Kanye West's Casual Sex Anthem, Explained

Kanye West and Lil Pump's collaboration "I Love It," an anthem of sexual freedom, happens to be the #1 song on Apple Music Global and Spotify Global. It's also the #1 music video on YouTube worldwide, leading with 52 million views and counting. Today, filmmaker Spike Jonze shared the sketches that launched 50 million views — the initial ideas behind the 2-minute video. (Jonze executive produced the video, and Amanda Adelson directed it alongside West.) Ansel Elgort recently said in an Instagram story that he loves the song. Not to mention, there's a small but determined set of social media users invoking an #iloveitchallenge. "I Love It" is happening, has happened, and is maybe going to be the song of the fall.

"I Love It" has the surprising but inevitable factor going for it. The song has rapper West, a renowned if confusing veteran, collaborating with Lil Pump, an 18-year-old rapper from Florida. The music video adds comedian Adele Givens and some really, really big sandals. The song is repetitive, short, and direct. The music video is less so, muddling the message with massive costumes and a bit of choreography. Between the sandals, Givens, Jonze's concept, and a debut at the first-ever PornHub awards, though, the video found a foothold in pop culture. The #1 hit in the world, at least for now, has entered the building.

We break down how the song become a movement and answer all your urgent queries about West's sandals, ahead.

Pump, née Gazzy Garcia, is a young rapper who rode the SoundCloud rap scene to the very top of the charts. His 2017 single "Gucci Gang" spent 24 weeks on Billboard's Hot 100 list, and his follow-ups — like the 2018 single "Ekseetit" — have all enjoyed some success on the charts. He's part of a growing trend of young, Florida-based rappers who specialize in short, repetitive raps. His records rarely make it over the three minute mark, and, hey, the lyrics are easy to remember. Add to that some insistent beats and a wry sense of humor, and you get pretty memorable music. Garcia's tracks tend to linger far longer than their 2 minute play times, which is, at the very least, an excellent business strategy. He's also popular with the kids (Gen Z), which makes him an ideal candidate for virality.

Pump and West wrote the song with Smokepurpp, another youthful Florida native, and debuted it at the 2018 PornHub awards. West served as artistic director for the awards ceremony, which was live-streamed on his website wegotlove.com.

Yes! Porn here is key. "I Love It" is a love/hate letter to sex. West says "I'm a sick fuck/I like a quick fuck" four times over in the pre-chorus. The song ends with a segment from Givens' comedy, a bit about how women these days can demand orgasms from sex. ("Hey, I wanna cum, mothafucka!") And, the video features a row of female statues, all of them on their knees with their hands tied behind their back. This is about sexual proclivities and whether or not we should apologize for them.

For what it's worth, West has a professed love for PornHub. He said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that he watches the site. For the mention, West received a year's membership to PornHub.

That feels like a leading question!

Yes, they are, although this is a chicken/egg situation. West recently attended the wedding of rapper 2Chainz, where he wore a pair of seemingly too-small sandals. Twitter had a good laugh at the expense of the sandals — what are those?! — but the sandals had the last laugh. First of all, designer Virgil Abloh told Refinery29 that he loved the look, adding, "[the sandals] gave me hope after all the over-saturation of fashion where every two weeks there is new 'It' shoe." Two weeks later, the sandals materialized on West's Twitter twice the original size. The tweet, which read "are the slides big enough," has since been deleted.

Then, a week after the slides appeared on Twitter, West released the video, in which both he and Garcia are wearing the same massive sandals. They're also wearing massive costumes. The concept here, per Jonze's drawings, is: big costume, little head.

Givens is quoting her own 2008 Def Jam set. Which, incidentally, is about women being satisfied during sex. Placed next to the two little ballon boys (Garcia and West, you still following?), she's a litigating force. Yes, West and Garcia are doling out mildly misogynistic barbs (e.g. "You're such a fucking ho"), but what does that mean next to a woman twice their size who knows how to ask for what she wants? During the video, Garcia and West trail close behind her, giving her the occasional, "Who me?" glance.

Roblox is a social media-situated video game. The avatars in the game are square, Legoish figures. They look a lot like West's costumes in the video. West himself (in a since-deleted Tweet) noted that the costumes look like Roblox avatars.