KANYE WEST DARK FANTASY INSTRUMENTAL PASSWORD

These tracks go down like Kanye concentrate: sweet, undiluted, and bound to get the kids irresponsibly amped up. It’s staggering to think that by the time the intro finishes, it’s been little more than two-and-a-half minutes. A “ Love Lockdown” verse sits convincingly atop “FML,” a fusion that spans the better part of a decade, the track riding out on the all-too-pleasing blend. The sample of that original audiobook recording not only evokes Nicki’s performance but illuminates the slight changes that were made to slot it into West’s vision.

You might recognize it as the interpolated opening to “ Dark Fantasy,” so memorably read by Nicki Minaj. The intro then segues into the “ FML” instrumental, adorned with Timothy West’s 1990 audiobook reading of Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes. The track calls back to West’s “Stronger,” but in pursuit of a better arrangement, the producer borrows from a section of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” previously unchopped on that Graduation single.

It’s a process that shines from the open, where Toasty pits the patient rhymes and razor-sharp dissonance of “ All Mine” against the intricacy of Daft Punk’s “ Harder Better Faster Stronger.” It’s a juxtaposition that calls back to the earliest moments of West’s electronic exploration, though in sampling directly from the original Daft Punk track, Toasty Digital manages to find a pocket that’s both familiar and unique. That means pulling all manner of breaks, phrases and licks from across decades of cultural history and recreating West’s own takes on fragments of soul, rock and electronica. One of the key facets of Toasty’s toolkit is how he recreates these lush instrumentals: unable to access the stems, or raw files, from West’s workflow, he digs back into the sounds and samples that informed Yeezy.

KANYE WEST DARK FANTASY INSTRUMENTAL PASSWORD

Kanye 2049’s website is impressive, but you’ll have to guess a password first… It’s a celebration of not only West himself, but the artists he sampled throughout his long production career, the acts he supported and mentored, the influences that helped him become the artistic titan he is today, and Toasty Digital, the producer who turned nearly twenty years of art into a thrilling, dynamic mixtape. It’s Kanye for a good cause, something you just can’t take for granted these days. The readme directs the listener to articles from the BBC and Time Magazine, shining a light on the climate emergency whilst featuring charitable organizations such as the Climate Emergency Fund, the Climate Justice Alliance and the Indigenous Environmental Network. The tapes website, courtesy of freelance designer starfennec, is cloaked in the retro sheen of an old school operating system, presumably the product of a resource-scarce future. Oriented about a resolutely green ethos, Kanye 2049 uses its sci-fi conceit to call attention to a very real and ever-approaching climate crisis. It shows not only how different West has become, but how similar elements of his style have remained. More than just a vain re-edit of West’s greatest hits, the tape is a carnival of fun for any Yeezy fan, filled to the brim with inspired collisions, sly references and original conceits that pit his long and varied career against itself. So begins Kanye 2049, the exceptional Yeezy edit from Toasty Digital that reshapes West’s two decades of artistry with palpable glee. On that flash drive, is… an interdimensional Kanye West album. If anything, it holds a potent form of hubris. It doesn’t hold the answer to global warming, the final endpoint of humanity’s pride. Unable to sustain the portal, the scientists fail to pass through the gate, instead receiving but one item from that glowing future in the seconds before it slips away: a solitary flash drive. It’s “like getting a pizza delivered, except the pizza is stolen from an alternate version of you,” explains a scientist, “a version who has handled their pizza more sustainably.” These are words that President Barron Trump understands and, the pizza analogy having convinced him, the scientists start up their transdimensional portal. With a mounting climate crisis on their hands, the US government attempts to make contact with an alternate climate-conscious universe in order to consume their excess resources. It’s already a powerful pitch, but there’s more to it. Kanye West has been missing for nearly 30 years.” The prospect of a new Kanye record has never been less enticing, but inspired remixer Toasty Digital has managed to piece together something better: a thrilling sampledelic celebration of Kanye West and the artists behind his many sounds and styles.

Kanye west dark fantasy instrumental