Review: Kanye and Ty's album is so-so

Two and a Half out of Five Stars

By Michael Leek
Sports Editor

I didn't know what to expect from Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign’s new album, “Vultures.” Honestly, I hesitated to even listen to it, but I did.

Before listening to the first song, though, I did my best to separate the art from the artist and, needless to say, it was impossible to do so. Regardless, I did listen to the full thing and here’s what I think.

It is not comparable to Kanye’s best projects. Was it his worst album? No. But, it was nowhere near his best.

Starting with what I liked about the album, the samples were amazing. Kanye is known for good samples in his music; this album did not disappoint in this aspect.

Another strong suit were the features throughout the project. The features were good and helped elevate this album out of the “bad” category for me.

This is a collaboration album with Ty Dolla $ign, and that was a good choice. The small complaint I have about Ty on this album is his lyrics have no substance to them. But since he is not the most lyrically inclined artist, I was kind of expecting that from him.

More artists, including Lil Durk, Playboi Carti and even Kanye’s daughter, North West, also make guest appearances on the album.

Now Kanye himself on this album was OK on some tracks and just not good on others. Again, a lot of the songs had no substance to them, and it felt like he was just talking about nothing over a beat.

In the last four tracks of the album, there was more substance to his lyrics and it sounded as he was trying to address some of the issues surrounding his name. This is where I could not separate the art from the artist, because when he addressed some of the controversy it seemed that he was trying to defend some of the things he has said.

Not ironically, one of the best-sounding tracks falls in the last four of the album. It is named “Problematic.” There were multiple callbacks from his former projects and it even sounded like a track that would be on “The Life of Pablo” or “Yeezus.”

In that track specifically, he addressed some of the problematic things he said and did, but the lyrics were not the focal point of the song for me.

A couple more tracks I liked were “Burn” and “Paperwork.”

All in all, I would give this album 2.5 stars because there were only three songs out of 16 that I enjoyed. The features on the album are what elevated it as high as it is.