The latest leak from Camp Kanye is less a song than an inspired chunk of Nineties-style DJ mixology. It begins with Bon Iver — the Wisconsin-bred folkie who collaborated on nine songs for West's upcoming album — singing a revamped version of "Woods," his haunting, Auto-Tuned meditation from 2009. Vocal rounds swell into a gospel chorus, fat 4/4 drums kick on, and there's Kanye pledging, "If we die in each other's arms/Still get laid in the afterlife." (Trés romantique!) Then, Kanye peels away the lushness, switching to a conga beat and sampling Gil Scott-Heron's 1970 "Comment #1" at length. Scott-Heron's radical poetics about a nation "now blood and tears instead of milk and honey" are a perfect contrast to the gorgeous heartbreak of Bon Iver, and overall, "Lost in the World" is the sound of a hip-hop icon on a wild creative bender: dizzying, sometimes baffling, perpetually spectacular.

“1999”

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.