S8E5 - New Slaves by Kanye West

Dissect

Cole Cuchna

Music, Arts, Society & Culture

4.9 • 10.3K Ratings

🗓️ 6 July 2021

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Our serialized analysis of Yeezus continues with “New Slaves.” Over menacing, pulsating dissonance, Kanye expresses his belief that our cultural addiction to material things makes us “new slaves” to the handful of white billionaires who control the majority of the country’s wealth. But the song takes a dramatic 180 near its end as a man singing in Hungarian provides one of the biggest keys to unlocking the album’s narrative. Limited Season 8 merchandise is available at shop.dissectpodcast.com. Follow @dissectpodcast on Twitter and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	As Kani West evolved as an artist, one of the things he seemed more and more interested in was Sonic collages,
0:07.0	the idea of juxtaposing one musical mood against another in a single song.
0:12.0	On 2010's dark fantasy,
0:13.6	Kagni contrasted opulent saturated gospel-inspired harmonies
0:17.9	against 90s inspired East Coast hip-hop. On 2016's famous,
0:33.2	Karnay set tender Nina Simone and Riano vocals
0:36.4	right up against a driving hard-knocking beat.
0:39.1	I'm wanting to be free.
0:46.0	I just wanted you to know. One of the most extreme and unexpected examples of this contrasting technique comes at the end of the song
0:56.3	New Slaves. The first three minutes of the track are dominated by aggressive, distorted, dissonant
1:02.0	sins. by aggressive, distorted, distorted, dissonant sense.
1:02.6	And then out of nowhere we get a totally new Sonic environment complete with autotune singing and guitar solos.
1:17.8	Finally a Finally as the song closes out we hear a man buried in the background speaking in
1:29.2	Hungarian. Who is this man? What is he trying to say and why the sudden change of pace? The answers will likely
1:44.6	surprise you and they are some of the biggest keys to unlocking the narrative of
1:48.6	Yiziz. From Spotify I'm Cole Kushna and this is Dissect, long-form musical analysis broken into short
1:58.1	digestible episodes.
1:59.9	Today we continue our serialized examination of Yizis with the album's fourth track, New Slaves. So, This episode is brought to you by Shopify.
2:27.0	Looking to start a side hustle or become your own boss.
2:30.0	Do it with Shopify.
2:32.0	Whether you're selling succulents or stilettoes, Shopify has the industry leading
2:35.6	tools to help you create, control and grow your own business. So get serious about selling and
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Cole Cuchna, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Cole Cuchna and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.