K, obviously I don’t have a stream of the song here because after a year of sub-par work, Kanye thinks it’s okay to troll us. Whatever. But I’ll make sure to add the stream once I find one.
In remaining relatively silent on the scene since 2013’s Yeezus Kanye has developed a backlog of tracks from the past 2-3 years, spanning a wide range of styles. Basically his entire career. From the 808s… influenced heartbreak of “Only One,” to “All Day’s” Yeezus-derived sense of urgency and genre-blending, and everything in between (re: FUCKING DROP “WOLVES” ALREADY). The Madlib-assisted “Real Friends” sees him harking back to the mid-2000s, almost epitomizing the saying “same shit, different day decade.” The content is similar to “Welcome to Heartbreak,” mixed with a little bit of “Runaway.” Kanye’s a “deadbeat cousin” surrounded by deadbeat relatives. No one has time for each other. No one even knows if they like each other. The distrust is palpabale, but so is the longing for something real. Ty Dolla $ign stops by for an un-credited feature and adds a bit of the new era soul to the track’s inherently nostalgic aura. The snippet with Kendrick Lamar, presumably for next week’s drop, seems just as promising with both rappers trading bars about disillusionment and the LA lifestyle. But one can only guess when it was recorded (Kanye can be seen here reciting lyrics from the track 2 years ago). Note the date on this tweet:
So where does this leave us? I don’t fucking know man. Hopefully the following weeks clear up the direction that SWISH is headed in. However, at this point, I think we might be in for Mr.West’s most expansive and sprawling project to date — for better or worse.
-Narsimha Chintaluri (@Narshh)
pelicanfly 
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