Dissect - S8E10 - Send It Up by Kanye West

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

Our serialized analysis of Yeezus continues with its penultimate track “Send It Up.” After the emotional journey we’ve witnessed on the album, why is Yeezus back in the club indulging in all the things we know are problematic for him? The answer to this question is found in the song’s brilliant use of samples. 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

In 1975, Welsh singer Tom Jones released his 20th studio album, and the second single from that release was the album's title track, Memories Don't Leave Like People Do. This recording was produced by famous Motown singer-songwriter Johnny Bristol, who co-wrote the track as well as released his own version of it just one year earlier. But to find the origin of Memories Don't Leave Like People Do, we have to back up even further, because Bristol co-wrote the track with Jerry Butler,

who recorded and released his own version of the song first in 1973. The song would more or less go dormant after this string of releases in the 1970s. But some 20 years later, a portion of the track would unexpectedly resurface on a disc track by Jamaican dance-all artist Beanie Man. What a long, strange trip this song took, from the early R&B tones of Jerry Butler to the Motown sounds of Johnny Bristol, to the robust baritone of Tom Jones, to the dance-hall vibes of Beanie Man. Still, the song's journey doesn't end here, because some 20 years later, Kanye West would

resurrect Beanie Man's rendition for the second to last track of Yeezus. More than a simple sample for aesthetic purposes, the well-traveled song Memories Don't Leave Like People Do, represents one of the last major plot points in the Yeezis narrative, and in my opinion, is one of the most brilliant uses of a sample in Kanye's entire catalog. From Spotify, I'm Cole Kushna, and this is Dissect. long-form musical analysis broken into short digestible episodes. Today we continue our serialized examination of Kanye West Yeezus, with its penultimate track, Send It Up.

Last time I dissect, we examined Yeezus's eighth track, guilt trip. The song began as a somber continuation of blood on the leaves, where the fallout from a relationship resulted in Yeasus being torn into by warring emotions. On the surface, he embodies an egotistical alpha male persona, but beneath that is a well of vulnerability full of pain, loneliness, and longing. It's the tension between these two conflicting sides that makes up most of the album's central conflict. In Gilchrip, that clash between vulnerability and ego reverses its

paradigm. While the ego is still present, it loses its commanding grip on Yeezus, which allows him to actually confront and work through his emotions. When Kid Cutty sings, If You Love Me So Much, then Why'd You Let Me Go? It's somber and mournful, but ultimately cathartic. On some level, it almost feels like Yeezus is asking himself this question. In putting on his mask of alphanus, he's lost sight of who he is and the good he can do as a celebrity. Ultimately, if he wants to find the right woman and spark that social revolution so present at the beginning of the album,

he needs to be better to himself, first and foremost. And for Yeez, this means resisting his inclination to bury his pain in fast women and drugs, everything the lure of the limelight promises. It's time he finally decides between the short term or the long term. temptation or conservation, indulgence or transcendence, up or down. This final challenge takes the form of the album's next track, the subject of our episode today, Send It Up.

We can't send it up, it can go down. Send It Was produced by Kanye West, Daphunk, Gassafelstein, and Brodinski. with additional production by Arka and Mike Dean. The track begins with a riff composed by French electronic artist Gassafelstein. This riff bears a striking resemblance to Gassafelstein's 2013 track, California. But as we're going to hear throughout this episode, send it up is most similar in both sound and theme to the album's opening track on site. We hear that similarity sonically straight away in the main synth riffs of both tracks.

Both songs were produced in part by daft punk. Both songs are in the key of A minor, and both feature a dissonant synth riff centered around the minor second interval. As a refresher, here's Ons Sight's main riff. When we broke this riff down, we heard how its bass notes oscillate between an A and a B-flat. The riff then suddenly jumps way high up from this bass register to hit a single high A, which falls on an upbeat. Both the minor second interval and an unexpected jump to a high A are also heard in the main synth riff or Send It Up. It begins with a succession of minor second intervals followed by a high A on an upbeat. These subtle but meaningful similarities in the song's main synthriffs are the first of many connections between Onsite and Send It Up.

Something will keep in mind as we begin to dissect the song's lyrics. Send It Up opens with the final Jamaican artist we'll hear on the album. This time it's the dancehall artist Beanie Man. and the remix of his 1995 song, Memories. These opening words, reliving the past, Your Loss, set the stage for what is about to unfold on Send It Up. When Jesus begins rapping later in the track, we'll realize he's back in the same club we found him in on OnSight, where he was at his most indulgent and near-sighted. The Beanie Man sample, acting as a kind of narrator, brilliantly makes clear up front the troublesome road Yeezus is traveling down.

At this point in the album, we know this. This is a lifestyle that tore him apart in more ways than one, so we fear what's about to happen as the track continues. Capturing more of that sense of past Yeez's, Kanye has rapper King Louis delivered the song's first verse. Like Chief Keefe, Assassin, and Pop-Camp before him, King Louis as a character seems to represent the hyperbolic persona Yeezus displays to make himself look stronger than he truly feels. Louis opens the verse, Rockstar bitch, call me Elvis. This plays off Elvis Presley and his nickname the King of Rock and Roll,

a clever reference to the king and King Louis. Straight away, the arrogance is reminiscent of the same attitude Yeezus displayed on on-site, where he was at the top of the mountain, king of the house of sin. Louis continues, M-O-B, she call me selfish. M-O-B is slaying for money over business. which is a mindset that would obviously create friction in a relationship. He reduces this woman's concerns over his priorities to nothing more than, quote, success got him jealous.

This degree of coldness towards and dismissal of women is again in line with Yeezus during his on-site days. Louis then follows that up with Shorty killing while I'm drilling. Shorty is slang for both a girlfriend and a young gang member, while Drillin could either mean having sex or refer to drill rap, which was in 2013, a popular movement in Chicago hip-hop sparked by Chief Keefe. So on one hand, Louis could be describing having sex with a girl, or he could be contrasting his success in the rap scene against those who became involved in Chicago's gang life. The next line would seem to confirm that on some level, King Louis is indeed talking about street life.

While in drilling, tattoos how they break the news. It was real if you made the news. Last night my bitches came in tools, and they both suck like they came to lose. Dropped out first day of school Because niggas got cocaine to move I'll be going hard I got a name to prove Killing them, herny hot, make the pain and prove We can send this bitch up

Louis continues the verse Tattoos how they break the news Tattoes commemorate gang members who pass away Thus they serve as a sort of news headline About someone in the community's death We then get the line It was real if you made the news As a shorty, you're looking to work your way

Up the ranks And killing a notable figure whose death made the news is one way to do so. On the other hand, if you are big enough that your death during a shooting resulted in evening news, that means you achieve notoriety as a gang member. While the Shorty kills, Louis drills, and as their success is gauged by making the news, so is his. Louis then transitions from the streets to the sheets. He says, last night my bitches came in two, and they both suck like they came to lose. This transition is fitting given the double entangra of Shorty from earlier. Louis describes having a threesome, playing off a losing team

sucking to refer to the women's ability to give him head. They came to lose as also a double entendre as his bitches came or orgasm simultaneously. Louis pivots again back to the streets, rapping, dropped out the first day of school because N-words got cocaine to move. Channeling Kanye's own dropout spirit, this establishes that while Louis was at one time a shorthy himself, he has transcended the streets to succeed in the world of music. He concludes the verse with the declaration of his work ethic and desire to raise his profile. I be going hard, I got a name to prove, killing him, honey how I made the pain improve. Now he's the one killing, except he's doing it as a rapper. Honey, how I made the pain improve, gets out the idea of putting sweetness on something bitter,

and seems to relate to Louis' work ethic being the way he escaped the streets. But given that he used killing to describe having sex earlier, he could be referring to using sex as the honey he pours over his wounds, which would be a fitting summary of the lifestyle Yeezus has led after his heartbreak. We can send this bitch up, it can go down. We can send this bitch up, it can't go down. For the song's refrain, Louis repeats, we can send this bitch up, it can go down. This will come to have multiple meanings as the song progresses. But here, after Louis' verse, it builds on the street mentality displayed there. To send it up means to get violent, as in, when I see him, I'm going to send it up. So the refrain is simply Louis' version of, We Can Fight, It Can Happen. This once again speaks to the

energy of On-Sight. Both it and Send It Up derive their name from phrases which, at their core, refer to fighting. A fuzzy bass synth comes in midway through the refrain, adding to the grimy, harsh environment of the track. Pay attention to the notes this synth plays as it cleverly relates to what King Louis says on the hook. This bass synth begins by playing these two notes. The first note jumps up higher to the second note. This same jump is then repeated a few times and relates to the Send It Up lyric of the hook. But then as the riff continues, that second note changes, it gets lower and lower. The counter descending line relates to the It Can Go Down lyric of the hook. So this bass riff encompasses both the up and down directions of the refrain, which makes it

all the more fitting that King Louis returns over the synth line. Overall, King Louis' verse and refrain captures Beanie Man's cryptic warning of reliving the past, again highlighting the inherent tension of the song. Will Yeez's backslide to his previous behavior? Will he ascend or descend? Will he go up or down? We'll find out right after the break. Welcome back to Dissect.

Before the break, we heard King Louis deliver send-it-up's first verse and refrain. Once again, Kanye has used a guest artist to embody the mask of machismo the Yiz's character wears, and we wonder whether or not our hero will send it up and return to his old self-destructive ways. As Jesus enters the track for his only verse, we get to the first. her answer straight away. Jesus makes clear he's done reliving the past. For the first time since On-Sight, we're back in the club where the album started. Yizis raps, this is the craziest shit in the club since Inda Club.

This is a meta-reference to Sen it up being the craziest song played in the club since 50 cents smash hit, Indy Club. Kanye's lines could also just be a description of Yeez's at the club, that his presence has caused a scene as wild as Inda Club did back in 2003. On On-site, when Yeezus pulled up to the club and parked his bins, he got the bitch shaking like Parkinson's. He got what he wanted, who he wanted, and when he wanted it. It was behavior that felt straight out of 50 song. The verse's next lines clearly put us in the nightclub.

It's so packed I might ride around on my bodyguard's back like Prince in the club. Prince's bodyguard was famously 6'8 tall, while Prince was just 5'3. And indeed, there's video footage of the bodyguard giving Prince a piggyback ride to the stage. This would be the kind of bombastic and absurd behavior we'd expect from Yeez's back on-site. In fact, with the Prince reference, we can draw yet another direct connection to on-site, as it was there that Yeez's talked about abusing a couch with his timberland. As we discussed in our analysis of this line, this is a reference to a famous Chappelle show sketch where Charlie Murphy tells an odyssey

about his relationship with Rick James. Five minutes into the story, Murphy describes how Rick James showed up to a party at his brother Eddie's house with dirty boots on. Without any regard, James proceeded to grind his feet on a brand new couch. Fuck your couch, nigger. Buy another one, you rich motherfucker. Fuck your couch, nigga! Fuck your couch!

It's no coincidence that Prince was parodied in an equally famous Chappelle Show sketch, also narrated by Charlie Murphy. It came over where we was at. Prince started talking to my brother. Hello Eddie Murphy. Vince, what's up? I'm a big fan of your comedies. Ooh, that's hot.

Would you like to come to my house and listen to some? music. Ooh, that's cool. Fruitie. In this sketch, Dave Chappelle portrays Prince wearing a purple, Zoro-type outfit. He dances ridiculously, speaks in an absurdly measured tone, and plays basketball like he's in a video game.

Everything about Prince in this sketch, just like everything about Rick James and the other sketch, is extra. Dave Chappelle portrays both of these celebrities' funniest traits and reduces the men to silly caricatures. Connie brings that same hyperbole to Yeezus' absurd behavior, whether it's stomping his black Tim's into the Cowan, or riding on his bodyguards back through the club.

While the Yeez's character might feel empowered by these actions, we as an audience, knowing their context, recognized the absurdity. She said, can you get my friends in the club? I said, can you get my bins in the club? If not, treat your friends like my bins, punk their ass outside to the evening end. When I go raw, I like to leave it in. When I wake up, I like to go again.

When I go to work, she got to call it in. She can't go to work. The verse continues with Yeezus having a conversation with a woman who requests that he uses celebrity status to get her friends into the club. Yezis treats this woman callously, equating her friends to his car, meaning they can all weight their asses outside. Yisis then continues his misogynistic behavior rapping, When I go raw, I like to leave it in. When I wake up, I like to go again. Going raw, of course, refers to having unprotected sex, which can lead to unwanted pregnancies.

This recalls the fourth verse of blood on the leaves and Kanye's ruminations about how women trap men by getting a baby from them, leading to, quote, unholy matrimony. Despite now recognizing this dynamic, Yeezes and indulges anyway. And the idea of waking up and going again gets at the lust, recklessness, and unhealthy relationship with sex that's controlled much of our hero's behavior over the course of the album. As the verse continues, there seems to be yet another callback to a previous track. He wraps, When I go to work, she got a call a day.

in. She can't go to work, same clothes again. His work is having sex, forcing her to call in sick to her actual job. This recalls the song, I'm in it, when Yeez is proclaimed, tell your boss you need an extra hour off, and later, picked up where we left off, I'm going to need you home when I get off. Recall in this song that Yeezus was escaping into a woman after being rejected by his ex. Here we find him returning to a similar destructive pattern, as he literally relives the past. The line can't go to work, same clothes again refers to the proverbial walk of shame and wearing the same clothes as the day before after a night of sex. But the line also points to the transformation that occurs when this woman crosses the threshold from her life to his. She can't go to work wearing the same clothes as before.

She needs an upgrade, maybe a $2,000 bag, some Alexander Wang, a different kind of textile, like reptile. With that setup, the verse then ends in a heightened, poetic place. in the souls of men, Loubaton on her toes again, tight dress dancing close to him, Yeezus just rose again. Yizus says, in her heart colder than the souls of men, Louis-Baton on her toes again, tight-dress dancing close to him. Countless times on this album, Kanye has had Yeez's focus on the dehumanization that occurs between men and women because of materialism.

With one line, he encapsulates just how brutal both genders can be. The souls of men are cold, and because of that, the hearts of women grow even colder. It's a race to absolute zero. Christian Louis Vuitton is an expensive footwear brand this woman brandishes as she dances close to him. It recalls grinding in a club, but the visual gains dimension coming after the line about cold souls and Louis Vuitton. As Jesus said on on-site, everyone wants to live at the top of the mountain. Everyone wants material possessions and the limelight. It's through Jesus, this woman gets close.

to the top of the mountain, and she's got the designer's shoes to prove it. And it's because of this woman that Yeezus also rises, except the irony is that his rise doesn't refer to fame. This cold woman in the tight dress, her proximity and grinding has given him an erection, as he proclaims, Yeezus just rose again. Both blood on the leaves and Gilchrip had shown Yeas come to terms with his broken heart, misadventures, bad behavior, and bad attitude. Finally able to put aside his ego, Yizus seemed to have reached a point where he was okay, with vulnerability. He didn't have to hide everything behind the mask of an untouchable superstar. In other words, Kanye West didn't need to be Yeezus anymore. But now all that progress seems to have

been in vain, as our hero resurrects the disastrous persona we know ultimately leaves his life in chaos. At this point in the album, hearing Yeezus just rose again and witnessing his antics in the club, is like watching a movie about a drug addict who, after turning his life around, resorts to using again. despite the character feeling good because he's high. For us, the audience, it's sickening and painful to watch. This idea of Jesus rising again, of course, plays on the idea of Jesus' resurrection. After being crucified on a cross, the Bible details how Jesus came back to life a mere three days later. But where Jesus' resurrection changed the world,

Yeziesus is purposely the opposite. Kanye reduces the Jesus persona to nothing more than his penis. It's an acknowledgement that his desire for gratification has come to define him. He's embodied 50 cents iconic refrain from into club. I'm into having sex, I ain't into making love, so come give me a hug if you end to getting rubbed. It also recalls yet another line from on site, where Yeezus proclaimed, a monster about to come alive again. That line was followed by descriptions of Yeezus doing monstrous things in the club, where Yeezus just rose again, punctuates the monstrous behavior displayed throughout the verse. Yeasus has allowed his most primal

and basic instincts to take the wheel and drive. He's once again 500 and out of control, which is crushing now knowing all he really wanted in his heart was to settle down. And so now when King Louis comes back in with the refrain, it carries an entirely new meaning. The subtext of, we can send this bitch up, it can go down. is no longer about fighting. Now it's about Yeezus' dick. It's about sex and the same old behavior that's plagued him up to this point. Just like we heard on I'm Init and other songs on

the album, ego and aggressiveness is interchangeable with sex and indulgence for Yeez's. Both actions comprise the mask he wears to protect himself from his pain. And then as the song continues into a brief musical interlude, we get perhaps the most blatant callback to onsite of the entire track. Here we get a simple distorted drumbeat with a distinct, high synth hit. There's a few things about this high sense note that I want to point out. First, the note it's playing is a high A. Second is the placement of this high A, that is where it falls in the beat. It's heard on the upbeat between beats 3 and 4. As I play the excerpt, I'm going to count on the downbeats and notice how the

synth doesn't align with my count. Rather, it sounds in between 3 and 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1. Okay, so we have 2, 2, 2, 2, 2. distinct features of this distorted synth. The note it plays, which is a high A, and where it's played, which is on an upbeat. Now let's compare this with what we hear on OnSight. Just like Send It Up, we get a simple distorted drumbeat paired with a grimy synth. The hallmark of the synthrith is the high note it plays. Again, just like Send It Up, this distinct high note is an A, and it's also played on the upbeat. To make the similarity between the two tracks more obvious, I'm going to isolate that high A heard on OnSight.

And now let's slow this down to the tempo of Send It Up. And now Send It Up. Perhaps if this were just an isolated similarity between the two songs, we could chalk it up to coincidence. But I think we've now discovered more than enough evidence that Send It Up is meant to serve as a reflection of OnSight, especially given that Send It Up begins with that sample talking about reliving the past. And fittingly, Beanie Man comes back on the track once again singing about things that have happened before. Beanie Man sings, Memories Don't Leave Like People Do,

They always remember you, whether things are good or bad, it's just the memories that you have. As we mentioned at the top of this episode, this is an interpolation of a 1974 song called Memories Don't Leave Like People Do by Jerry Butler. Memories Don't Leave like People Do finds Butler lamenting over a woman he loved who left him.

He compares the reliability of memories to the unreliability of people. Later in the song he sings, But I find joy in all the pain. Though your body is gone, the soul remains. The question is why did you have to leave? You could have been as faithful as a memory. In the hands of Beanie Man in his track, the meaning of the lyrics of memories are flipped

as they become a part of a disc track aimed at Beanie Man's rival, Bounty Killer. Bounty Killer was known to refer to historical figures from the American Wild West, so Beanie Man uses the memory's lyrics to call out the fact that Beanie Hunter needs to stop living in the past. What was originally a tender sentiment about a past love is flipped into an insensitive taunt aimed at a rival. And so like we've discovered so many times on this album, Kanye captures the two warring personalities that define the Yeezus character in a single sample, while simultaneously giving additional

context to the function of the current song and how it displays Yeezus living in the past. On one hand, we know that Yeezus has been scarred by a woman, just like Jerry Butler. This emotional baggage causes him to wear a mask of machismo and indulge in the nightclub life, to act more like Beanie Man and his use of the memories lyrics. Yeezus keeps reliving the past to escape the memories of the past. It's an enclosed cycle he can't seem to break out of on his own. Like we've talked about throughout this episode, the similarities of OnSight and Send It Up portray Yeas' caught in this destructive cycle.

Looking back on OnSight, Yeas truly felt empowered and impressive, invincible. But little by little, song after song, that image crumbled, and we recognized his behavior to be motivated by an underlying pain that's hidden behind his mask. So when we get to send it up and Yis quote relives the past, it allows us to reflect on the difference between the beginning of the journey and the end, whereas antics in the club seemed empowering before, when we see him now back in the club, pulling the same shit, it's no longer fun. It's extremely sad. Like an alcoholic who convinces himself to have just one drink, we know where this road goes, and we know that Yiesis knows where this road goes too, but he can't help himself. He's unable to escape on his own. We all know he

needs to move on to something better, but how? Or better yet, who? Conclusions. In most stories that utilize the classic storytelling formula, the hero's journey, the story's protagonist faces a seemingly insurmountable obstacle near the very end of the story. Often the hero will come close to death, only to be resurrected by something or someone who gives them the last burst of energy and inspiration they need to finally overcome and defeat whatever person or thing that nearly killed them. This is the ninth stage of the hero's journey known as the resurrection stage, and metaphorically acts as the death and rebirth of the hero, the final step in their transformation. In The Matrix, we see this play out very clearly. Throughout the film, the protagonist Neo is in

conflict with the villain, Agent Smith, the most terrifying and powerful of the Matrix policing force. Agent Smith had always had the upper hand. Even with the onset of his superpowers towards the end of the film, Neo could only fight Smith to a stalemate. And at this moment of almost victory, Smith delivers a blow that seemingly kills Neo. But then Neo's love interest, Trinity, whispers into his ear that he can't be dead, that she loves him.

Trinity kisses Neo and he resuscitates. He's resurrected. When a trio of agents fired dozens of bullets at him, he stops the bullets mid-air. He sees the world for the code that it is and begins to manipulate it to his desire. Agent Smith attacks, and Neo finally destroys him. At this point in the Yeezus narrative, we find our hero in similar circumstances. For Yeez, his biggest external villain has been the limelight,

the thing that stole the woman he loved, the thing that inflames his ego, the thing that gives him access to fast women, drugs, and alcohol, to indulge in his most destructive behaviors. While we've witnessed an incredible amount of growth and self-realization over the course of the album, Send It Up places Yeezus in the very setting he'll be tempted the most, where there's potential to revert back to who he was when we first met him on on site. And the Beanie Man sample at the beginning of Send It Up makes the stakes very clear from the start. If Yeezus relives his past, it's his loss.

If he sends it up, it's all going to come crashing down. Unfortunately, Yeezus fails the test. He falls prey to temptation. and the song plays out as a mere image upon sight. Like Neo, he's unable to find that last bit of strength to overcome the villain. He's getting what he wants, but not what he needs. Jesus needs his Trinity. He needs that restorative kiss.

That's someone to whisper in his ear, I love you. He needs his Kim Kardashian. Of course, this is the album's final track, Bound 2. The song will examine note by note, line by line. Next time, on Dysect. Today's episode was written by Chris Lambert, Travis Bean, and me. If you enjoyed today's episode, please tell a friend about the show or share on social media. It really helps.

Theme music for the show was composed by Birocratic, audio editing by Eric Bass and me, song recreations by Andrew Atwood. Be sure to follow us on social media at Dysect Podcast, and check out our limited season 8 merchandise on our website, Dysectpodcast.com. If you want even more episodes on Kanye, listen to Season 2 of this podcast, a 16 episode analysis of my beautiful dark twisted fantasy. Okay, thanks everyone. Talk to you next time.