Hot New Joint - "Wolves" (New Version) by Kanye West featuring Vic Mensa and Sia

Shortly after The Life of Pablo was released unto the world, Kanye West cryptically tweeted that he was going to ‘fix’ the track “Wolves,” and for the last month, he failed to elaborate on what that meant.

Fix it how, exactly? What did he find wrong with it?

The answer to what this meant has arrived in the form of an updated version of the track, now available with the album when you stream it in the only location where it is available—TIDAL. West also made slight changes to the controversial track “Famous” (still leaving in that line about having sex with Taylor Swift, however), and added Frank Ocean’s “Wolves” outro as its own stand alone track, bringing The Life of Pablo up to a whopping 19 songs.

Referring to the album as a “living, breathing, changing creative expression,” the move has already launched many a thinkpiece onto the question if the album will really ever be finished, and what this strategy, if you can call it that, means for the idea of a “completed album.”

“Wolves” is possibly the oldest material on TLOP, dating back to the dark ages of 2015, when Yeezy Season 1 just dropped, and Kanye was hard on the promotional trail—an early version of the song played in the background during Season 1’s runway show, and he performed (through a voice he sounded on the verge of losing) a shortened version of the song on the “Saturday Night Live” 40th anniversary special.

At that time, it featured collaborators Vic Mensa and Sia, who were nowhere to be found on the truncated version that originally appeared on TLOP.

Does updating a song to an alternate version a month later make it a better song? Is this new version of “Wolves” far superior?

“Wolves,” as an idea on paper, sounds great—to me, the whole thing just got lost in its original execution. A moody, hyper self-aware meditation on West’s own life, fame, and family, it casts a wide and eerie net while juxtaposing clashing sounds to create a cacophonic, claustrophobic environment. Musically, no matter what form it takes, it is going to be interesting. The lyrics are where it originally did, and still continues to falter.

Sure there is striking imagery that works—“What if Mary was in the club ‘fore she met Joseph around hella thugs.” But then there are lyrics that will always make me cringe—“I know it’s corny ni**as you wish you could unswallow.”

The original version of “Wolves” felt like it was on the cusp of something—something bigger than itself. At a slim 3:20 prior to reaching Frank Ocean’s coda to the song, it, like many of the songs on TLOP, never quite reached the height it was trying to stretch for.

The updated version of “Wolves” adds on an additional minute plus of very welcome material from both Sia and Mensa, who provide additional, and to some extent, much needed depth to the song that, in its earlier incarnation, did honestly feel a little unfinished or underdeveloped.

But now, in its (possibly) completed form, does “Wolves” reach the heights that it wants to?

My instinct is to say that it does—or that it nearly does, despite West’s lyrical gaffes. Mensa’s bridge section soars, while Sia’s verse is packed with unnerving, raw, and smoldering emotion. Even before, it was always the idea of the song was one of the more interesting and thought provoking moments on The Life of Pablo, but now it’s reached its full level of potential.