yeezus

Travis Scott’s New Album ‘Utopia’ Is Drawing So Many Comparisons To Kanye West’s ‘Yeezus’

by
kanye west travis scott
Getty Image

At long last, Travis Scott’s highly anticipated album Utopia is out. Since its midnight release, fans have been listening and evaluating, and a common conclusion many have come to is that Utopia is super reminiscent of Kanye West’s beloved 2013 album Yeezus. In fact, the Kanye album was actually a trending topic on Twitter this morning (July 28) due to the volume of Utopia comparisons.

One popular tweet reads, “Kanye dropped Yeezus in 2013 and we all praised for sounding futuristic… 10 years later, we’re seeing it’s influence loud and clear [goat emojis].” Another says, “The Yeezus influence on Utopia is insane,” and another user noted, “this lowkey like trav’s Yeezus.” Somebody else tweeted, “This post is starting to make sense ‘Yetopia’ Utopia is literally a sister album to YEEZUS the Kanye influence is ridiculous you would think Kanye produced the whole album Travis is really a Kanye Protégés.”

There are those who see Utopia as essentially Yeezus taken in a different direction. One Twitter user wrote, “Travis Scott took Yeezus and said ‘what if this was maximalist?’” Another said, “Utopia is Travis Scott doing experimental/vibes in the same sonic space as Yeezus.”

As some have noted, West did have some involvement with this album: He’s a producer and writer on “Thank God” and also co-wrote “God’s Country,” for example.

Check out some more reactions below.

Utopia is out now via Epic Records. Find more information here.

Kanye West Unleashed “Yeezus” 10 Years Ago: Stream “Hold My Liquor” To Celebrate

by

Kanye West is in a wildly different place than he was ten years ago. In 2013, he returned to solo albums after a Jay-Z collab project and a G.O.O.D. Music compilation with one mission: erase his board and start over with a vengeance. His vehicle for that was that year’s Yeezus, an abrasive, industrial, and energetically relentless album that released a decade ago today. While hip-hop had already turned to a more experimental edge before, Ye’s 10-track effort brought those innovations to the mainstream in a big way. However, at the time, “Hold My Liquor” was among the most boundary-pushing on the tracklist, yet recent years are what have given it its elevated status in his discography.

To start, the features from Bon Iver and Chief Keef match the ghostly vibe of the track incredibly well. While Justin Vernon’s intro and bridge are a lost and ominous reflection of the indulgent lifestyle the song portrays, Sosa’s contributions bask in that hedonism rather than lament it. It’s an effective contrast, and one that the Chicago MC highlight in his long verse as well. But of course, Yeezus isn’t about the lyrics most of the time (as moments like the “sweet and sour sauce” line on “I’m In It” prove). Rather, the production on this track represents some of the most progressive, electronic-inspired, and otherworldly that Kanye West has ever worked with. Moreover, there are soaring guitars from Mike Dean, pulsating bass and synths that feel like a heartbeat, moments where the percussion melts like the bridge, and atmospheric synthesizers.

Read More: Kanye West’s “Ye” Turns 5

Kanye West’s “Hold My Liquor” Turns 10 Years Old Alongside Yeezus

On top of that, it’s filled with small metallic and distorted elements like the wail at the end of Kanye West’s verse lines. Overall, “Hold My Liquor” makes for a journey of a track on Yeezus that tries to take control of Ye’s destructive lifestyle with bold confidence. It’s a shame that he unfortunately continues to exhibit the most unrestrained parts of that primal nature in a negative way these days, but that’s also what makes the album so compelling: it was his darkest affirmation yet, but one that by its end displayed a hope that things would get better soon. Hopefully that’s still in the cards. Let us know your favorite Yeezus track to celebrate its tenth anniversary down in the comments. Also, come back to HNHH for the latest news and updates on Kanye West.

Quotable Lyrics
Still ain’t learn me no manners
You love me when I ain’t sober
You love me when I’m hungover
Even when I blow doja

Read More: Kanye West & Kid Cudi’s “Kids See Ghosts” Turns 5: A Standalone Classic

The post Kanye West Unleashed “Yeezus” 10 Years Ago: Stream “Hold My Liquor” To Celebrate appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

Kanye West’s “Yeezus” Turns 10

by

Upon tossing in the headphones for Yeezus, the listener is immediately thrown into the intergalactic ballad of the retro video game distortion and menacing bars of “On Sight.” By 2013, Kanye West’s audience quite literally went beyond this planet. You had astronauts blasting his sound in a zero-gravity environment while the rest of the world admired the focused grandiosity of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Unsurprisingly, Yeezus’s headfirst focus on an unparalleled blend of electronic and hip-hop soundscapes didn’t initially connect with audiences. Twenty-four hours after its release, fans were calling it a flop. They were hoping for the old Kanye but didn’t get it. Instead, they caught him in the middle of a quarter-life crisis.

However, Kanye West’s Yeezus was never going to live up to the initial expectations of fans. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was resoundingly met with 10/10 ratings. In addition, his studio efforts were stop-gapped with Watch The Throne and Cruel Summer with Jay-Z. Once a broke Chicago kid, Kanye West was now touring with his childhood idol in front of millions of lights. The reality? He was as mentally unwell as he’d ever been. That caused strife in Ye’s persona. On Yeezus, West harshly realizes that his endless pursuits weren’t aiding his baseline happiness. If anything, Hollywood was making him as hopeless as ever.

Yeezus Had A Poor Initial Reception

Yeezus was an emotional output of these feelings, featuring a level of honesty from West that we hadn’t seen since The College Dropout. His sixth studio album is an electric power grid, where he delivers some of his most saddening ballads to date. In many ways, it’s a continuation of the initial experimentation he tapped into on 808s & Heartbreak. However, he’s taking it even further. “New Slaves” is a confrontational protest to the systematic racism of the prison-industrial complex, where Kanye menacingly bars out amidst heavy distortion and loophole keys. “Hold My Liquor” is a self-deprecating indictment regarding Ye’s issues with alcohol. His level of drunkenness parallels his crumbling personal relationships.

Yeezus also got its hits in the form of “Bound 2” and “Black Skinhead.” Sampling The Ponderosa Twins’ “Bound” on the former, the discography-defining hit is an ironic contrast to the foreboding narratives of the project. The record reads as an interlude-esque outro, a sunny world that’s very much distinct from the distorted synthesizers of Yeezus. With My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Ye was partaking in several iconic press tours. Making various outlandish statements, he visualized his most commercially successful record to date. Even if My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy has been hailed a classic by Kanye loyalists, there wasn’t even one top-10 hit on the album. The eventual success of Yeezus is concrete proof that it’s almost impossible to predict commercial reception in the creative space.

Kanye West Is Painstakingly Vulnerable

At its core, Yeezus was all about audacious rule-breaking. He knew that fans would hate it. He knew that it likely wouldn’t stand with his most profitable endeavors. However, he made Yeezus for himself. That overarching purpose even shows up in the project’s surprising collaborative choices. Even if Rick Rubin and Daft Punk are famous producers, they’ve always had a knack for their turn-left personalities. There are also exciting once-and-comers like Hudson Mohawke, Young Chop, and Arca. The crew was a perfect fit, finding a way to deliver Kanye’s electric world in a somewhat cohesive manner. Of course, Yeezus is also blatantly inspired by the electronic classic that is Random Access Memories.

Kanye was a nerd growing up. Even if he were blending in with the gang-infused streets of Chicago, he would go home and exist in the solace of Akira. Yeezus directly reflects that world, a vulnerable project about a headspace that is sometimes downright nightmarish to exist in. It’s not his cohesive masterpiece, but it’s who he is. It was during the time of 808‘s release that Ye reportedly told VIBE, “I’d rather piss a bunch of people off and make myself happy than make everyone else happy and be pissed off inside.” With time, people have come to regard tracks such as “Blood On The Leaves,” “New Slaves,” and “Bound 2” as some of his greatest songs to date.

[via]

The post Kanye West’s “Yeezus” Turns 10 appeared first on HotNewHipHop.

A Yeezus Amusement Park May Be In The Cards, According To Kanye West’s Latest Reported Trademark Filings

by
Kanye West 2022 Paris Fashion Week
Getty Image / Pascal Le Segretain

Kanye West, through his various endeavors, has a foot in pretty much every field of human endeavor right now; Recently, for example, Donda Sports has received attention for signing Aaron Donald and Jaylen Brown. Now, it looks like Ye is keeping an open mind when it comes to entering the amusement park game.

According to trademark attorney Josh Gerben, West — or more accurately, his Mascotte Holdings, Inc. company — filed 17 new trademark applications based on his Yeezus name, on May 27. The filings suggest Ye intends to attach the Yeezus name to things like amusement parks, blockchain-based currencies and non-fungible tokens (cryptocurrencies and NFTs), stores, toys, games, sporting equipment, buttons, clothing, bags, household items, and cosmetics, among others.

Aside from aforementioned ventures, West has kept busy with new music: Over the past week, he collaborated with Vory on “Daylight” and XXXTentacion on “True Love.” The new Yeezy Gap Engineered By Balenciaga collection also just had a global launch, and more reveals about what Ye has been up to have been shared as the new Hulu series The Kardashians. For instance, he apparently walked out on Kim Kardashian’s Saturday Night Live monologue after taking exception to some of what she said, and took his kids to school in a fire truck.