Kanye West SNL promo still
UPDATE: Kanye West has leaked a "New Slaves" snippet to the webs, clocking in at 1-minute and change, -with the CD quality audio some of the lyrical subtleties come through much stronger, specifically the phrase "I see the blood on the leaves"--a clear reference to Billie Holiday's terrifyingly beautiful protest song "Strange Fruit"--which adds a whole new layer the angry, new wave-ish track. Stream below and scroll down to compare with the live performance and video projections:
Kanye West's SNL appearance saw him losing his mind a little--in a good way (I think). We got to see the "screaming thing" Daft Punk recently described as his new vocal style on the Saturday Night Live debut of "Black Skinhead" plus a performance of "New Slaves" which technically already premiered on 66 walls worldwide but premieres here for the first time without windows and bricks visible in the lines of Ye's face. In "New Slaves" Kanye describes himself as "going Bobby Boucher" but it sounds more like he's going Obama-going-Bulworth and I for one support it (I think). Love it or hate it, it was definitely everything you expected from a Kanye West SNL guest spot. While "Awesome" seemed like a bit of a throwback to 808s & Heartbreak Kanye, these two new songs are kind of a throwback to "All Falls Down" Kanye with a much harder, more schizo edge...while he goes 1980s Adam Ant on the music side (and manifests his continued ambition to be the new version of Andy Warhol with the graphics and performance art approach). Watch below and let the WTF? conversation begin with us...
