Vultures 1 is the highly anticipated album from the controversial Kanye West and Ty Dolla$ign. The album is a bit of a mess featuring some genuinely great production and sampling with some truly terrible rapping from Kanye himself. Unfortunately, at this point in his career, it seems that Kanye has stopped innovating his sound, opting instead to chase trends set by people like Travis Scott and Playboi Carti. It also must be mentioned that Kanye, while he did apologize for some of his abhorrent behavior, seems to continue to shirk full responsibility for his actions by repeatedly making reference and jokes toward his antisemitic actions.
Vultures 1 begins with “STARS”, a short and sweet opening track. It has a nice, simple production with a sample that showcases Kanye’s uncanny ability to find tiny musical gems in other music. A trend that starts with this song is the use of orchestral strings which effectively brings a certain amount of gravity and scale to the album. The next song, “KEYS TO MY LIFE” is another reflective piece with Kanye get out-performed by Ty Dolla $ign. The transition from Ye to Ty in the middle of the track is brilliant but Kanye’s rapping on the tail end just sound so lazy and uninspired. Kanye’s rapping used to be on point but at this point in his career, it seems he is content to create beautiful produced soundscapes and then phone it in on bars. Vultures 1 picks up the pace with “PAID”. The song has a bouncy intense beat which is brought down by the repetitive and boring chorus and Kanye’s weird and random lyrics. While Ty’s rapping is superficial and depraved oftentimes, at least it is coherent compared to Kanye who just spouts of random nonsense with no reason. Nevertheless, the production is excellent. North West makes her rap debut in the next track, “Talking” and although she outcompetes Adonis, her verse gets annoying very quickly. However, the second half of the song has Ty Dolla $ign rapping some heartfelt lines which thankfully aren’t crashed by Kanye saying something annoying. “ BACK TO ME” has potential but features some more of Kanye’s worst tendencies as the chorus is very basic and the sample is such a throw-away line. Once again Kanye has the worst lines on the track as Freddie Gibbs easily clears him. The album continues with “HOODRAT”. This song has some of the worst production on the album with the drums ending up being unclear and muddy and the constant “hoodrat” just being annoying. Underneath it all is just a basic chord progression and while Ty does his best to make an interesting melody, the song ends up being a weaker entry on the list. Next comes “DO IT”, which is probably the catchiest song on the album. The chord progression and production combined with the string melody that plays throughout make the song stick in the listener’s head. However, the song is meaningless and ends up ringing hollow with no deeper message. “PAPERWORK” is the next song and features an appearance by Quavo. The song does not have a chorus and the production is annoying with the same three notes repeated over and over again, sometimes made slightly worse by a harsh metallic sounding synth. Thankfully, the next song “BURN” is somewhat of a return to Kanye’s old sound with a decidedly old-fashioned sounding beat. Kanye also sounds coherent on his rapping and is not a complete trainwreck while Ty on the chorus is soothing and smooth. Next is “FUK SUMN”, a song where Kanye and Ty seem to be trying to make a Playboi Carti song. While the track itself is fine, it doesn’t sound like Kanye and ends up being kind of boring compared to the rest of the album. Also, it should be mentioned that the high-pitched voice in the middle of songs is a terrible production decision and is instantly annoying. The single from the album “VULTURES” comes next. Once again, Ty Dolla $ign carries the track after Kanye and Durk’s mediocre start. However, for being the leading single, the song is surprisingly one dimensional. The next track, “CARNIVAL” is one of the worst songs on the album. It has an annoying chant sound going on the whole time and sounds more like a Carti song than a Kanye song. The production is boring compared to the rest of the album and the chorus and rapping is not special either. This track is not even good on this album, let alone compared to the rest of Kanye’s discography. The album continues with “BEG FORGIVENESS” which reeks of some sort of sick dream of Kanye’s. The production on the song is intentionally underwhelming but the melodies aren’t strong enough to standalone. Next comes “PROBLEMATIC” which is at least true to its title and features Kanye saying some outrageous things. The turnaround of Kanye’s perspectives from Jesus Is King to Vultures 1 truly shows that the man deals in pastiche and aesthetics. As of this writing, the album concludes with “King” which has a classic beat although Kanye’s rapping leads much to be desired and is controversial as ever.
To conclude, Vultures 1 is a return to form for Kanye in terms of production and sampling although it is one of his worst vocal performances in a while. Additionally, it seems like Kanye has lost all purpose and meaning to make room for his enormous ego and his perverse addictions. While his outrageous character was tolerable when he was the underdog early on in his career or when he acknowledged the larger-than-life persona and its shortcomings, it now feels like he has been fully consumed by ego to the point where any and all self-awareness has gone out the window.