No one can deny the creative & marketing genius of Kanye West. In 2010, before the release of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, he took us on a visual journey with his short Film, “Runaway.” He followed that up last year with another visual piece “Cruel Summer,” that premiered at Cannes right before the release of the G.O.O.D Music collaboration LP with the same name.
Last night, he took his marketing strategy to a whole new level by premiering the video for his new track, “New Slaves” on 66 buildings in 6 countries around the world–USA, Canada, France, UK, Germany & Australia. In the song, which uses a sample from Hungarian rock band Omega, Kanye dishes his thoughts on what he believes is modern day slavery — artists becoming slaves to corporations for the almighty dollar, people becoming slaves to materialistic things and weak-minded individuals becoming slaves to what society has deemed acceptable versus treading their own lane. He also references the CCA, an organization that manages over 60 private prisons, teaming up with the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) which makes for no coincidence that black men are the most incarcerated group in America. Global Grind’s Michael Skolnik says of the lyrics, “Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) owns the most amount of private prisons in USA. There are more black men in prison, jail, on probation or parole now than there were slaves in 1850.”
With this track, it’s definitely obvious that he’s not trying to shuck and jive or use gimmicks to climb his way to the top of the Billboards and Itunes charts, but instead, hopes to protect his art while sparking a meaningful discussion.
The only downside to this, is that the press and paparazzi have done an excellent job of painting Kanye as a “paranoid, angry black man with a chip on his shoulder” and I’m not sure this track helps. Other than that, it’s incredibly brilliant.
