New Slaves
It was produced by West and co-produced by Benjamin Bronfman, while Mike Dean, Noah Goldstein, Travis Scott, Sham Joseph, and Che Pope contributed additional production.
West, Bronfman, and Dean co-wrote the song with Ocean, Cyhi the Prynce, Malik Yusef, Rhymefest, Elon Rutberg, Sakiya Sandifer, King Louie, and Anna Adamis, with Gábor Presser receiving credit due to a sample of his composition.
An industrial hip hop, political rap, and gothic rock song with electro and heavy metal elements, the production of "New Slaves" is minimalist and based on synths.
In 2011, singer Frank Ocean was featured on the tracks "No Church in the Wild" and "Made in America" for Kanye West and fellow rapper Jay-Z's collaborative album Watch the Throne.
[2] "New Slaves" was produced by West and co-produced by Benjamin Bronfman, with additional production from Mike Dean, Noah Goldstein, Sham Joseph, Che Pope, and GOOD Music signee Travis Scott.
[9] West elaborated that the conversations encouraged to "Stay in your box" and not go outside of his creative reach, which moved him to create tracks such as "New Slaves" and "Blood on the Leaves" for Yeezus, ideally setting out "a protest in music".
[25] In the lyrics of "New Slaves", West links the wealth of different classes of black people to the counterproductive consumerism holding them back,[21][31][32][33] referencing racial politics as he compares segregation to capitalism and companies controlling the citizens.
[14][19][32] The rapper blames the government and prison–industrial complex of the United States[36][37][38] for the lack of a black middle class,[32] accusing the Drug Enforcement Administration of working with the Corrections Corporation of America.
[10][25] He intones the N-word repeatedly and also mentions seeing "Blood on the Leaves", a reference to Billie Holiday's song "Strange Fruit" that is sampled on the album's track of the quote's name.
[21][40] West threatens prison owners living in the Hamptons of Long Island as he insults their spouses and houses towards the end,[27][38][41] followed by Ocean delivering a freestyle falsetto that includes coos on the outro.
[7][42] A black and white projection of West staring onwards rapping the song was shown; Miriam Coleman of Rolling Stone said that the simplicity "provided a striking context for the rapper's searing lyrics on race and materialism".
[7][44] Another projection at Miami Beach, Florida was shut down by police,[45] albeit leaving fans excited and eager to see the song's then-upcoming performance on Saturday Night Live (SNL).
[50] On December 23, 2013, West ranted during a concert at Toronto's Air Canada Centre on The Yeezus Tour that the song was part of the representations of "the opportunities and the blessings that I had in my life".
[34] Also picking "New Slaves" as the album's best track for the Los Angeles Times, Randall Roberts lauded it as a jam with "a nuanced rhythmic breakdown" that is just as aggressive "as it is hardened".
[32] For The Fly, Alex Denney noticed how West manages to "swipe the double-time raps of Kendrick Lamar" and take from Lex Luger's production techniques for his minimalist work, calling out the racism of those assuming blacks "want nothing more than the symbols of conspicuous consumption" while condemning the prison–industrial complex.
Mainzer elaborated that West laments the lack of a middle class for the group as he characterizes a larger society as "in on preventing it from flourishing", seeing the track as a version of Killer Mike's R.A.P.
[30] He thought it jumps rapidly from the abrasive verses to Ocean's cries supported by the "Gyöngyhajú lány" sample, "a eureka moment" that validates the album's almost unattainable expectations.
At The Line of Best Fit, Chris Tapley expressed that the track makes up for the album's lack of bold messages with its socially-conscious lyrics and Ocean's chipmunk soul outro.
Tapley observed how the track demonstrates West's "leaner, more aggressive and militant" material, creating an ideal canvas from "caustic beats" and a stark minimalist melody.
[28] Jim Farber of the New York Daily News felt that the song creates the setting for the reimagining of industrial rock on Yeezus, describing the prominent synths as recalling the sound of rap acts from the 1990s.
[15] For PopMatters, David Amidon viewed the track as West's attempt at Michael Jackson's 1990s singles "Scream" and "Stranger in Moscow" as he evokes his "most paranoid royalty".
[56] Exclaim's Vish Khanna declared that the song features a "pulsing, simmer-to-boil rage" as West asserts his leader status in music, yet this is frustrating for him acting "like such an asshole".
[17] Justin Hunte from HipHopDX stated that West "bumrushes impeccably" on the track, dedicated to removing "the glossy trimmings, flexing a sense of addition by subtraction".
[63][64] "New Slaves" was listed as the eighth best song of 2013 by Paste, with Tyler Kane writing that its sparse synth-based production sets the scene for the album as West "deconstructs modern ownership and the social constructs" tying people to lives defined by consumption.
Craig Jenkins of the publication depicted that West "bookended the state-of-the-disenfranchised address" of his 2004 single "Jesus Walks" as he still found closed doors to pass in his position of power, having "weaponized [his] livewire awareness" of race and wealth's crossover points.
West stood in place and looked dead-eyed into the camera as he performed with backing from a projection of eyes, while he wore an all-black outfit that included a studded leather jacket.
[87][88] On May 20, 2016, Presser launched a lawsuit against West for one third of "New Slaves", alleging that it includes an unauthorized sample of his work "Gyöngyhajú lány", which he called one of Hungary and Eastern Europe's "most beloved pop songs ever".
