Kanye West has responded to recent criticism over his provocative Twitter opinions with a new verse on “What Would Meek Do,” the sixth track from Pusha T’s just-released album Daytona.
On the closing verse, West begins with a “whoop! Scoop!” continuing a penchant for nonsense words that began with last month’s single “Lift Yourself.” He then raps, “Am I too complex for Complex Con?/Everything ‘Ye say cause a new debate.” Referring to himself in the third person, he rues over social media-fueled complaints that “he’s out of touch,” that his “bitch” (wife Kim Kardashian) is “too bad,” and that he may be too mentally unstable to take care of children (“Got to surrogate his kids/Get two dads”). “I be thinking, ‘What would 2Pac do’/You be thinking what New Kids on the Block do,” he continues.
West is careful, however, not to mention President Trump’s name, even though it was his unabashed support for Trump after the 2016 election that sparked much of the recent criticism against him. He also doesn’t recite his controversial statement “slavery was a choice,” an ahistorical claim he made during a TMZ interview earlier this month.
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“You better watch who you calling crazy,” he adds, although he has embraced the term in the past. (On 2016’s “Feedback,” he rapped, “Name one genius who ain’t crazy.”) He then ends with a nod to longstanding personal problems: “Seven-pill nights, who know what that feel like/No more hiding the scars, I show ‘em like Seal, right?”
Since returning to Twitter in April, West has flummoxed and polarized fans, while gaining unexpected new ones. West has called Trump his “brother,” said they “are both dragon energy” and posted a picture of his autographed Make America Great Again hat. The rapper has also name-checked several prominent conservative pundits like Scott Adams and Candace Owens and defended his controversial positions through the right wing-lens of being a “free thinker.” For instance, following his slavery comments, West tweeted – then deleted – “once again I am being attacked for presenting new ideas.”
West has not backed down from his support for Trump, though at times he has tried to qualify it. In a behind-the-scenes video about the making of “Ye Vs. the People” – a song in which he debates T.I. – West said he did not agree with “half the shit Trump does,” but added, “Just the ability to do what no one said you could do, to do the impossible is the most inspiring thing to me.”
While many on the right have praised West, he’s also drawn sharp criticism from his peers in the music industry. John Legend and Charlamagne Tha God both reached out to West via text – conversations the rapper then posted on Twitter – while T.I. voiced his concerns during a visit to The Breakfast Club. Even Pusha T has slammed West’s views, telling Angie Martinez, “It’s just another one of many things we disagree on,” he said. “It’s just a stance that I have. I’m totally against it.”
West produced all of Pusha T’s Daytona, which also includes a verse from Rick Ross. On Thursday, Pusha T shared the album art for Daytona: a photo of Whitney Houston’s bathroom. Daytona marks the first of several West-produced albums that he says he will drop this year; others include projects from Nas, Kid Cudi and himself.
Stream Pusha T’s Daytona
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