Kanye West Performs “High Lights” & “Ultra Light Beams” On ‘SNL’, Releases ‘The Life Of Pablo’

Mike Wass | February 14, 2016 12:27 am
Your Obligatory Kanye West Thinkpiece
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UPDATE: Kanye’s new album The Life Of Pablo is officially out. You can stream it here via Tidal or purchase a digital copy for $20 right here.

Kanye West has been terrorizing Twitter for the last couple of weeks with extended rants, misinformation and absurd boasts about his ever-evolving seventh LP The Life Of Pablo. The erratic rollout continued with a surreal listening party, which was live-streamed via Tidal and then eagerly dissected by fans and the media. However, as good (or not so good) as the music was, the biggest takeaway from the fiasco has been “Yeezy shaded poor Taylor Swift… again.”

The whole thing feels like an extended, not-particularly-funny Saturday Night Live skit, which makes the enduring variety show the perfect place for the rap iconoclast to debut new material from the album. He kicked off the show with an unexpectedly restrained performance of “High Lights” (above), the controversial and heavily-autotuned track that touches on his wife’s sextape (“Me and Ray J would be friends if we ain’t love the same bitch”). He began the track standing against a screen, before being joined by his star-studded crew (Young Thug, Kelly Price and El DeBarge). The 38-year-old returned later in the show with “Ultra Light Beams” — watch below.

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