Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
Kanye West’s embrace of President Trump has been a controversial subject in the music industry, and on Lana Del Rey’s new song, “The greatest,” she further weighs in on the hip-hop icon’s much-derided politics. The song is co-produced by Lana and Jack Antonoff, and is set to appear on her upcoming album, Norman Fucking Rockwell.
The song’s outro finds Lana directly name-checking Kanye. As Genius contributors MarvinBau and ZacharyTownsend break down in an annotation, her comments reflect opinions she recently shared:
Lana performed at Kanye West’s wedding to Kim Kardashian in 2014, and previously praised the rapper for his influence on music.
The outro also finds Lana pondering some of the most pressing issues of our time This includes the 2018 nuclear missile alert in Hawaii, where residents were mistakenly warned of an imminent nuclear attack, and the 2018 Woolsey Fire in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties that burned the homes of several celebrities:
Miss doing nothin' the most of all
Hawaii just missed a fireball
L.A. is in flames, it’s getting hot
This isn’t the first time she’s addressed politics in her music. Earlier this month, Lana dropped “Looking For America” in response to the recent spate of mass shootings. She previously addressed US geopolitics on “Coachella – Woodstock in My Mind” in 2017 following rising tensions with North Korea.
Norman Fucking Rockwell is set to drop next Friday, August 30. It will be her first album since 2017’s Lust For Life, and features a slew of singles she’s been putting out since last fall.
Listen to the song above and read all the lyrics to Lana Del Rey’s “The greatest” on Genius now.
