Hands On (song)

West decided to crossover as an outsider to gospel by featuring Fred Hammond on Jesus Is King, collaborating with a key insider from the new genre for a proper transition.

Hammond had previously worked with fellow rapper Snoop Dogg on his gospel material in 2018 and the next year, he appreciated a loop of his track "This Is the Day" by West that he was sent over Instagram.

[1] West and Hammond agreed on working together in the summer of 2019, engaging in a phone call focused on this, with him stating the rapper "knew a lot of the Christian world would not embrace him".

[2] West, Angel Lopez, Argentinian record producer Federico Vindver, and the rapper's frequent collaborator Timbaland handled the production of "Hands On", with them also serving as songwriters Hammond and Aaron Butts.

Wren Graves was highly negative at Consequence; he cited the song as "the worst of the many meandering rants" on the album, singling out the heavy lack of rhythm or flow and writing off West's rhymes as so simplistic that they "would get a person hissed out of a poetry slam".

[24] Carl Lamarre from Billboard named it as the record's worst track, commenting that even though West "plays the sidelines and allows production savant, Timbaland, to run point", the two "land a dud on their mistimed collaboration".

[17] HipHopDX's Aaron McKell wrote off West's weak lyricism on the song due to his focus on the religious message, declaring that he is "forgetting to be a clever MC" and rapping plainly.

[26] Entertainment Weekly critic Brian Josephs expressed less negative feelings, not being surprised by the song being about West like much of Jesus Is King, saying the rapper disguises his "insecurities as heathen" and demonstrates "some supposed righteousness" in his struggle as usual.

[14] Ben Devlin was more mixed in musicOMH; he noted that the song's "lush and minimal" production is "completely beatless", but viewed West's rambling of sorts as resembling fellow rapper will.i.am "at his most awkward".

[6] For Variety, Andrew Barker praised the song's "moody, low-key beat" and Hammond's feature, yet felt West ruins it with his "persecution complex" by "fall[ing] into a sour funk whining" about other Christians judging him.

[13] Aidy James Stevens from God Is in the TV called the song "a stripped-back affair" and said the main purpose is "a vehicle for Ye's frustrations" with Christians judging him after beginning his religious conversion, naming it "a vital part of the narrative" in the context of a concept album.

[9] R. Chow also stated that the song benefits from Hammond's usage of auto-tune, though observed how West "raps about not being accepted by other Christians" rather than further integrating "his own struggle with police brutality and America's three-strikes law".

[9] In a glowing review for NOW Magazine, Matthew Progress wrote the song contains "some of the most captivating melodies ever found on a West project" and noted it as part of the album's "vein of R&B-leaning, wavy church ballads" that begins with the vocals on "Everything We Need".