Move over, Kanye West. Make way for … Kanye West? As Yeezy’s G.O.O.D. Music label gets set to release a new single, “Mercy,” on Friday, April 6 — which also happens to be the actual Good Friday holiday — the hip-hop heavyweight has let slip a new collaboration with well-connected Florida shouter DJ Khaled. “Theraflu,” which features extra tags and bombastic sound effects to let you know it premiered via Hot 97’s Funkmaster Flex, is aggressively seething enough to withstand all the additional cacophony.
Set to ominous beeps and crunk-echoing thuds, in the dark-twisted royal mode of “Niggas in Paris,” the track allows West to fume, boast, and confess as only he can, without even a hook to interrupt him. Sure, he alludes to a money-minded lyric by late-’90s Bad Boy rapper Ma$e, but what’s guaranteed to draw the most attention here are the lines in which West concisely appears to acknowledge a love affair with Kim Kardashian. At the end come a bunch of DJ shout-outs to Chicago neighborhoods. It’s a furiously heavy song likely to be heard blasting from car stereos on those same streets.
As for G.O.O.D. single “Mercy,” West will appear, along with Pusha T, Big Sean, and 2 Chainz, according to Billboard, which cites parent label Def Jam. Could this be the start of another round of G.O.O.D. Friday leaks like the ones West used in advance of 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy? We’ll find out soon enough. There’s still no release date for G.O.O.D.’s long-anticipated compilation album.
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UPDATE: Universal Music has yanked all streams of “Theraflu” from the web, so you’ll have to imagine what ‘Ye sounds like admitting to loving KK for now.
