It's tough to remember now, but in the moments before Kanye West performed "Black Skinhead" and "New Slaves" on "Saturday Night Live", it seemed possible that the walls might finally be closing in around him, that the most inspiring pop culture run of the millennium might actually be tapering off. He was palling around with Big Sean on rap radio, picking through Kim's closet on reality television. His most recent project, the cluttered and uncooked label compilation Cruel Summer, was uncharacteristically careless. Maybe Kanye would recede slowly; it happened to everyone eventually. He'd had an inspiring run, after all.

From the first moments of those "SNL" performances, however, it became clear that we might not even be at the halfway point. The two songs he debuted felt alien, inchoate, possibly tuneless, and gave the immediate sense that a sleeper cell had been activated somewhere soft and vulnerable. "New Slaves" was the purest and most direct expression of Kanye's latest all-consuming message: You are going to let me in, and the further in you let me in, the more shit I am going to break.

"New Slaves" is the hardened cartilage of Yeezus, the leanest and grisliest piece of music on an album without a single yielding surface. There isn't a wasted breath or unnecessary word; every single thought cleaves through meat. "My mama was raised in the era when/ Clean water was only served to the fairer skin," he begins. Can you get closer to the point than that? You can: "I know that we the new slaves/ I see the blood on the leaves/ I see the blood on the leaves/ I see the blood on the leaves," he seethes, the hate and shame of systemic racism coming through more vividly with each repetition.

Yes, Kanye is a wealthy man, and yes, the particulars of his rage might be convoluted, involving his lack of access to the upper reaches of the fashion industry. But its source comes from an acute, unwavering awareness of a central fact: Even in the elite corridors of power where he now walks, some doors are still locked. On "New Slaves", he transforms into the hordes demanding entry. To paraphrase the words of his one-time mentor: The whole industry could hate him; he'll flail his way through. —Jayson Greene