Kanye West has unveiled the exciting new track All Day in a high-octane performance at the BRIT awards. After an introduction from wife Kim Kardashian, Ye launched into the biggest and most memorable of his recent appearances.
The track is completely different from the recently released, autotuned ballads Only One and Wolves. Ye swaps pitch-corrected vocals for yelling, visuals of his infant daughter for pyrotechnics and introspective, contemplative lyrics for more yelling. This is the bigger, dumber brother of N***as In Paris. It’s so much fun that Taylor Swift has to fight the urge to run on stage and risk immolation.
Kanye is joined on stage by some friends. I’m not sure whether they are more of a ‘mob’ or more of a ‘hoard.’ Either way, they look extremely pissed off and two of them are wielding flamethrowers. All you need is one guy wearing a human ribcage as a facemask and the whole crew would feel very welcome on the set of the new Mad Max reboot. Ye’s roster selection shows he keeps his ear very close to the round. UK grime acts Skepta and Jammer form part of Ye’s post-apocalyptic motorcycle gang, a move bound to please British hip-hop heads.
Kanye gives a very physical performance. His voice booms as he bounces across the stage, and he finishes breathless and sweaty. The dedication to his craft is admirable.
But this is nothing compared to the performance of the immensely talented audiovisual technician who managed to freestyle bleep 70% of the song. The man is Picasso with a switchboard. A true censorship artist. While Kanye may be putting his vocal chords under enormous strain, but this is nothing compared to the nameless techie who risked premature carpal-tunnel syndrome from his vigorous button-mashing. Where is his BRIT award?