Audio By Carbonatix
Kanye West is still feeling the holy spirit.
After last year’s gospel album “Jesus Is King,” Yeezy is calling for spiritual deliverance in his new single, “Wash Us in the Blood,” which he dropped Tuesday morning.
The single, which features Travis Scott, 28, arrived with a video that depicts a dizzying array of images capturing these turbulent times, including police facing off with protesters, coronavirus patients on ventilators, mass incarceration — and, in an odd twist, women twerking.
“Rain down on the pain/Rain down on the slain,” West, 43, raps over the manic, hard-hitting track, the first single from his upcoming album “God’s Country.”
“Holy spirit come down/We need you now,” Scott chimes in later. (Of course, the “Sicko Mode” rapper is the baby daddy — and on-again, off-again boyfriend — of West’s sister-in-law, Kylie Jenner.)
Mixed by Dr. Dre, “Wash Us in the Blood” recalls the industrial-edged beats of 2013’s “Yeezus.”
And while the song makes for a charged statement on the Black Lives Matter movement and the global pandemic, the lyrics find West in fiery defense mode: “And they try to control Ye/They gon’ need to calm down/They don’t want me to Kanye/They don’t want Kanye to be Kanye/They wanna sign a fake Kanye/They tryin’ to sign a calm Ye.”
The video was directed by artist Arthur Jafa in documentary-style with vintage clips including old gospel footage. It closes with West’s Sunday Service choir rehearsing as North, his 7-year-old daughter with wife Kim Kardashian, 39, bops along.
After all of the chaotic, sometimes disturbing imagery, it’s a surprisingly sweet ending that comes out of nowhere.
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