Dissect - S2E4 – Dark Fantasy by Kanye West

Episode Date: August 22, 2017

We begin our serialized analysis of Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy with the album’s opening track "Dark Fantasy." Follow Dissect on social media @dissectpodcast. Purchase Dissect merch at dissectpodcast.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Dysect, long-form musical analysis broken into short, digestible episodes. I'm your host, Cole Kushna. Today, we finally begin our analysis of Kanye West, my beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy. On our last episode, we explored Kanye's early discography and life events leading up to the creation of Twisted Fantasy. We saw how Kanye's innovative soul-sampling production of the college dropout matured with the inclusion of orchestral textures on late registration, and was augmented with brassy arena-filling synthesizers on graduation. We also saw how his mother's passing and the disillusion of his

marriage engagement influenced the departure album 808's and heartbreak. Here, a unique instrumentation of 808 electronic drums, various synthesizers, and traditional acoustic instruments back Kanye's lamenting auto-tune vocals. Finally, we saw how the 2009 VMA debacle vilified Kanye and sent him on a self-imposed exile, first to Japan, then Rome, and finally to Hawaii. Here, Kanye indefinitely blocked book all three session rooms of the AVEX recording studio in Honolulu. He would import some of the world's best producers, MCs, and artists to form what he called rap camp. He would rarely sleep, working long hours through the night, moving from room to room as he directed what would become his comeback album, his backhanded apology album, the album many

argued to be among the greatest albums ever created. Of course, we're talking about Kanye West, my beautiful dark twisted fantasy. Over the next 12 or so episodes, we're going to unpack my beautiful dark twisted fantasy and incredible detail. With an episode dedicated to each song on the album, we'll explore both the musical and lyrical content while examining how each song contributes to the album's loose narrative arc. To make this a little more manageable, we're going to divide the album in three acts. Act 1, Beautiful, is comprised of the song's dark fantasy, gorgeous, power, and all the lights. Act 2, Dark, is comprised of monster, so appalled, devil in a new dress, and runaway.

Act 3, Twisted, contains hell of a life, blame game, lost in the world, and the brief epilogue who will survive in America. Over the course of these acts, Kanye will outline his rise and fall from public grace and provide a kaleidoscopic meandering into the deep recesses of his mind, his fantasies. One moment he's brash and confident, the next he's vulnerable and lost. He'll expose the dark underbelly of fame while philosophizing on his relationship with his inner childlike creativity. These themes are housed in a colossal sonic edifice, a Roman coliseum of expansive, detailed production. And while we could continue to preface this album at nauseam, we've got a lot of ground to cover, and I'm antsy to jump in, as I'm sure you are. So, without further ado, let's dissect.

You might think you've peep the scene. You haven't. The real one's far too mean. The watered down one, the one you know, was made up centuries ago. They made it sound all wacky and horny. Yes, it's awful, blasted boring, twisted fiction, sick addiction, will gather around children. Let's listen. The first sounds we hear on my beautiful dark twisted fantasy are the processed, harmonized vocals of Boni Vares' Justin Vernon,

over which rapper Nikki Minaj recites an urbanized version of a fairy tale. This introduction in many ways encapsulates the musical and thematic arc of the entire album. Musically, we have a fascinating, entirely strange juxtaposition of a white male indie folk singer from Wisconsin with a black female rapper from New York imitating a British accent. As we'll see, the juxtaposition of otherwise contrasting elements will be employed throughout the entire album, displaying Kanye's talent of directing, of orchestrating, of coalescing a diverse array of musicians and sounds to create something entirely new. Thematically, the fairy tale introduction is a synopsis of the central subject of the album,

fame, and Kanye's complex relationship to fame. The tale is based on Rollo Doll's dark twisted retelling of Cinderella, part of his revolting rhymes poems that reinterpret well-known fairy tales, specifically giving them morbid, unexpected endings that contrasts with the traditional happily ever-after approach. I guess you think you know this story? You don't. The real one's much more gory. The phony one, the one you know, was cooked up years and years ago

and made to sound all soft and sappy just to keep the children happy. In Doll's version, Cinderella meets a magic fairy who grants the poor housemaid her wish to attend the prince's ball decked in the finest clothes. After dancing with the prince all night, the clock strikes 12 and Cinderella hurries home, leaving her shoe behind. The prince plans to use the shoe to find Cinderella and asks her hand in marriage, but Cinderella's step-sister sneakily switches Cinderella's shoe for her own.

What happens next is, well, pretty twisted. Now came the ugly sisters' girls. One tried it on. The prince screamed, no, but she screamed, Yes, it fits, whoopee, so now you've got to marry me. The prince went white from ear to ear. He muttered, let me out of here. Oh, no, you don't, you made a vow.

There's no way you can back out now. Off with her head, the prince roared back. It chopped it off with one big whack. This pleased the prince. He smiled and said, she's prettier without her head. Then out came sister number two, who yelled, Now I will try the shoe. Try this instead, the prince yelled back. He swung his trusty sword and smack.

Her head went crashing to the ground. It bounced a bit and rolled around. After the sister's beheading, the prince arrives at Cinderella's house, where she discovers the prince's dark side. He chops off heads. How could I marry anyone who does that sort of thing for fun? The prince cried, who's this dirty slut? Off with a nut, off with a nut!

The magic fairy returns in the nick of time and grants Cinderella another wish. Having experienced both the good and evil of luxury, Cinderella's wish is a little more modest this time around. Kind fairy, this time I shall be more wary. No more princes, no more money. I have had my taste of honey. I'm wishing for a decent man. They're hard to find.

Do you think you can? Within a minute, Cinderella was married to a lovely fella, a simple jam maker by trade who sold good homemade marmalade. Their house was filled with smiles and laughter, and they were happy ever after. Knowing the backstory of Kanye's rise and sudden fall from public grace, the parallels of Doll's Cinderella story and Kanye's own life reveal themselves quite clearly. The prince and his wealth become a metaphor for fame in its indulgences, which for the first four years of his career was like dancing, with the prints all night. Suddenly, the clock strikes 12, which we might liken to the VMA incident, and the underbelly of fame reveals itself. Kanye finds himself all but decapitated. The Disney version of the Cinderella story Kanye believed to be true was farcical. It turns out the real story was

more akin to dolls' twisted reimagining. With this in mind, let's listen again to the introduction of dark fantasy. You might think you've peeped the scene. You haven't. The real one's far too mean. Watered down one, the one you know, was made up centuries ago. They made it sound all wacky and horny. Yes, it's awful, blasted boring, twisted fiction, sick addiction, will gather our children. Let's listen. Kanye's reimagining of Doll's reimagining of Cinderella

modernizes the tale without altering its message. Fame, luxury, power, influence. These things at a distance seem to be beautiful and magical and one-dimensionally idyllic. But as the intro suggests, that viewpoint is watered down, a mere twisted fiction. With this album, Kanye is going to reveal to us the dark side of the fantasy that is fame. This brief but potent introduction collides directly with Dark Fantasy's hook. Dark Fantasy was produced by Kanye West and the Rizza of Wutang fame,

with additional production by Mike Dean and, Jeff Basker. The hook opens with a majestic, richly voice F major chord played by piano and cellos. The piano chord is followed by a sample of Mike Oldfield's In High Places from the 1983 album Crisis. In Dark Fantasy, the sample is pitched two semitones lower than the original. The sample is answered by an array of richly layered vocals sung by Tiana Taylor, who at the time was a protege of Farrell and whom Kanye knew through their mutual interest in fashion. Lyrically, the is just one line. Can we get much higher? Here at the beginning of the album's narrative, Kanye is establishing himself as being at the height of success, questioning how things could get

any better than being a famous, successful musician in America. The lavishness with which this line is performed helps accentuate this message. We hear the luxury, the glamour, the indulgence. It sounds as beautiful as fame and wealth do to someone looking from the outside in. Indeed, it would seem one couldn't get much higher, which means there's only one way to go. down. The driving, haunting beat that serves as Dark Fantasy's verses was produced by the Rizza. While there's no accredited sample,

Rizza was sued by Tichiku Entertainment for his alleged use of a Miko Kaji song. If we were to loop the clip in question, it would sound like this. Now slower and pitched down. And now let's compare that with Dark Fantasy's verses. Of course, the two sounds strikingly similar, and seeing how the Riza used Miko Kaji as part of the kill

bill movie soundtrack four years prior, it would seem Rizza knew of her existence. But whether Riza actually sampled the piece is certainly disputable, and Riza himself was so adamant against the claim that he actually countersued Tichiko Entertainment. This is just my own speculation, but as likely the Kaja track served as inspiration, and the parts themselves were re-recorded by studio musicians. The verse is a striking contrast from the grandeur of the song's opening hook. Again, this juxtaposition is a conscious execution that will see time and again, accentuating the duality of fame, the album's prominent theme. The contrast is created most obviously through instrumentation

as a driving drumbeat and a percussive use of the piano is introduced. But Kanye, whether he knows it or not, also employed a classic tonal modulation that I believe makes these two contrasting parts work together without sounding totally disconnected from one another. The song's hook is in the key of F major and found it on four chords, F major, A minor, B flat major, and C major. This is a pretty straightforward use of harmony. It creates a pattern that can be easily looped due to the last chord of the progression being what we call a dominant chord.

The dominant chord is a chord of tension. When we hear it, whether we know it or not, we crave returning to the tonic or home chord of the key signature, which in this case is F major. Let's hear the two back to back. Tonic. Dominant. Tonic. We can play any number of chords between the dominant and tonic home chord.

But once we hear that dominant chord, we really, really want to go here to F major. Ah, it just feels good, right? It resolves, its tension and release, and again, whether you know it or not, your ears train to hear this chord and year in for this resolving chord. In music theory, this move from the dominant chord to the tonic chord is called a cadence. When the hook of Dark Fantasy drops into the verse section, we don't get the F major chord as a resolving chord. Instead, we get a D minor chord. Dominant, D minor.

Let's hear that transition on piano alone. Dominant, D minor. This move is called a deceptive cadence. Our ear thinks we're headed one place, in this case F major, and instead we get the keys relative minor chord D minor. The transition then becomes unexpected, but not totally jarring. That's because two of the three notes in a D minor chord are also found in the F major chord. D minor is made up of D, F, A, and F major is made up of F, A, C.

This relationship between an F major chord, a quote-unquote happy chord, and D minor, a quote-unquote dark chord, is called relative minor. D minor is literally F-major's dark. dark side, duality, contrast, two sides of the same coin, a tonal representation of the glamour of fame and its dark underbelly. This is cool stuff, guys. With all this in mind, let's listen again to that transition one more time. The cryptic thematic setup of dark fantasy's fairy tale introduction, the majesticness of the opening hook, and the striking transition into the verse section create a powerful platform on which Kanye makes his grand entrance.

Kanye himself increases the anticipation with a series of simple yaz before the music drops out entirely and he says the now iconic opening lines. Yeah, I fantasize about this back in Chicago, mercy, mercy me, that mercy of Lago. That's me the first year that I blow. How you say broken Spanish. Kanye begins the album, I fantasize about this back in Chicago. Having used the first two episodes of the season detailing Kanye's childhood and rise through the ranks of the music industry, we know how potent this seemingly simple line is.

We know since a young age, Kanye's genuine passion for art and innovation was always juxtaposed with an almost uncontrollable yearning for the attention and adoration that came with high-profile success. It would seem fame was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, driving force that propelled Kanye's assent. Indeed, this opening line seems to acknowledge that his relationship with fame begins with his childhood fantasies of fame and the Cinderella happily ever after ending he thought it'd bring.

The second and third line of the verse jump cut 27. some odd years later. He says, Mercy, mercy, me, that mercy alago. That's me the first year that I blow. Here, I believe Kanye is referencing his debut album, the college dropout. In classic Kanye form, he juxtaposes mercy, mercy me by Marvin Gay, and a Lamborghini mercy alago sports car. Gay's Mercy, Mercy Me is a clever representation of the soul sampling sound Kanye became

famous for, and the sports car represents the reckless materialism it would seem he indulgent once he became successful. Intentional or not, mercy, mercy, me contains a refrain that could be heard as foreshadowing the story Kanye is set to tell on Twisted Fantasy. Mercy, mercy, mercy me, things ain't what they used to be. A line that we can easily apply to Kanye's relationship with fame in the position he finds himself post-VMA's. Kanye continues to display his youthful materialism as verse one can continues. Kanye says how you say broken Spanish, Mino Hano Habeo.

Kanye says how you say broken Spanish, Mino Hablo. Meno Hablo translates to I don't know, a clever way to convey that he's so rich the word broke isn't in his vocabulary. This line becomes even wittier when he realized that the phrase broke in Spanish. can also be heard broken Spanish, slang for sloppy or bad Spanish. The phrase, me no hablo is just that, Kanye's sloppy Spanish. Adding to this crafty use of double meaning are the subsequent lines in which Kanye uses the word me in place of I, something that those speaking broken English often do.

He says, me drowned sorrow in that Diablo, me found bravery in my bravado. Diablo is Spanish for devil. It's also the name of a Lamborghini, a callback to the mercilogue of a, reference we heard just a few lines back. Kanye drowning his sorrow in that Diablo, which represents both materialism and the devil or sin, will come to have major significance as the album progresses with songs like Devil in a New Dress and Hell of a Life. Things get darker and more intricate when we realize that a Diablo has suicide doors, suicide being a topic he'll address on the album's third song power. The line, Me Found Bravery in My Bravado, is equally revealing. In a sense,

it could be viewed as a synopsis for Kanye's entire career. It calls to mind the 2004 quote we read in our last episode, in which Kanye stated, quote, I say in my songs I'm so insecure, so a lot of times arrogance is to combat insecurity. So in order for me to go out there and do what I've done, facing insecurity and facing people telling me I couldn't do it, I had to build a force field around myself, unquote. Indeed, with the stakes of twisted fantasy so high in Kanye's mind, it would seem that the grandiosity is itself a form of musical bravado, and the very

act of creating a work so blatantly ambitious as Kanye at a very low point in his life, proving to himself his value, his worth, reinstating the force field. The first verse concludes with a series of boasts, which almost feel like a defense mechanism coming after lines as

reflective and revealing as the previous ones we just heard. No fucking Yeezy and Serrado. Stupid, but what the hell do I know? I'm just a Shottown nigger with a Nyes flow. And my chick in that new Phoebe Falo. So much head I woke up to sleepy hollow. Can we get much...

In case you're wondering, Serato is a computer music program many contemporary DJs use when performing. Kanye fakes ignorance while comparing his rhyming skills to New York rapper Nause, which is cleverly pronounced in such a way as also to hear the word nice. Kanye then states his chick is wearing the influential fashion designer Phoebe Follow. From models wanting to hear his songs, to his comparison with Nas, to aligning himself with high-fashioned designers, we're starting to get a picture of the cocky, naive character Kanye is introducing, one who seems to be very concerned with fame, materialism, and portraying an image.

The verse concludes with what is on its surface, an amusing oral sex pun, that Kanye gets so much head he wakes up in Sleepy Hollow, a reference to the grid, classic tale of the headless horseman. But Sleepy Hollow is also a neighborhood in Chicago, just miles from Kanye's childhood home, which brings the verse full circle, back to the opening line I fantasize about this back in Chicago. This verse and the things that are spoken on, cars, clothes, women, alcohol, sex, are all a part of Kanye's youthful fantasy, a fantasy he now finds himself living. It was seen the line between reality and make-believe are blurred for Kanye West, and this album will be an attempt to make sense of the world.

world in which he finds himself living. Spoiler alert, the album ends on a song called Lost in the World, so let's not go expecting a fairy tale ending. After an abbreviated performance of the song's hook, verse two begins. The first two lines of verse two could be viewed as a continuation of the last lines on the first verse. continues a sex reference with the fat bodied Celine Dion, which is wordplay with the earlier reference to designer Phoebe Follow. In 2008, Follow sign with the French fashion brand Celine, a subsidiary of Louis Vuitton,

and her debut line premiered in 2009, the time Kanye was writing Twisted Fantasy. The next line, Sex is on Fire, I'm the King of Leon O'Lewis, again continues a sexual reference with clever wordplay. Kanye is referencing the rock band Kings of Leon and their big 2008 hit Sex is on Fire. Kanye, of course, takes Kings of Leon and adds Leon a Lewis, a British pop singer and songwriter,

whose long face does resemble Celine Dion's in an odd way, and could be the quote-unquote fat-booty version Kanye referenced in the previous line. By calling himself King, Connie is again being boastful, but there's also something more cryptic between the lines. Francis King Louis, or Lewis the 16th, was infamously beheaded during the French revolution. Kanye here may be likening himself in the VMA backlash to King Louis' beheading. For further evidence, one image in Twisted Fantasy's album artwork is Kanye's disembodied head with a large sword through its skull. Also, Louis being a French king links nicely to the French brand Celine,

and Phoebe Follow referenced just moments earlier. As a verse continues, Kanye again turns more introspective. the page and restart the memory. We spark the soul and rebuild the energy. We stop the ignorance. We kill the enemy. Connie begins this section with a reference to the slick Rick classic, Hey Teacher, Teacher, tell me how you, the creator of style.

Following Kanye's slick Rick interpolation, he asked, quote, How do we respond to students? Refresh the page and restart the memory. Respark the soul and rebuild the energy. It would seem Kanye is looking for a fresh start. a reinvigoration. With the reference to teacher and the students so early in the album, it's hard not to think of his first three albums, the so-called college trilogy.

Kanye may be alluding to those days of excitement, for both himself and his fan base, and searching for a way to recreate the energy and influence of that era. Similar to verse 1, Kanye briefly turns introspective before returning to an adolescent-like denial of reality. the enemy, sorry for the night, D-Monds are still visit me. The plan was to drink it to the pain over,

but what's worse, the pain or the hangover? Fresh air rolling down the window. Too many urcles on your team, that's why your winds low. Don't make me pull the toys out, huh? Don't make me pour the toys and fire up the engines, huh? And then they may ignore. Connie says,

Sorry for the night demons still visit me. The plan was to drink and drink tell the pain over, but what's worse, the pain or the hangover. By referencing night demons, a line that's backed by detuned demonic sounding vocals, Kanye is clearly hinting at a troubled psyche. Night demons could represent any number of things, his mother's death, the end of his engagement, and or the backlash of the VMAs, and his complicated relationship with fame. He then alludes to heavy drinking to numb his pain, but then very insightfully questions the consequences of delaying reality with alcohol, knowing that the inevitable hangover only makes reality more painful.

The next line, fresh air, rolling down the window, is a palate cleanser and transitions from introspection back to Kanye's youthful denial. He cleverly cracks a joke with the line, too many Urkels on your team, that's why you're Winslow. This is a reference to the 1990s sitcom Family Matters, which starred the Winslow family and their nerdy neighbor Steve Urkel. Did I do that? Did I do that? Did I do that? Kanye follows the Urkel line by referencing again his car collection, which he cryptically calls his toys, accentuating his adolescent mentality and bringing the closing of verse two full circle, back to the themes and motives introduced in verse one.

After another abbreviated hook, the bridge begins a fantastical cryptic scene at a mall. What's the seance, just kids no parents, then the sky filled with herald. saw the devil in the Christ of the bearer. The bridge opens with the lines. At the mall there was a seance, just kids, no parents. A seance is a meeting at which people gather an attempt to communicate with the dead. The imagery of kids alone in a mall looking for dead spirits is our first real glimpse into the phantasmagoric recesses of the character and world being created on twisted fantasy.

Having alluded to escapism through material things in verse 2, we can view the mall as representative of consumerism. and we get the feeling that the kids attempt to find spirituality here is directionless and vain. The bridge continues, then the sky filled with herons, I saw the devil in a Chrysler to baron. This is a juxtaposition of heaven and hell, good and evil. In Egyptian mythology, herons represent goodness and light. And of course, the image of the devil in a now discontinued Chrysler, which sounds a lot like Christler, is a vivid, eerie depiction of evil.

As the bridge concludes, it would seem that for now evil is upper hand. Kanye says, and the hell it wouldn't spare us, but after that, took pills just to errors. Kanye says, And the hell it wouldn't spare us, and the fires did declare us. Again, we're reminded of Kanye's recent personal tragedies here, but he uses us, not me, which would seem to apply a more general observation about the world around him. Whatever darkness he's alluding to, he clearly looks to escape with the next lines, but after that, took pills kissed at Harris and woke up back in Paris. Cleverly, Kanye rhymes Harris with Paris, referencing Paris Hilton,

the socialite Harris of Hilton hotels, who enter the limelight for a leaked sex tape. It's a fitting analogy, as Kanye uses her to represent escapism through sex and drugs. By saying he wakes up back in Paris, we assume the seance scene was a drug-induced reverie. our first glimpse into the beautiful, dark, twisted fantasies occurring in his subconscious. After the bridge's conclusion, we get a third repetition of the abbreviated hook, followed by an instrumental passage based on the verses musical material. As a 351 mark, a very standard duration for a song, the instrumental material ends quite naturally, and the song feels over.

But rather than end here, Kanye chooses to repeat the song's opening hook in full, all 47 seconds of it. Can we get much higher? By using the introduction again as the outro, Dark Fantasy becomes bookended by these large ornate pillars. Coming after what felt so much like an ending, this closing section serves as the retraining of our musical instincts, as if Kanye is purposely shifting our expectations of things to come.

Indeed, the average duration of a song on Twisted Fantasy is nearly six minutes, far from the three minutes and thirty second norms of popular music. Twisted Fantasy is a deliberate sonic spectacle, a Sistine Chapel approach to hip-hop, and Dark Fantasy is the initial brushstrokes. Conclusions. From its opening moments, Dark Fantasy establishes the sound, themes, and narrative that will be explored throughout my beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Sonically, it consolidates Connie's entire musical palette and creative powers, developed over his first four solo albums.

It's a beautiful amalgamation of soul, hip-hop, R&B, classical, and gospel. I once seamless and juxtaposed and utterly grandiose. Its music made to leave us in awe, to marvel at its sheer sonic magnitude and depth craftsmanship. Lyrically, we find Kanye at perhaps his most economical. Woveen within just two compact verses in a brief bridge, Kanye establishes a complex character who on the surface appears confident in living a luxurious life of fame and fortune.

But veil beneath the surface is a struggle between good and evil, someone who finds escapism through drugs, sex, and materialism, someone who shows glimpses of deep introspection, but is too adolescent-minded at this point in the narrative to meditate too long on anything that would cause him real pain. There's multiple references to devils and demons, and the dream imagery and juxtapositions leave us somewhere between fantasy and reality. Indeed, dark fantasy repeatedly asks,

can we get much higher? By the song's end, we're questioning our initial interpretation of ascending triumph, and wondering whether Kanye is just experiencing a drug-induced reverie. Simply put, Dark Fantasy is one hell of an opener. A bar set so high so early, we wonder how the rest of the album won't pale in comparison. Well, it doesn't. Indeed, Kanye delivers what many feel to be his best lyrical performance of his career on the album's next track, Gorgeous, which will thoroughly examine next time on Dissect.

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