The 50 Best Kanye West Songs Ever

33. Famous

Release Date: March 29, 2016

Album: The Life of Pablo

Writer(s): Kanye West, Cydel Young, Kejuan Muchita, Noah Goldstein, Andrew Dawson, Mike Dean, Chancelor Bennett, Kasseem Dean, Ernest Brown, Ross Birchard, Pat Reynolds, Jimmy Webb, Winston Riley, Luis Enriquez Bacalov, Enza Vita, Sergio Bardotti, Giampiero Scalamogna

Producer(s): West, Havoc, Charlie Heat, Goldstein, Dawson, Hudson Mohawke, Dean, Plain Pat

Notable Lyric:

“For all my Southside n*ggas that know me best

I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex”

That Kanye opened the first single he released from The Life of Pablo by taunting the woman who lies at the center of one of his career’s biggest blemishes says a tremendous amount about where his head is at in 2016.

As the song’s title suggests, this is a song about fame, and about how that fame has changed Kanye. Like so many other song on this list, “Famous” ends up serving as a Kanye case study.

He is at once limited and freed by his fame – able to dig up dirt that seemed buried six years ago while also claiming that he’s living a carefree and overwhelmingly optimistic existence. It’s a strange and perhaps unintentional contrast, and one that continues through The Life of Pablo.

Next: 32. Good Life