Sunday Night Sample - Kanye West - Believe What I Say

“Believe What I Say” is the tenth track on Kanye West’s highly acclaimed album ‘DONDA’, released late last month. The song is performed by Kanye, and features a bridge and interlude performed by Buju Banton. 

In the song, Kanye addresses his listeners, fans, and critics alike, stating that he cannot please everybody, he realizes it, and is done trying to.

Kanye has frequently mentioned that he “says everything everybody else is thinking”.

He’s brutally honest despite being depicted as a menace. He might just be too real for us to comprehend.

Kanye was previously known for a decade or so for erratic tweeting and bipolar outbursts in real-time over Twitter. Sometimes Kanye would overshare like he was on a personal chat, sometimes he would divide the public opinion, but he would also cook up some iconic Quotables.

So he manages to distance all his stress-related problems by venting on sites like Twitter.

The song mixes the concepts of spirituality, relationships, and inner truth. A peaceful bass gives the core of this single some soul while the jumpy percussions make this track easy to dance to.

The song features an obvious, and fantastic sample of the Lauryn Hill classic "Doo Wop (That Thing)".

It was produced by West, Dem Jointz, FnZ, Ojivolta, BoogzDaBeast and Antman Wonder.

Stalone, and Dem Jointz provided background vocals on the track.

It sounds like a cross between "Fade" and "Paranoid".

ORIGINAL - Lauryn Hill - Doo Wop (That Thing)

Written by Lauryn Hill, this was the singer's debut single. The song is a warning against guys who are more interested in frivolous, expensive things than their girlfriends or families. Hill had some difficult relationships that may have inspired this; she dated Wyclef Jean from her group Fugees and was once engaged to Rohan Marley, son of Bob Marley.

This won the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Female Rhythm & Blues Vocal Performance. Hill also won for Best Rhythm & Blues Song. The album received 11 nominations, making it the first hip-hop record to receive that many. It won five, making Hill the first female artist to win that many.

The album was named after The Mis-Education Of The Negro, a book by Professor Carter G. Woodson, an American black history expert, and The Education of Sonny Carson, an autobiographical film about the title controversial activist. The album, which was written, arranged and produced entirely by Hill, was about the education one receives after leaving school, the life learning process.

The music video, shot in Manhattan's Washington Heights, uses a split-screen to show two different Hills performing the song. On the left, she's decked out like a '60s-style R&B star, while on the right she's a modern hip-hop performer.

"Believe What I Say" was the standout track on Donda for me. It is the closest we've heard to "old Kanye" in ten years. 

If this song dropped in the late 2000s or early 2010s this would be one of his biggest hit records of Kanye's career. But in today's streaming era it will be lucky to be getting airplay next year. Imagine the music video for this premiering in a time where mtv/bet still played music vids?