“Nah Nah Nah” and Kanye West’s 2020 death spiral

After 15 years of shock, awe, and constantly pushing the envelope, Kanye West might have finally reached the limits of genius. 

Ever since Kanye’s dramatic conversion to Christianity in 2019 and his announcement that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, not only has his music transformed to reflect those paradigm shifts, but frankly, it has also gotten a lot worse.

There are a few tracks which have managed to stand out from the mire — “Selah” from 2019’s Jesus is King and his 2020 single “Wash Us In the Blood” immediately come to mind — but Kanye’s recent work has largely been lacklustre. His sharpness as a producer is all still there, but when contrasted against lyrics that struggle to balance Christian humility and possibly the biggest ego in entertainment of the last 20 years, the result usually comes out sounding disjointed. 

“Nah Nah Nah” was released a few days after the rollout of some predictably bizarre Kanye 2020 campaign commercials (in case you missed it, Kanye ran for President of the United States), and the single is just the latest addition to Kanye’s growing catalogue of misses. As you can probably deduce from the title, Kanye doesn’t seem to have put much effort into this track, and it shows. 

What we get from “Nah Nah Nah” is a bouncing trap beat featuring some dizzying flutes, and a collection of unfinished, off-the-cuff lyrics which do nothing but give a condensed summary of Kanye’s last two months on Twitter. There are some throwaway lines about his half-baked (and possibly sinister) run for president, his ongoing dispute with Universal Music to gain control of his masters, a nod to simulation theory, and a few superficial references to a pie-in-the-sky prosperity gospel, but not much else. The lyrics are so out of touch it can only be called “Billionaire Rap,” i.e. the kind of bloviating you would expect from someone who regularly gives updates on his net worth during a global recession.

In the past, Kanye proved time and again that despite what absolutely everyone else was saying, he was probably right. Let us not forget that this is the same Kanye West who conquered early 2000’s gangsta rap while wearing pink polos and mom jeans, and then took over the fashion world by selling tattered rags and space-age Crocs. But even though Kanye has managed to spend the last two decades flirting with ridiculous success and stunning failure, it’s undeniable that as of late he has been spending more time on the wrong side of that divide. What is still unclear is if anyone around him is going to tell him the truth.