Black Skinheads & New Slaves? Has to be Kanye West.

In other news, Kanye West recently premiered two new tracks on SNL this weekend, from his upcoming album titled... wait for it... Yeezus. Not kidding. The first track, titled Black Skinhead, features a stripped-down, dirty beat (reminiscent of parts of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy) that works brilliantly with the animosity felt in the lyrics. Kanye basically screams the bridge & hook, accompanied initially by a Cerberus (really dig the 'barking' beat), which is just badass. Among the projected visuals during his performance are... black KKK masks? Interesting. According to rapgenius, the track samples "Rock and Roll" by Gary Glitter and "Beautiful People" by Marilyn Manson. This track will be one to look out for when the album drops, because the production on this is seriously impressive, even through a live performance.

 

  The other track, New Slaves, was shown off a little earlier through projection across 66 cities around the world. Only this guy. Can't say I'm feeling the beat in this track as much, at least from the raw video of the initial unveiling & the performance on SNL. Once again, Kanye vents his frustration through this track, particularly regarding his status as a celebrity and how it has changed his perspective on materialism. The title serves more as a question than a statement, and is bound to provoke some backlash. But that's what he does. Worth checking out the breakdown of the lyrics on rapgenius as well. Features vocals by Frank Ocean.

 -Karl