Yeezus Songwriting Credits by Kanye West

Yeezus is the sixth studio album by Kanye West, released in June 2013 on Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam Records and produced by West, Rick Rubin (who was brought in for the final mixing and stripping-down phase), Daft Punk, Hudson Mohawke, Gesaffelstein, and others, a deliberate anti-commercial, industrial-electronic deconstruction that rejected the maximalism of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in favor of abrasive minimalism, distorted samples, and confrontational political content. West wrote all his own lyrics; the album addresses race in America, celebrity, consumerism, and West's own grandeur with a directness that made it one of the most discussed and interpreted hip-hop records of the decade, particularly 'New Slaves,' which addresses corporate anti-Black racism, and 'Blood on the Leaves,' which samples Nina Simone's interpretation of 'Strange Fruit' over a trap beat in a configuration that generated substantial critical debate. The album was notably released with minimal commercial promotion, no lead singles, no advance press, arriving simply as an object to be encountered; it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 327,000 first-week sales. Yeezus polarized critical response more than any previous West album, with some reviewers citing it as his most artistically important work and others finding its aggressive unconventionality more conceptually than musically satisfying. The album's influence on experimental rap production, particularly its use of Chicago drill, industrial electronic textures, and anti-melodic arrangements, was substantial across the following decade.