One year ago, the talking heads announced the death of Ye’s career. They gorged themselves on this imagined corpse.
This has been the pattern. He says something people don't like, and the talking heads act like he's set the world on fire.
This is a quote from Ye’s 808s & Heartbreak: "It’s amazing / I’m the reason everybody fired up this evening."
And this is a quote from the economist Thomas Sowell: "It is amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites."
Ye’s Twitter avatar used to be the George Condo painting of Ye’s screaming, severed head with a sword shoved through the ear.
This was an appropriate image for an artist who’s made a tradition of not holding his tongue. Especially when the media attempts to sever him from the pre-approved culture.
Choose your fighter:
Taylor. SNL. George Bush. Trump. Obama. Slavery was a choice. The MAGA hat. Hitler. The Kardashians.
Ye once told Zane Lowe: “Ye cannot die. Ye cannot be buried.”
This is the story of Orpheus, the poet-musician from Greek mythology: He lost his wife to vipers and battled depression. He would spend the rest of his life making the gods cry with sad songs.
One day, Orpheus refused to sleep with a cult of women who worshipped the god of wine and ecstasy, Dionysus.
They tore Orpheus to shreds. They pulled his head from his body.
The severed head continued to sing. The severed head floated down the River Hebrus.
When the head finally washed ashore, people buried it.
The severed head still sang from the grave.
*
On Dec. 12, 2023, around 2 a.m. at the Wynwood Marketplace in Miami, Ye and Ty Dolla $ign took the stage as The Vultures.
Ye’s website, yzy.com, announced the tickets and location a few hours before doors opened.
The audience crammed around the stage. Fans climbed the cage-like sides of the venue to get a good view.
The audience was a wide range of ages and styles—casual fits to miniskirts to Timberlands to JNCO jeans.
There was a group of young men that snuck into the VIP section dressed like a mix between Blade and the opening scene in Belly.
No one seemed to discuss Ye’s previous so-called controversies. The talk was all music.
Those who understand Ye’s trajectory know that the talking heads are braindead reactionaries. They regurgitate soundbites. Their opinions have no shelf life. They sell doom and fear between commercials.
Their opinion of Ye has no bearing on the peoples' anticipation of the music.
The talking heads warned everyone about Ye.
He is dangerous. He is mentally ill. He is committing career suicide. Self-immolation. Deranged. Antisemitic. Nazi.
And yet the audience showed up to see him play new songs. Many more watched the live stream.
Unless they were incognito, the audience was not comprised of members of the KKK or neo-Nazis.
Ye raps on the intro song “Everybody”: "Come sue me, MeToo me, survivin' Ye, come shoot me… / Everybody waiting for me to say the wrong thing…"
Anyone who thought Ye would return with an apology tour hasn’t been paying attention.
Remember disgraced celebrities being paraded across Late Night TV stages—begging the cameras for forgiveness? Those old celebrity redemption tours are useless.
This is an empty and antiquated Hollywood ritual. The media apparatus peddles in selective redemption. It chooses only to redeem those who kneel before the hypocrite class—the unholy alliance between corporate media and the bureaucrats.
Ye did not return to apologize.
*
Vultures celebrate death.
They are designed to eat rotting flesh.
They were depicted as a god in ancient Egypt.
There are witch doctors in Africa who believe eating vulture brains will bring clairvoyance.
Vultures recycle death.
So much art is comprised of digging through the dead. Picasso once said, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”
[Note: Picasso's quote, popularized by Steve Jobs, is actually a simplification of the following observation from T. S. Eliot: "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn.” Some have noticed that the origin of this quote is an amusing example of great artists stealing.]
Steve Jobs elaborated on this quote: "I think what he meant by 'steal' was you learn, as artists have, from past masters; you figure out what you like about it and what you want to incorporate into your idea, and you take it further and do something new with it.”
There is a difference between artists with no identity who copy ideas to manufacture the appearance of originality and artists who strive for legacy by incorporating elements of the old with the new.
Ye’s artistic career was built upon his unique way of extracting vocal loops and melodies from old or obscure songs and repurposing them to carve out a new sound for hip hop.
His albums are collages that link disparate eras and artists. In the songs released thus far from the Vultures album there are references to the Backstreet Boys, Jay and Silent Bob, Urkel, The Police, and Formula 1.
The cover art is influenced by the Norwegian black metal band Burzum. The Vultures cover was designed by Gosha Rubchinskiy, who was recently named head of design for YEEZY.
The Vultures cover uses a painting by Caspar David Friedrich titled Landscape of Graves from 1835.
In the foreground, a vulture is perched on a spade shovel.
The cover mimics the layout of multiple Burzum records. The font, placement, as well as recontextualizing old artwork.
Look at Burzum’s Filosofem, which means philosophene and translates to “philosophies” or to pursue knowledge.
This Burzum cover repurposes a painting by Theodor Kittelsen titled Up in the Hills a Clarion Call Rings Out from 1900.
The woman in the painting seems to summon something ominous from the hills.
Black metal celebrates death. Especially the Norwegian bands that started the genre such as Mayhem, Darkthrone, and Burzum.
(This is not Ye’s first connection to Burzum. He rapped over a Burzum sample on Gucci Mane’s “Pussy Print.”)
Burzum is fronted by Varg Vikernes, who served fifteen years in prison for fatally stabbing Mayhem guitarist, Euronymous, as well as setting multiple churches on fire.
(Euronymous is rumored to have eaten the brains of a friend who allegedly killed himself as well as making necklaces of the bits of skull leftover from the shotgun blast. Euronymous also took a photograph of this friend's corpse and used it as the cover for Mayhem's live album, The Dawn of the Black Hearts.)
There are people offended that Ye is paying any homage to the Burzum artist because Vikernes' ties to violence, arson, and Nazism. (Vikernes has since denounced ties to Nazism—though maintains a strict anti-Christian, anti-commercialism stance.)
It is not yet known how involved Ye was with the design of the Vultures cover—though the repurposing of art or a symbol that’s attached to past horrors is reminiscent of Ye once saying he was going to reclaim the Confederate flag—to destroy the power it had over people.
It is also possible that The Vultures using Burzum as inspiration would most likely upset Vikerenes and many others in that original black metal scene because they reject commercialism and mainstream trends.
(It would be interesting to hear from Vikernes or someone like Fenriz, of Darkthrone, to hear their thoughts on Vultures making it so that teenagers wearing Yeezys are discussing Burzum in Miami outside a listening party for new Ye music. On one hand, they might find the mass appeal repulsive. These bands used to go out of their way to make their records sound bad. On the other hand, they might appreciate Ye's pattern of rebellions.)
Regardless, it is likely to upset those who think Ye is paying homage to something associated with church burnings and murder—while also possibly upsetting those who actually did the church burnings and murder.
Black metal also has a history of vulturing symbols. Many black metal bands are notorious for their use of the inverted cross which most people now associate with satanism.
The inverted cross was initially a powerful Christian symbol because Saint Peter chose to be crucified upside down. He believed he was unworthy to die like Jesus.
The inverted cross is known as the Cross of St. Peter, and it is a symbol for humility.
*
The Vultures use of "Landscape of Graves" could mean death and rebirth.
Ye once rapped on "Praise God:” "We gon’ praise our way out the grave, dawg, livin’, speakin’, praise God / Walkin’ out the graveyard back to life…”
The art could also represent Ye overcoming the symbolic death fetishized by the talking heads.
Or it could mean that the "landscape of graves" is where his enemies have been symbolically buried. A signal to the naysayers.
It could also mean the way artists observe death for life.
The Vultures sound, so far, blends minimalism and maximalism. The beats can feel sparse, but not empty. There is filth and love—on par with verses from Yeezus or Life of Pablo. There is House influence as well as Trap and R&B. Each song, so far, is also driven by a haunting, ominous sound.
Ye seems extremely aware of the way his public image is a double entendre.
In Miami, he put on a pointed black hood as he sang the eponymous song, "Vultures."
He sang: "All eyes is on me, won't tell no lies, won't hold my tongue..".
Many people saw a hood that resembled the KKK.
Others saw an executioner's hood.
*
When I met Ye last year when the talking heads said he was public enemy #1, the first thing I said to him was, “Every time you fall out of the good graces of the public eye, you find a way to skyrocket past all expectations and succeed.”
It was good to be in the audience in Miami for his return.
It felt like a big "I TOLD YOU SO" hovered over the party.
The energy and excitement were in direct conflict with the dire warnings from the talking heads.
As of the writing of this piece, Ye and Ty have yet to release the album. It was slated to drop today. And it still might. Or it could be tomorrow. Or it could be a week or more from now.
For those who've followed Ye's career, this has been the pattern of the rollout process.
At this moment, it's around 8 a.m., and nearly 10,000 people are watching a live stream of Ye and co. recording and mixing the album at a party. He spoke out on the livestream about the very people in the room with him at the party who might've had something to say about his comments last year but had nothing to say when he was praying to see his children.
Ye seems to thrive on the frenzy of a deadline. For some artists, the rush of a deadline is a creative drug. It's a way to fine-tune right up to the edge.
The writer Hunter S. Thompson once said he wouldn't get anything done if it weren't for a deadline.
As new music rolls out, commence the debates that surround Ye's music.
Ye's washed. Ye's a genius. College Dropout was better. Yeezus was better. The new album's better. Graduation's better, etc.
It doesn't matter what critics say. The fact is that Ye remains the conversation.
He once rapped on the song "Eazy": "How I ain't bring nothin' to the table when I'm the table?"
Whatever the reaction will be to Vultures, Ye's return to the culture after a year of silence and another cycle of scrutiny, will be about subverting the industry and crushing the so-called consequences of so-called controversy.
He's disrupted music from the beginning. And fashion. And design. And politics.
The disruption has been his modus operandi from the start.
Year 2023 into 2024 will be the age of the disruptors. Trump, Elon, and Ye subvert the narrative, the myth of the “official story.”
The official story is never the full story. You will not find nuance in the talking heads. You will get clickbait and soundbites.
The disruptors are waging war against the war on reality.
The people know there's a vast difference between the way they see the world and the way the supposed authorities of truth see the world.
Ye is one of those who enjoys punching holes in narratives. Some people love this, some people hate this.
The industry definitely hates this.
Vultures will be Ye's first release as an independent artist, and it will most likely shake the industry to its core. It could become one of the most successful independent records of all time.
This is consistent for the age of disruptors.
Trump is seeing support from people who did not support him previously.
Alex Jones has been reinstated to X (formerly Twitter).
Ye is returning from cultural exile (once again. See: the recording of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.)
Some of the most contentious figures are reappearing on the cultural main stage with a vengeance and massive support—despite what the talking heads want you to believe.
We are witnessing the culture get hijacked.
*
Supposedly, the fifth song on the Vultures album is “Beg Forgiveness” featuring Chris Brown.
This track samples a song titled "Gabriel" by Joe Goddard of Hot Chip.
It features these words: "You’ve gone too far, and you should hang your head in shame, for these wounds I cannot stay, you’ve gone too far… You should beg forgiveness of me."
There are various ways to interpret these words in the context of Ye.
The talking heads said Ye has gone too far, and that he should beg forgiveness.
Ye could say the talking heads have gone too far, and that they should beg forgiveness.
There are many people who side with the talking heads and there are many people who feel the opposite.
Whether you like Ye or not, the people are too interested in what he has to say to let the institutions bury him. And even if they do one day succeed, future artists will dig him up and repurpose his voice the way he did to those before him.
There will be an interesting cognitive dissonance as Ye's career hits another high and the talking heads attempt to make sense of it. They could blame the audience for being just as twisted as Ye. They might contort into all shapes to blame anything other than themselves for their pattern of misinterpretations.
Like the Burzum cover art, "Up in the hills a clarion call rings out…" It’s a call for resistance.
Vultures announce death. Death is sustenance to vultures.
I think the false reality that's been propped up by lying, fearmongering, disingenuous talking heads is decaying. The institution is a corpse that a lot of people attempt to reanimate and prop up as viable. But it's lost its power. It's a landscape of graves.
As I listen to "Beg Forgiveness," I imagine a vulture eating a carcass as the carcass sings to the vulture: "You’ve gone too far, and you should hang your head in shame, for these wounds I cannot stay…"
Now imagine the vulture singing: You should beg forgiveness of me.
