Sound Advice: Kanye West gives this unknown Paul McCartney guy a career
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Kanye's always shining light on new artists.
Out of the late December lull came two songs to make us eager for the 2015 release cycle to begin. The first was Kendrick Lamar’s as yet untitled effort with Thundercat, Bilal, Anna Wise and Terrace Martin, which they performed as the last musical guests of The Colbert Report. With obvious roots in Robert Glasper’s Black Radio, this jazz/neo-soul/rap witches’ brew chronicles a protagonist’s attempt to stay true to himself when confronted with various forms of advice/control. The latter comes from a white-male exec whose money the young ’un can’t help needing or loathing. Our hero grows agitated, starts in with, “What you do? What you say? I shall enjoy the fruits of my labor/ If I get freed today,” invites his friends one by one to take up the slogan, and finally takes off on a shouting, body-convulsing outburst, “Tell ’em we don’t die/ We multiply!”
That would have been enough on its own, but NYE brought Kanye West’s “Only One,” featuring Paul McCartney and Ty Dolla $ign. Positioned as a matron’s lullaby for both her son and granddaughter, the naïve melody skirts sentiment, outrages those who still can’t stand Auto-Tune and recalls stripped-down Stevie Wonder (not John Legend, because it’s not unctuous, thank you very fucking much). It hits because it’s not denatured by studio gloss; because Kanye is willing to mumble some of the lyrics; because the vocoder has never blunted the quality of his expression; because he’s trying to forgive himself; and because “tell Nori about me” is undeniable. Love passed down through generations as a glimpse of resurrection: The notion makes “Only One” no less vital and defiant than Kendrick. Even a lullaby can be a protest song.
