Travis Scott’s UTOPIA has finally arrived, but people can’t seem to stop talking about Kanye West—and now an artist named B L A C K I E.
Don’t get me wrong, La Flame did his thing and cooked up. Plus, the star-studded guest list UTOPIA boasts draws an appeal of its own. Dawgy really put Bad Bunny and The Weeknd on an Afrobeat banger and called it “K-POP.”
The entire rollout of the album has been insane as well—complete with totem pole subwoofer sound systems, a feature-length film and an Egyptian Pyramids performance pump fake. La Flame really went in his Robert Horry bag and put up numbers on the board to promote this album.
And even with all of that noted, it seems callous fans have reduced the first 24 hours of the project’s life to comparisons of YE’s 2013 acclaimed YEEZUS album. What’s even wilder about it all is the fact that fans aren’t that far off at all by referring to La Flame’s new record as somewhat of a sequel to YE’s shock value-loaded experimental LP. It’s no wonder tracks such as “Modern Jam” feel like a 2023 version of “I Am A God”—considering a version of the track is interpolated in the song.
“Modern Jam”, Track 3 on #Utopia reuses the beat from a 10 year old version of “I Am A God” produced by Ye, Travis, Mike Dean and Daft Punk pic.twitter.com/uUbfFTpCJa
— Donda’s Place (@dondasplace) July 28, 2023
And yet, even beyond the obvious references, there’s a dark, viscerally distorted aesthetic to UTOPIA that feels oddly reminiscent of YEEZUS. But according to a music journalist, this audiovisual soundscape palette didn’t originate with YE. In fact, it all actually permeated from nearly 20 miles outside of La Flame’s hometown of Missouri City, Texas.
The artist in question responsible for the whole wave is Houston native B L A C K I E. According to an anonymous source, his music was in rotation in the studio while YE was creating YEEZUS. B L A C K I E appears to have released an internet-based project entitled ALL CAPS WITH SPACES in 2011. Records like “Joan Of Arc” and “Warchild” sound eerily similar to YEEZUS cuts like “On Sight” and “I Am A God.”
Truth be told, there’s no telling whether YE ran off with the sauce B L A C K I E cooked up or not. No matter the case, it’d be good for us all to just accept the fact that UTOPIA will likely dominate headlines for the next few weeks. So it’s best to give the news cycle a fair chance or else you stand to get annoyed hella fast.