West is a child of social networking and hip-hop. And he knows about all kinds of music and popular culture. The guy has a real wide palette to play with. That’s all over Yeezus.
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Vulture
808s was Dr. Jekyll; Yeezus is Mr. Hyde. He’s made good on his promise. He’s become a motherfucking monster.
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Music OMH
Embedded in any Kanye West release is extreme narcissism, a remarkable ear for beats, and simultaneously sophisticated and lowbrow lyricism. Yeezus, his sixth studio album, perhaps represents the apex of these three main aspects.
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Slant
With Yeezus, Kanye West has once again created something singular in the world of platinum-class hip-hop: an album built on alien, angular beats, slowly morphing drones and sirens, abrupt periods of silence, and a pulse-quickening style of delivery from Yeezy himself.
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QRO
Comically, he has now officially backed himself into a corner to the point that if he really wants to be hated and controversial he should release a Contemporary Christian album. Because, Kanye, while we can listen to you say, “Put my fist in her like a civil rights sign,” we won’t tolerate you talking about praying and believing in God, so bring it on.
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Gig Slutz
It is not by any means an easy record to approach and listen to, that is the point. It is however, upon a few listens (if you’re willing to give it that) an excellent body of work that shows the development of an incredible talent.
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Time Out Sao Paulo
For all the hype around the rapper’s sixth record, it turns out to be frustratingly juvenile.
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Melodyful
In some sense, it’s a shame that Kanye's poetry hasn't kept pace with his production, but the production is enough to remember him by
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The Northsider
At a meagre forty minutes, Yeezus flies by, an angry, audacious face-palm brimming with desperation and angst
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All Music
Yeezus is an extravagant stunt with the high-art packed in, offering an eccentric, audacious, and gripping experience that's vital and truly unlike anything else.
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Soul In Stereo
Yeezus is far from divine but it’s focus on empowerment and individually does help steer hip hop back to the promised land.
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Page 31
Kanye’s desire to dabble musically with new elements, and creation friction in the hip-hop genre speaks wonders of his brass as a producer, but as an artist, lyrically he fails to produce anything worth memorizing and reciting to the next generation. Thematically, there is no thesis offered, and this results in cold-blooded body of work.
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AAA Backstage
This album unveils some grit, and most importantly, attitude, which West has been lacking since his salad days with Dilated Peoples, or his first album, The College Dropout. Yeezus seems real: like it’s about something; what, is uncertain. It’s unhappy at times, dissonant, yet it has the agency to act on its disenfranchisement.
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DJ Booth
The album is full of self-isolation, self-contradictions, and self-projection, as a wolf and a king, a menace and a monster, a slave and a god.
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Chicago Tribune
Kanye’s sixth studio album, the Chicago-raised rapper doesn’t just sound unhappy. He sounds angry, beginning with the searing black-power tilt of “New Slaves,” the pseudo-single he debuted using 30-foot-projections of himself on street corners, rapping, “[Bleep] you and your Hampton House!”
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Entertainment IE
Yeezus is an absolute tour-de-force of a record from one of music's few true superstars. His unwillingness to adhere to any sort of convention is what makes Yeezus so appealing.
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Redefine
Yeezus certainly has the intent of being divisive. Usually things this confessional from ultra-famous artists are. But one of the things that keeps Yeezus fresh listen after listen is that it could only be the product of this strange, strange man.
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The Pop Break
Kanye West got creative on Yeezus and it has enhanced his sound. The album sounds as if he took bits and pieces of all his previous work and then blended it all together
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The Drop
From West's hubris, to his defiance of the status quo, to the brilliance in production, 'Yeezus' is a great album. This may not be West's best work to-date, but it's certainly his most ambitious project in his discography.
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Ear Milk
Yeezus, Kanye’s sixth solo release on Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam, is the antithesis of his previous effort and magnum opus, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It is equally dark, but extremely minimalist and hyper-racial in spurts.
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WRGW Music
while it is definitely not a new classic, Yeezus does not disappoint. It is something rap fans should definitely listen to, if not keep in their music arsenal for those unexpected, yet absolutely necessary, Yeezy moments.
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Golden Plec
‘Yeezus’ strikes with a heavy, unsettled, hyper-edgy tone and goes so far down the line of madness, incomprehension, and heavy hip-hop that there’s scarcely a wisp of the quiet sweetness of his earlier output.
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The New York Times
The tracks on “Yeezus” are raw and bumpy, with the arbitrary whims of a studio despot. As if to prove he’s in control, or that he’s not skimping on the budget, Mr. West often jump-cuts into disconnected interludes, including choirs or orchestrations that might have run throughout a whole song on previous albums.
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The Musical Hype
‘Yeezus‘ doesn’t necessarily supersede the elite Kanye West albums, but it is an ambitious, interesting addition to his discography.
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Beats Per Minute
Yeezus is the perfect, chaotic, and ultimately uncompromising dive into this world. While always maintaining its jaded distance, this is perhaps the closest we’ve come to all sides of the man that is Kanye West.
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MIMO
it’s edgy, humorous, militant, ignorant and often contradictory: in other words, all the qualities that make Yeezus a spectacle of Kanye West proportions.
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The Young Folks
Maybe in time Yeezus will grow on me, and right now Kanye’s just giving us what we need, while it might not be what we want
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Screen Invasion
While Yeezus isn’t the first time Kanye has released an audacious, anti-commercial tome, the metallic compositions are unlike anything he’s put to tape as of yet. Much like In Utero, it strips away any of kind of pop pretensions, leaving only the artist’s sound at its most raw and raucous.
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San Francisco News
The album isn’t as memorable as “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” or as hip-hop sounding as “The College Dropout” or “Graduation.” It falls in between “Late Registration” and “808’s & Heartbreak.” It is the most unique and riveting album in the rappers discography.
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What Culture
Put simply: Yeezus is a modern masterpiece. The experimental samples and influences (ranging from industrial dance, to Nina Simone) make for an album that is sonically unique from any album put forward by a mainstream rapper in history.
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Hidden Under Headphones
Yeezus is Kanye West’s herald, and just what’s going to come of it is yet to be seen. History will probably refer to it as his most important, but for the time being we all just have to be ok with his enigmatic self possessing us in the same way he has clearly been taken over.
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Glide
Yeezus: scattered, audacious, conflicted, partly amazing and perhaps most importantly pure Kanye.
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A Healthy Medium
Kanye West is indeed a leader, a trailblazer, or as he so eloquently puts it, a dick – and he proves it with Yeezus.
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Press Pass LA
Yeezus by far stands as West’s most daring and experimental album to date. Clocking in at 40 minutes (his shortest), the outlandish production (Daft Punk, Rick Rubin) could only work on such a tight piece of work. Before you realize the songs are all over the place, it’s over, and you’re ready to listen again.
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New Noise Hip Hop
From an artist who claims he’s going to bring the world with his music, it seems we need to settle for a meagre grain of sand.
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City Paper
Yeezus is a lean, aggressive album, by the standards of both contemporary hip-hop and of West's own unique career within it. It runs through 10 songs in 40 minutes -- not exactly a sprint, but by comparison, his last album, 2010's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, took nearly 70 minutes to get through 11 songs and a couple interludes.
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Entertainment Focus
Yeezus is without a doubt one of West’s finest. Never does he veer into boring or mundane with his music. Unlike many rap artists he is doing something really different and it’s no surprise that he is considered at the top of his game.
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Ranting About Music
I don’t think Yeezus is going to hurt Kanye’s reputation going forward; “Black Skinhead” and “Bound 2” are key cuts, but I wouldn’t say it’s destined for classic status.
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Pop Stache
Nobody really knows who Kanye West is, least of all Kanye West. The frustration and miracle of Yeezus, then, is that it gives a pretty powerful glimpse before diving back into obfuscation.
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B-Sides
Overall the album is a down grade compared to his past albums like 808s and Heartbreak and College Dropout, which actually had songs with meaning.
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The AU Review
Simply, Yeezus is essential listening and cements Kanye’s status as one of hip-hop’s most important artists.
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Uproxx
“Yeezus” isn't pleasant, but that doesn”t bar it from being thought-provoking, substantial and very, very good.
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The Daily Californian
Yeezus doesn’t ask for acceptance, but it does demand attention. Although it has its strong points, this latest work from West will likely go down as an experimental stepping stone, not a magnum opus.
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Dope Avenue
this is one of Ye’s worst albums. And when we say worst, we don’t mean bad because all of his albums are near perfection. But this one, for us, is at the bottom of that pack of greatness.
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Artistic Manifesto
Yeezus is Kanye’s most polarizing record to date. You might hate it. You might love it. You might be hypnotized. You might be disenchanted. You have to listen for yourself.
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The Strait Times
Yeezus drills, pounds, grallochs - and shakes you mighty awake.
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Buzz
Yeezus stands on its own terms. It’s Kanye’s most Kanye-centric album to date with its minimal appearances and regained focus upon total artistic control.
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The Pulp
A new found motivation and a new found anger is unleashed on this album.
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The Coli
This album doesn't do Jay-Z or Electric Circus or even tries to make music we've never heard before, but it intrigues, and piques an interest in detractors and admirers equally.
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The Koalition
In “Yeezus“, we get a Kanye that is not afraid to piss you off with his bravado but still make a sound that is infectious to hate that you love it.
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NET
What makes West’s sixth solo album compelling despite its gaggle of haunting shrieks and leftist production is that Kanye manages to remain as entertaining as ever.
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Ranting About Music
I don’t think Yeezus is going to hurt Kanye’s reputation going forward; “Black Skinhead” and “Bound 2” are key cuts, but I wouldn’t say it’s destined for classic status.
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Business Insider
Being an 'innovator' means that Kanye constantly has to stay ahead of the curve, an exhausting job. Unfortunately for Mr. West, in the case of Yeezus he's mostly running on a treadmill, soaked in sweat, chugging on electrolite riddled sport drink as he tries to catch up to the man he wants to be.
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Tiny Mix Tapes
If you’re judging something by its intentions, Yeezus succeeds completely, because it is unambiguously and perfectly the State of Yeezy address for 2013.
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Newsday
Hard-hitting hip-hop rants that connect even when they contradict each other.
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The Cascade
While Yeezus is tighter, more concise and more aggressive than MBDTF, it’s also noticeably less consistent.
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Heavy
Solid all around, but a couple of lukewarm tracks keep it from perfection. Still, despite not being the most enjoyable album Kanye’s made, he has significantly risen his artistic credibility and artistry here. Props. This album has definitely elevated him from pop-star to risky artist.
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Hot New Hip Hop
A hybrid of many sounds and ideas, “Yeezus” is an ambitious expansion of West’s sound palette.
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Huffington Post
Does “Yeezus” bring issues up for discussion or bury them in the fog of West’s perspective?
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The Skinny
As a whole, the album is stagnant; at times deeply unpleasant. What could have been a showcase of underground musical ideas, and a chance to elevate his lyrical concerns against a darker-hued backdrop, has been utterly wasted.
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Esquire
Like its maker, Yeezus is a messy, complicated creature, but if there's one essential theme to the album, it's that we're living in what pop culture promised us was supposed to be a utopian future, but it's just as rotten as the past.
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Rapdose
Courageous experimentation pays off for the most part if you’re willing to listen with an open mind. Short listen makes it easier to tolerate.
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NY Daily News
In hip-hop terms, it's the hardest-rocking work since the early '90s peaks of Public Enemy and LL Cool J. It's just the album it should be: a chutzpah classic.
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Mic
Though I feel the album could have used better track ordering to keep the message a bit more consistent, as it gets somewhat lost in the more sexual and relationship focused material of the second half, overall it is exactly what hip hop needed
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Its The Daily
Yeezus was well worth the wait. Though the album only delivers a total of 10 songs and feels a bit short it definitely offers something different not only for West’s catalog but for hip hop fans and the genre in general
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The Daily Beast
After spending the majority of the album in misogynistic purgatory, it sounds like West has finally seen the light.
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On Tour Monthly
Yeezus makes a just observation: Harmfully charged emotional admission makes for a damn good musical odyssey. We can only hope that this album is a proper prognosis of the direction hip-hop continues to pursue.
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