Ye 2018 Album

Kanye West

When I was starting to get into hip hop Kanye's music was important to me and I loved most of what he did. As time has passed, I find his rapping less interesting just like his lyrics, even if I go back to what I loved, and this changes none of that. In some ways this is probably lyrically better than some of the bars we got on things like Yeezus, and being short may help that. As with any post Graduation Kanye project, the gushing over this from fans isn't something I understand. I mean, people are calling this progressive... This 24-minute album is just decent at best. Similar to The Life of Pablo for me, there is no brilliant song here and with two minute songs you're still getting into them, which a couple of these are. I listened to the live stream which went through the album twice and have given this another couple of tries but nothing has grown on me much. See my brief thoughts on the songs below: 1 I Thought About Killing You - An interesting way to start the album going almost acapella. I find his intonation a bit annoying at the beginning. Only gets replay value worthy when the beat kicks in. 2 Yikes - The best song here. Thumping beat and nice contrast between the verses and hook. 3 All Mine - Ehh. The beat is a minimalist trap like beat. The extra hits in the final verse are dope but the chorus isn't very catchy and overall it's not a great song. 4 Wouldn't Leave - Decent song about Kim staying with him through the shit they both cop when he speaks his mind and airs an opinion, that he apparently isn't entitled to. 5 No Mistakes - The Slick Rick sample is cool but I don't really like Charlie Wilson here. A short song lacking anything inventive in the production department at all. 6 Ghost Town - The production is better here but the singing of the horrendous Cudi (I still don't get how people like this guy's voice) and the way Shake sings in the outro is garbage. 7 Violent Crimes - Cloudy beat. The subject matter has been done many times before though about how a father feels about having a daughter and wanting to protect her from males, etc. The way he does it isn't boring but as I said, it's been done. Still the second-best song.