In 2018, I considered Kanye West as my favorite artist of all time. Indeed, that year was a busy year for Mr. Yeezy himself. He produced 5 albums/projects which are Nasir, Daytona, Ye, Kids See Ghosts, and that Teyana Taylor's album (forgot its name). If I am allowed to say which project I love the most, I would say this project is my favorite among the others. According to what I read, Tekashi Murakami is the one who designed the album cover and I am amazed by the album cover. I heard someone said that this album cover is an art that everyone would like without knowing any music stuff behind it. This album is filled with 7 Track/20+ minutes duration.
This album is opened by a choppy sample followed by a chorus sung by Kid Cudi accompanied by a lot of reverb and delay. After Cudi's part, we got a verse from Hip-hop Dope man, Pusha T. His verse is fantastic in my opinion, especially when he refers to Eazy-E's debut album "Eazy-duz-it". Kanye's yell and scream are kind of annoying at the first listen but after a couple listens, I really like it. The funny thing about this intro is the owner of the album (Ye and Cudi) can't get any chance to lay a verse here. However, I am not complaining.
The second track gives us classic Cudi's hum that almost filled the entire track. Lowkey and trippy are probably the best words to describe this song. There is no highlight here but Fire is still a good track.
The third track is called 4th dimension, which really brings us back to the old Kanye chopping vibe. Just like Otis from Watch The Throne, Kanye gave credit to Louis Prima, the singer on the sample song he used. 4th Dimension has a very good beat and I think this is the top 10 Kanye West's beat of all time. Besides the good beat, Kanye and Cudi are going wild here. There are a lot of memorable bars from both of them. My favorite bars from Kanye here are the "alligator lacoste" and "wrong hole" bars.
Freeee is the title of the fourth track of the album which I think it is different from other Ye or cudi's music, because of its chaoticness. In my opinion, it is top 3 song of the album, but statistic said it otherwise. According to some sources that I read, Freeeee is the least streamed song on the album. I understand why this song is the least streamed, because as I said, Kanye and Kid Cudi never make this type of song and I admit that this song was not for me when I listened to it in its first release. Lastly, the last thing that I like from Freeee is vocal performance from both Kanye and Cudi.
Soothing, relaxing and beautiful are the best adjectives to describe the fifth song of the album, Reborn. It talks about mental health and bad experience that both artists overcame. Started with cudi's humming over simple piano loop then followed by soft hitting drum and Kanye's incredible short verse regarding his issues and backlash. Cudi's verse also adressed about his issues and tell the listener that there is no one could stop you. Unlike the other tracks that only have 2-3 minutes duration, Reborn is 5 minutes long.
The next track is Kids see ghosts and in my opinion it is my least favorite track because of its terribly mixed cudi's boring chorus. Thing that I like from this song are only verses from Yassin bey and Kanye, even though it is not that good. Instrumentally, the beat is lack of variation.
Finally, we reach the last track of the album, cudi montage. As the title said, Kid Cudi killed this track with amazing verse and vocal performance on the chorus. Kanye's verse is also really good. He talks about his struggle and finding peace. The intro of this track is sampled from a song by Kurt Cobain (I forgot what the name of it).
In conclusion, this self-titled album is one of the best collab albums of all time and yes, it is better than Watch the Throne. Kanye West once again prove his ability to unleash artist's potential (in this case only Kid Cudi). Moreover, this is a must listen album for everyone, especially someone who has mental health issue. The length of this joint project also indirectly states that a good album is not supposed to be long and bloated.
9/10
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