CITY OF GODS

"I feel like Sinatra in these streets"

There haven’t been too many great New York tracks since Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York and Billy Joel’s New York State of Mind, but Kanye West’s 2022 collaboration with Alicia Keys and Fivio Foreign, City of Gods, is Empire State-worthy. By that, I mean it’s the kind of track I can imagine playing on the 86th-floor observation deck, with the night wind rushing through my hair as I look down at the city below, all lit up by a thousand streetlights.

There’s something about an emotionally wounded Kanye, with his braggadocio paired with Keys’s impassioned rendition of The Chainsmokers' 2015 track New York City, that perfectly captures the romance and adventure the city was once famous for—before it was hollowed out by the 9/11 attacks and the mayoral administrations of Michael Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio.

When Kanye produced this track, he was going through a messy divorce, and it’s clear that the idea of recovering some of his urban mojo in the streets of New York after living in Monster Lake Ranch in Wyoming makes this song feel like a homecoming. It’s the kind of musical celebration that almost deserves a ticker-tape parade—except at night, with all the broken souls and dreamers emerging to reignite the city’s flame in their hearts once again.