It’s been a while since we’ve been blessed with a Kanye West album. So when, after much delay and anticipation, West and Ty Dolla $ign finally released “Vultures 1”. The 15-song album runs for 52 minutes, so not nearly as long as West’s most recent album, “Donda”, which is 27 songs and almost a two-hour marathon.
The first song, “STARS,” sets the pace of the album. In recent projects, West would censor his own music, not swearing himself and in the editing process doing the same to other artists. Not in this album. One other theme from this album is the lyrics. We all know what West has done, and said, in the past. He continues this trend in his music, as in “STARS” he mentions “still keeping a few Jews on the staff.” Not great at fixing his public image.
The next song, “KEYS TO MY LIFE”, kind of becomes more of a filler song, almost as if West and Ty both wanted the song in, but didn’t know where to put it. But the third song “PAID” would be the perfect song to describe this album. Ty Dolla $ign does an incredible job, and what we expect from him. Kanye West seems more like a feature and uses his 30 seconds of fame to spew some random words.
Kanye’s hands are all over this album, with great production from him. You also need to give him credit where credit is due; putting your own daughter in one of your songs is a huge sign of nepotism (Adonis and Drake), but North West does a good job at the beginning of “TALKING.” In fact, the song seems more like two songs. It felt like an old Kanye song, getting us ready for the next one.
The next one goes back to crazy Kanye West, but once again Ty Dolla $ign does a great job throughout this album. “BACK TO ME” shows us that. It seems like Kanye thinks he’s saying gospel, but really he’s just acting like a lunatic. There are some phrases on this song that I can’t show in a school publication, but you could look up the lyrics yourself.
But once again we get a mix of old and new Kanye. “HOODRAT” has the production of new Kanye, which does sound a little like trash can music at the start, but I do like West’s actual vocals throughout the song. Ending with a clip of Mike Tyson praising Kanye is an interesting way to end, but overall it’s a standout track on an interesting album to this point.
“DO IT” is much more of a Ty Dolla $ign song, which is a breath of fresh air. I like Kanye but he can become too much when he’s just saying whatever words come to his head. Back-to-back songs that I wouldn’t mind listening to again. Unfortunately “PAPERWORK” doesn’t really mesh well with the album, and again feels like a song that both Ye and Ty thought were good, but saying “You’ll make mommy late for work,” is kind of weird, and just overall another filler song.
Kanye starts off his next song “BURN” with “Are you not entertained?” Besides some more weird lyrics about Kanye “dying of gout”, the short song is a nice transition into “F*K SUMN”. This is a good blend of Kanye and Ty, as throughout the album it seems like the two were clashing between each other for screen time. Once Ty realizes that he has to play the Scottie Pippen to Kanye being MJ, he doesn’t do a bad job at all. Then a hidden feature from Travis Scott and Playboi Carti really creates the Chicago Bulls from the ‘90.
And as stated in the start of “VULTURES”, this is Chicago. We are now starting a run of songs that are actually good. This song has vibes of “I don’t like”, the song originally by Chief Keef, but Kanye got a bunch of Chicago rappers to collaborate on.
Now the song everyone knows. “CARNIVAL”. Definitely a candidate for song of the year. It’s a weird changeup with the soccer crowd (that Kanye reached out to who is basically a student section for an Italian soccer team, which is pretty cool), but as soon as the beat drops, and Carti does his signature maniacal laugh, we are in for a treat. Ty Dolla $ign goes absolutely insane with his verse, we watch Rich the Kid’s revival. Then, in the middle of it all, we listen to the summoning of Kanye West, as he samples “Hell of a life,” one of his own songs. Playboi Carti does his own thing, then as the song comes to a close, the “go go go go” chants we got at the start of the song end the song.
Now the longest song, “BEG FORGIVENESS”, it’s very… interesting. I don’t know if Kanye is trying to test out his new language that I’m sure he’s working on, but the song reminds me of “Donda chant”. It doesn’t feel like a song, just word vomit.
This is where it gets interesting, as “GOOD (DON’T DIE)” is not available on Apple Music (yes that’s what I use), but his next song “PROBLEMATIC” is. The beginning of it honestly reminds me of “Bound 2” from “Yeezus”. Outside of a cool horn, nothing stands out.
Finally, the album ends with “KING”, which does pass off as Kanye declaring himself the king of everything, despite all of his ups and downs. It’s definitely a bold strategy; you don’t often get as many chances as he’s gotten, so to say that you are a “crazy, bipolar anti-semite and I’m still the king,” is interesting.
Overall this album has a great seven-song run (excluding “PAPERWORK,”) but outside of those 15 or so minutes, it’s not great. I’d give it a 3/5 stars. There are some very high highlights from this album, but some of the lows are very low.
