Other Voices

Kanye West on Later… with Jools Holland

It is no longer thought that determines the object […] but rather the object that seizes thought and forces it to think it, or better, according to it.¹

From his breakout solo single “Through the Wire” (2003), which features a pitch-shifted vocal sample of Chaka Khan’s eponymous song, to “New Day” (2011), supported by an auto-tuned vocal sample of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” as a kind of continuo, American rapper and producer Kanye West has utilized novel approaches to integrating the voice within his musical practice. Although the version of the song “New Slaves” that appears on West’s album Yeezus (2013) is comprised of his own voice, synthesized electronic sounds, and manipulated samples of pre-existing recorded material, its live performance on Later…with Jools Holland, which aired on September 20th, 2013, constitutes a singular rendition among others given around the time of the album’s release—namely, a televised performance for Saturday Night Live, which featured a full band approximating the version that appears on Yeezus (without its Frank Ocean-driven coda).²

Interestingly, but not uncommon in popular music, the live performance for Jools Holland differs from the former in its inclusion of live piano accompaniment, predominantly doubling the song’s motif (originally played with synthesizer on the record). Most remarkably, however, it also features an uncanny, ostensibly improvised, vocal performance by Charlie Wilson, an American R&B singer, songwriter, and producer.³ Throughout the entire live rendition of “New Slaves,” and surrounded by darkness (alongside West and the other band members), Wilson constructs an immanent, heterophonic fiction in accordance with “New Slaves.”⁴

“Heterophony” as defined by Grove Music Online is a term “used to describe simultaneous variation of a single melody.”⁵ The technique of heterophony was used in the development of organum in the Middle Ages; a noteworthy example of its use may be found in the Credo of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis (1819–23). It has been and continues to be used widely in much non-Western music, including the gamelan music of Indonesia, and it has been employed by modern and contemporary composers in the Western classical tradition, including Benjamin Britten and Pierre Boulez. Importantly, the term may be translated into the “other voice” as it is derived from the Greek heteros (“other”) and phōnē (“voice”).

Wilson’s voice exists alongside West’s own performance of “New Slaves.” It is a creative, performative act that effectuates a new experience of the song—a YouTube user has commented that Wilson “changes the whole feel of the song.”⁶ Strikingly, and perhaps most notably, Wilson stands uncomfortably close to West throughout the performance (see Figure 1 below), affirming his contribution as an experimental, alien fiction that is immanent to itself, and not a version, remix, or negation of the original. The performance reformulates a centuries-old music theoretical notion describing texture into a creative methodology rooted in an experimental orientation that considers its object—in this case, “New Slaves”—in excess of both sensory-based and semantic relations to it. One might easily imagine Wilson — or another musician — performing alongside any music—pre-recorded or live—whatsoever.

Figure 1: Kanye West and Charlie Wilson performing “New Slaves” live on Later… with Jools Holland. Source: YouTube.

Wilson, as a kind of strange visionary (described by a YouTube user as “creepy”), emancipates “New Slaves” from its self-imposed musical restraints.⁷ His performance effectively suspends the sufficiency of conventional musical practice itself so as to render it ineffectual and therefore open to experimentation. In this regard, Wilson’s fundamentally non-standard orientation requires “New Slaves,” and yet it avoids representation—it is immanent to itself. As such, Wilson’s other voice radically inverts the traditional relationship between artist and reality, constructing an unprecedented form of musical experience.

This response to West’s performance was originally written in 2013 as part of an ongoing series. See also Other Voices: Keith Rowe at AMPLIFY 2008: light Festival.

1. Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 149.
2. Lou Reed penned an exceptional review of Yeezus.
3. Wilson is the former lead vocalist of the Gap Band, a popular American R&B and funk group.
4. It is worth noting again that this particular live rendition has never been repeated.
5. Cooke, Peter. “Heterophony.” Grove Music Online.
6. See “New Slaves (Live) — Kanye West Performance on Later… with Jools Holland,” YouTube, September 20, 2013.
7. Ibid.