My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – Sexuality and Spirituality
By: Elisha Faisst
Not much needs to be said about MBDTF. It’s iconic for its grand scale production, incredible songs, and not to mention: it’s album cover (the REAL album cover). Often heralded as “peak Kanye” material, there’s no shortage of discussion online about this masterful album, and absolutely no shortage of praise for the song “Runaway,” as well. My favorite song though, is “Devil in a New Dress,” but my reasons why have changed after my most recent listen. Originally, it was purely because of the beat. It’s sensual, cool as fuck, and I feel like the hottest shit to ever grace the planet while listening to it; but upon listening to the whole album again for this article, I found a new appreciation as it is the pinnacle of what I believe is a central recurring theme of MBDTF: spirituality and sexuality. These two seemingly opposite things form a major part of Kanye’s introspection on the concept of fame; the beauty of the human spirit, and the dark and twisted aspects of lust and sexuality. Lust does not have to apply just for sex, but could also apply for the desire for external pleasures brought with fame.
The contrast between these two become intertwined throughout the album, and are fully connected in this song. It’s strange to hear religious quotes to refer to ‘sinful acts’, but its usage creates something else entirely, something more complex. In “Hell of a Life,” this is blatantly mentioned with, ‘pussy and religion is all I need’. The results of these connections are hard to fully explain, at least for me, but it poses a lot of questions, and sometimes posing the question is more powerful than the answer itself. That, in fact, encapsulates my feelings on the album as a whole: How does this album manage to be incredibly thoughtful and extremely shallow at the same time? I don’t really want to figure it out, I just like the question.
On an entirely different note, my favorite line is not from this song, but from “Monster”:
“Have you ever had sex with a Pharoah?
ahh
I put the pussy in a sarcophagus.”
