In “Blood on the Leaves” by Kayne West there are several samples of Nina Simone singing “Strange Fruit” which was originally sung by Billie Holiday in 1939. “Strange Fruit” was originally a poem written by Abel Meeropol, a white Jewish teacher from the Bronx, and was then converted to music. The song protests racism and the lynching, or hanging of African Americans in trees, particularly in the South. Lynchings were very popular between 1890 and the 1920s and were seen more and more as tension grew between the African Americans and white people in the South. The first sample is played at the very beginning of the song.
“Blood on the Leaves” begins with the lyrics “Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees, blood on the leaves”. This is followed by Kayne West’s first verse, and in the background the word “leaves” is repeated over and over again by Nina Simone. In Kayne’s song the lyrics no longer have the same meaning. The samples from “Strange fruit” are no longer about racism, and lynching. The meaning is transformed into something new. Kayne’s song focuses a lot about losing a love to the fame, and limelight. He is reminiscing about how everybody just wants something from him and he and his former love could have been something together, but now it is too late. There is “blood on the leaves”, and they have gone towards the fame, and limelight and away from him. Kayne continues to talk about all of the groupies who try to get his attention, but he does not care because they are not worth his time, and they are all fake. They act like they have status and wealth when in reality they are broke and are just looking to marry a millionaire rapper. He then narrates a story about a husband and wife and how the husband was unfaithful and impregnated another girl. Now, he has to deal with the consequences which include paying child-support, alimony to his soon to be ex-wife, and cutting down on his extravagant life. There are only a few times throughout the song where Kayne makes a direct reference to the song “Strange Fruit”. In the second verse Kayne makes reference to it by saying “before the blood on the leaves”, a couple lines later he says “Something strange is happenin’” which is another reference to the song. When Kayne makes these reference it is changing the meaning of the original lyrics and transforming them to mean that Kayne does not know what is happening in his life anymore, and how things got this way with him and his former love, and how the girl he loves is gone to the limelight.
Before, this assignment I had never heard Kayne West’s “Blood on the Leaves”, so the meaning of the song did not change for me. However, I had heard “Strange Fruit” several times throughout school and whenever we would talk about racism in class because it was such a powerful song. So, hearing bits and pieces of it in this song has changed its meaning to me. I personally do not like the use of “Strange Fruit” in Kayne’s song because he took a famous protest song with a very strong message and turned it into the meaningless loss of his former love to fame.
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