It’s been a hectic three months for Kanye West between his tumultuous presidential run, his unorthodox behavior on Twitter and his dispute against the music industry, which resulted in a brief clip where he infamously urinated on a Grammy. While it may have been easy to forget that West was supposed to release an album called DONDA in the midst of this frenzy, the performer has come back with a snippet of new music (despite claiming he would not release new music until he is let go from his contract).
BELIEVE WHAT I SAY (snippet) pic.twitter.com/U7Y2KQJ5UC
— ye (@kanyewest) September 26, 2020
West took to Twitter to upload a 28-second snippet of a song titled “Believe What I Say,” which features a sample of The Lauryn Hill classic “Doo-Wop (That Thing),” from her 1999 debut album The Misseducation of Lauryn Hill. The clip features West rapping across a funky bass infused beat, backed by piano melody present on “Doo-Wop (That Thing)” and some autotune vocals that sound like a call back to The Life of Pablo.
This isn’t the first time West has sampled Hill; his breakout single back in 2004 “All Falls Down” featured an interpolation of Hill’s “Mystery of Iniquity” from her live album MTV Unplugged No. 2.0. Hill is one of West’s numerous musical heroes and was also shouted out to on his song “Champion” from his 2007 album Graduation.
This latest snippet follows the song “DONDA” and “Wash Us In The Blood,” which both debuted earlier this year. The artist recently declared that he would be returning the 50 percent share he owns of G.O.O.D. music masters back to the artists, in light of his recent critiques against royalties-based record deals.