“Black Skinhead” by Kanye West

"Black Skinhead" is Yeezus, Kanye West's sixth album, at its most bloody-minded: industrial hip-hop crossed with punk rap, produced in 2013 by West with Daft Punk and a crew of helpers including Gesaffelstein, Brodinski, Mike Dean and Lupe Fiasco. West first unleashed it on Saturday Night Live that May, rapping in front of a projected backdrop, and the words dig into racial tension and the fraying mind of the character he plays across the album.

He'd said Yeezus wouldn't have singles, but this became the first one anyway. Critics loved it, and Rolling Stone and NME put it among the year's best tracks. Nick Knight's video turned West into computer-generated imagery that viewers could grab, even speeding up his vocals themselves. Manny Marroquin mixed it.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.