I Am a God
"I Am a God" is a song by American rapper Kanye West from his sixth studio album Yeezus (2013). The song credits God as a featured performer. It was produced by West, Hudson Mohawke, Daft Punk, and Mike Dean, and includes vocals from Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. The song contains samples of "Forward Inna Dem Clothes", written by Capleton and H. Hart, and performed by the latter, and "Are Zindagi Hai Khel" by Manna Dey, R. D. Burman and Asha Bhosle.
This article is about the Kanye West song. For other uses, see I Am God (disambiguation)."I Am a God"
June 18, 2013
2013
3:52
- Kanye West
- Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo
- Thomas Bangalter
- Ross Birchard
- Justin Vernon
- Malik Jones
- Che Smith
- Cydel Young
- Elon Rutberg
- Mike Dean
- Derrick Watkins
- Clifton Bailey
- Harvel Hart
- Anand Bakshi
- Rahul Burman
- West
- Dean
- Daft Punk
- Hudson Mohawke (co.)
West explained the message of "I Am a God" on various occasions, once claiming that it was for those who lacked confidence in themselves. The song includes elements of industrial and electronic music. West hypes himself up throughout it and references Jesus in comparison to him. The song received widely positive reviews from music critics, with West's arrogance being praised by a number of them.
"I Am a God" charted on both the US Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 and US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts at number 9 and 37 respectively in 2013. West debuted the song by performing it live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Gala in May 2013 and later performed it on multiple occasions throughout that year. One line in the song was changed to being rapped without instrumentation when West updated the album on Apple Music in 2016.
Recording[edit]
On June 12, 2013, six days before Yeezus was released, a video was uploaded on West's website of him recording vocals for "I Am a God" with producers Rick Rubin and Mike Dean.[15] Record producer Noah Goldstein revealed that after first hearing West say "I am a God," everyone was like "OK, that's where we're going-- let's go all the way there."[6] Hudson Mohawke elaborated, revealing the track to be one of the first songs that West had for the album and stated that it "was like the blueprint."[6] Goldstein compared the recording process of the track to that of the 2011 collaborative song "New Day" by West and Jay-Z from Watch the Throne.[6] In October 2016, a demo of the track was uploaded to SoundCloud, which featured a new verse and synth line.[16] This version was later sampled into "Modern Jam" by Travis Scott in July 2023.[17]
Composition[edit]
West repeats "God!" in an exasperated way at the end of "Black Skinhead" to show the mind of the character portrayed on Yeezus as mutating the external idea of God into an internal one.[18] This leads into West hyping himself up on "I Am a God".[18] The song, like most tracks on Yeezus, includes elements of industrial music.[19] The electronic soundscape of the song was mainly crafted by the producers Daft Punk.[20] West screams within it.[21] The song samples "Forward Inna Dem Clothes", written by Capelton and H. Hart, and performed by the former, and "Are Zindagi Hai Khel" by Manna Dey, R. D. Burman and Asha Bhosle.[22]
West uses certain lyrics to draw a comparison between Jesus and himself, with the former being the most high.[23]
West updated "I Am a God" solely on Apple Music in April 2016.[24] At one minute and 15 seconds into the song, the beat was changed to cutting out under the line "Y'all better quit playing with God."[24]
Release and reception[edit]
"I Am a God" was released on June 18, 2013, as the third track on West's sixth studio album Yeezus.[25] Before its release on the album, he debuted the song at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Gala in New York City on May 6, 2013.[1][26] West performed the song wearing a "studded mask" and dedicated it to his then-fiancé Kim Kardashian.[21]
Since release, "I Am a God" has received universal acclaim from music critics, with West's arrogance receiving praise from a number of them. Jon Dolan of Rolling Stone looked at it as an example on Yeezus of where "Kanye's lyrics are pretty focused" and he renders "his classic themes as petulant primal screams."[27] Dolan called the song "a lurching, nightmarish throbber."[27] The staff of Billboard wrote of the song: "Through shooting synths, squeals and mushed bass, Kanye revels in all the negativity he's endured -- the hate received for everything from his fashion sense to brand of hip-hop -- and proclaims himself to be a god 'until the day I get struck by lightning.'"[28] Ryan Dombal of Pitchfork claimed that the song "is not simply the latest self-important blast from one of pop culture's pre-eminent egoists. For starters, the track sounds less triumphant than breathtakingly vexed, crashing in with a gnarled dancehall vocal sample and paranoid sawtooth synths that aim to destroy. Here, Kanye raps about loyalty, respect, threesomes, and, yes, croissants with the urgency of someone being chased by a 30-ton steamroller."[29] Dombal claimed for the primal screams to pierce the song and bring "the beat's heaving evil" to a brief halt.[29]
Alexis Petridis of The Guardian viewed "I Am a God" as what "offers up a bass pulse overlaid with epic, cavernous synthesisers" that he claimed to be influenced by Daft Punk.[30] Petridis looked at the song's short-circuiting as being "simultaneously incredibly powerful and deeply disconcerting."[30] Slate's Forrest Wickman cites "I Am a God" as one of the album's tracks that "rattle as if they'd been produced by industrial hip-hop group Death Grips" and compared the song's heavy bass to the band's single "Come Up and Get Me."[19] Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times wrote of West's performance: "Here's a man so powerful that he can boss around both massage therapists and waiters, as he does in 'I Am a God': 'I am a god / So hurry up with my damn massage / in the French … restaurant / hurry up with my damn croissants.' If it weren't embedded within a truly frightening song featuring curdling screams and deep bass, the line would be laughable. As presented, his intentions are unclear — other than to remind you that, you know, 'I am a god!'"[31] Rolling Stone ranked the track at number 65 on their list of the 100 best songs of 2013, writing of it: "This is the greatest hate-rap screed by a deity with dangerously low blood sugar in ages."[32] NME ranked the track at number 18 on their list of the 50 best songs of 2013, writing: "Mesmeric in its arrogance and undeniable in its greatness, only Kanye would've had the stones to attempt a song like this with such poker-faced seriousness, and only he could've managed to pull it off."[33]
Commercial performance[edit]
Upon the release of Yeezus, the song debuted at number 9 on the US Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 and lasted for one week.[34] That same week, "I Am a God" entered at number 37 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.[35] The entry stood as the first time that God had ever charted on US Billboard charts as a credited artist and associate chart production manager Alex Vitoulis initially added God to the artists of the Billboard computerized charts system, which caused laughter.[12] The following week, the song descended 11 places to number 48 on the chart.[36]
In the media[edit]
In August 2013, The Association of French Bakers penned a letter to West over the lyrics "In a French-ass restaurant/Hurry up with my damn croissants," telling him to be patient.[40] The letter stressed that a croissant cannot be rushed because one is comparable to a work of art, though the bakers gave West a pass and stated that they take his lyrics seriously.[40] The trailer of 2013 film House of Versace was set to the song, which included Gina Gershon saying lines such as "I was a girl in power since the day I was born" and "I am Versace!"[41] "I Am a God" was used in the trailer of the 2016 film Assassin's Creed.[42] The song was featured in the trailer for 2018 video game UFC 3.[43] In February 2018, Chilean-American composer Nicolas Jaar, under the alias A.A.L. (Against All Logic), sampled it on his song "Such A Bad Way".[44] In 2019, it was used in the film Waves, directed by Trey Edward Shults and produced by A24.
Credits adapted from the Yeezus liner notes.[22]