Kanye West Only One Scandinavia Square
It seems Kanye West is committed to consistently upping his live visual game. The past few weeks have seen him crouched under a fluorescent canopy on SNL and surrounded by a flamethrowing mob at the BRIT awards, and now the Chicago MC/producer can add "shifting polygon platform" to his resume. West performed his tender-hearted new single "Only One" live on Skavlan, a Swedish-Norwegian talk show, yesterday, appearing alone on stage dressed entirely in black while a harsh white light cast shapely designs beneath his feet. And, auto-tune and all, West sounded great. "Only One" seems to have finally become a comfortable piece of his repertoire; the four minute performance sounds less rushed and more natural than both his Grammy and Manhattan renditions. As the song's refrain "Tell Nori about me / Tell Nori about me" gets repeated by West, over and over, the song's true purpose falls into place: "Only One" is meant as a message from Donda West to her grand daughter North, relayed through Kanye via the help of modern musical machinery. It's but one example of just how far Ye is willing to push his musical concepts, and deserving of a second (or third, or fourth) listen for anyone who may have brushed it off in the past. Our man Kanye West isn't perfect, but he's not his mistakes.
