Kanye West stepped out from behind Auto-Tune and up onto a conference table yesterday to perform several a cappella tunes for employees at Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif.
“So I’ve been writing new stuff for the new album and I just have a couple raps that I really like. So I thought it’d be cool to just say them for you all,” the rapper told the seated group of employees in a video posted on YouTube.
“I’ll start with just a fun rap and then I’ll go into a more serious rap,” he adds, before being interrupted by a ringing cell phone. Kanye asks the audience to turn off their phones and then shares a snipped of lyrics, rapping, “Kill the hypocrisy/This is an aristocracy. I’m Socrates/But my skin more chocolatey.”
Before revealing the spoken word verses of a song titled “Mama’s Boyfriend,” Kanye says, “It took me 33 years of my life to write [this]. It means a lot to me. There's a lot of use of the N-word, but I'm allowed to use it.”
The deeply personal song narrates five-year-old Kanye’s thoughts on his mother’s boyfriend contrasted with how he sees himself as a grown man.
“He walked in our lives, I was only 5. Superman Pajamas, I was super duper fly. … You know I scrutinize like, who’s this newer guy? I’m my mama’s boyfriend, I’m her little husband, I was the man of the house … Trying to get to know me, homey, just kill the charm.”
Kanye says that a third song, rumored to be titled “Lost in the World,” is “actually a bit more like a poem.” Before jumping off the conference room table the rapper shares a final song, rumored to be titled “Chain Heavy.”
Earlier today Kanye wrote about the performance on his blog in a post titled, “To all my friends at Facebook.”
Noteworthy – The post was not written in all-caps. Kanye really is growing up!
“Many times in life I’ve had to deal with moments of doubt. And as it’s been a minute since I’ve performed any fresh material in front of an audience, this could’ve been one of those moments… but it wasn’t. Your energy was a gift so electric, so genuine, that it really helped me give my best. The energy was so inspiring I had to keep going!
“I just hope you got as much from me as I got from you…which was everything!
“Love to all my fans, especially at Facebook.”
Kanye West’s fifth studio album is expected to be released in September. Today the rapper tweeted that he’s “bouncing a couple of titled around now” and that the album is no longer going to be called Good Ass Job.
Click here for Kanye West’s blog.