West gathered a number of artists and close collaborators for the production, including Mike Dean, Daft Punk, Noah Goldstein, Arca, Hudson Mohawke, and Travis Scott.

The album also features guest vocals from Justin Vernon, Chief Keef, Kid Cudi, Assassin, King L, Charlie Wilson, and Frank Ocean.

Fifteen days before its release date, West enlisted the help of producer Rick Rubin to strip down the sound of Yeezus in favor of a more minimalist approach.

The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, selling 327,000 copies in the first week of release, while also topping the charts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Russia and the United Kingdom.

Following the release of his fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010), Kanye West collaborated with longtime friend Jay-Z on Watch the Throne (2011).

[3] For Yeezus, West enlisted several collaborators, including Kid Cudi, Charlie Wilson, S1, the Heatmakerz, Mike Dean, Hudson Mohawke, Skrillex, Young Chop, Chief Keef, Frank Ocean, Odd Future, Travis Scott, The-Dream, Cyhi the Prynce, Malik Yusef, King L, John Legend, James Blake, RZA, Mase, and Pusha T. The album features additional vocals by Justin Vernon, Frank Ocean, Kid Cudi, Chief Keef, King L, Assassin, and Charlie Wilson.

Fascinated by Stănescu's comments on the unusual and radical nature of Corbusier design choices, West applied the situation to his own life, feeling that "visionaries can be misunderstood by their unenlightened peers".

[5] West also met with architect Joseph Dirand and Belgian interior designer Axel Vervoordt, and had "rare Le Corbusier lamps, Pierre Jeanneret chairs and obscure body-art journals from Switzerland" delivered to the loft.

Producer Hudson Mohawke noted the inclusive "group" atmosphere of the sessions, in which multiple contributors would work on similar pieces, with different elements ultimately selected from each.

[15] American musician Travis Scott opined that the snippets he'd heard of Yeezus were from the year 3000 and recalled "crazy memories" from being around West during the recording of it.

[19] For several days in late May and early June 2013, West and a "rotating group of intimates, collaborators and hangers-on" holed up at Rubin's Shangri-La studio in Malibu in service of completing the record.

[1] Rubin thought it impossible to meet the deadline and all involved ended up working long hours with no days off in order to complete the record.

[18][20] Rubin gave as example "Bound", which was "a more middle of the road R&B song, done in an adult contemporary style" before West decided to replace the musical backing with a minimalistic sample, "a single note bassline in the hook which we processed to have a punk edge in the Suicide tradition".

[29] Slant Magazine critic Ted Scheinman described the album as "built on alien, angular beats, slowly morphing drones and sirens, abrupt periods of silence, and a pulse-quickening style of delivery from Yeezy himself", writing that West reconceives the "notion of what kind of music (or noise) can underpin hip-hop".

[32] The record "most closely resembles" 1990s industrial rock, during which the genre had a significant pop culture impact, with artists such as Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and Marilyn Manson gaining success.

[12][40] "Strange Fruit", first recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939, brought the lynchings of black Americans to a "startling poignancy", creating "one of the most towering, important songs of the 20th century".

"[53] Def Jam confirmed in late June 2013 that "Black Skinhead" would be serviced to American radio as the album's first single on July 2, 2013, and that a music video for the track was being produced.

[70] Jon Dolan from Rolling Stone called it a "brilliant, obsessive-compulsive career auto-correct" that made other abrasive records by "mad geniuses", such as In Utero by Nirvana and Radiohead's Kid A, seem tame by comparison.

[34] In a highly positive review, AllMusic's David Jeffries opined that the album was an "extravagant stunt with the high-art packed in, offering an eccentric, audacious, and gripping experience that's vital and truly unlike anything else".

[69] Ann Powers of NPR described the album as "juxtaposing avant-garde industrial and electronic innovations with the high romantic hip-hop West had already perfected.

In The New York Times, Jon Pareles said West's innovative transfiguration of his music—with unrefined electronica and drill elements—was undermined by his distasteful lyrics and appropriation of 1960s civil rights slogans "to his own celebrity or to bedroom exploits".

[81] In Robert Christgau's opinion, the combination of harsh rock and hip-hop sounds on Yeezus was as bold as Public Enemy's music during the 1980s, but West's lyrics were grotesquely off-putting.

Spin named it the best album of 2013, writing, "Yeezus was a thorny tangram puzzle of boxy headbanger blats that exemplified a year of equally stripped-down, basal pleasures".

[118] Billboard's Keith Caulfield attributed the diminished figures to the non-traditional marketing, considering that the lack of singles and public appearances led the album to find "difficulty in sustaining its momentum".

[126] On the ARIA Albums Chart, Yeezus initially debuted at number two after selling 9,500 copies in three days, entering behind The Great Country Songbook by Troy Cassar-Daley and Adam Harvey at the summit.

[138] "When I listen to radio, that ain't where I wanna be no more", stated West at his headlining June 9, 2013 Governor's Ball performance, where he unveiled several tracks from the record for the first time.

[143] The New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones suggests that Yeezus may be preferred over any of West's previous works in coming decades by a new generation due to the "lean vibrancy" of the album.

[140] "One of the most fascinating aspects of Yeezus' arrival is the discursive crisis it's caused, produced by a fast-react culture colliding with a work of art so confounding", wrote The Atlantic's columnist Jack Hamilton.

[149] Expressing his thoughts on the mixed reception of the album in October 2013, fellow rapper Lupe Fiasco viewed himself as not facing the same difficult struggle.

[152] West went on to make the claim in October 2015 that despite many people rating My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy as his best album, Yeezus is "so much stronger" in comparison.