Whoah, that’s not a cover man. That’s meta. I can’t really make out the lyrics but it sounds like she’s taking the piss a bit. “See this is Ex-Factor, he took the sample, my shit is classic, he’s an example of ... [how we... slice it up on a n****?]” I don’t know. Can’t really make it out.

She says “peace to Drake” at the end, but that could mean anything, I guess.

You know, I hate to sound like a misogynist asshole, but it’s a little jarring to see Ms. Lauryn after like 10+ years of only catching glimpses here and there. When she was active with Fugees and Miseducation, I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the fucking world. I was pretty sure she always would be, but damn... that was like 20 years ago. I was in high school. Guess it’s just to be expected that age would take its toll on that unspeakably beautiful face. She’s looks a little worse for wear, compared to that relentlessly dynamic and expressive woman who rocked the world between 1992 and 2000.

Would likely not be as much of a shock if she’d kept making music, but she turned her back on the world like it was fucking Wyclef’s bitchass.

I wish Courtney Love had vanished and Lauryn Hill has kept dropping an album every few years. She’s still got mad skills. That song she dropped in 2012 or 2013 — I forget the name, but it was really hard, and had kind of a freestyle/mixtape vibe to it — was amazing. Thought we were going to get a second coming, but nope. :(

All the following tracks were produced by Kanye:

If You Know You Know
Ghost Town
Cops Shot the Kid
White Label
Simple Things
Gonna Love Me
Rose in Harlem

Jesus.

Nasir and KTSE got the best beats in my opinion.

Nasir is better than DAYTONA. Nas' verse on "Cops" is kind of meh, I'm surprised Kanye didn't tell him to try harder. But otherwise it's a very strong record. I love the rough, abrasive soul sound of "White Label". "Simple Things" production makes me emotional. *sniff*

Kids See Ghosts is the most alternative stuff Ye has done since Yeezus. Reminds me of El-P, CunninLynguists stuff at parts.. "Cudi Montage" is super important. Probably my favorite song of the year along with Ghost Town. "Lord shine a light on me save me please". Wow.

So Scorpion was expected to sell 950k and then dropped to 750k. Out of those, only 150k of are pure sales, which goes to prove how much of a flop this album is, Drake's manipulation of the streaming services and algorithms aside. Bad reviews as well. People just aren't feeling the album.

ktse is by such a huge distance the best of this batch, really excellent record. immediate but also a total grower if that makes any sense? wtp is like horribly out of place but works? granddddd

Too bad Teyana and her fans don't seem to be appreciative of Ye's work on the album. It's far better than the cookie cutter, Trey Songz type R&B of her debut.

"Tony Williams shares his unique perspective on what went down in Wyoming and hints at the possibility of a seven song album produced by Kanye West."

Wow what a great read.

ye and KSG are the best of the bunch.
Different from the “pure rap” of Daytona and Nasir, of which Daytona is the best.
KTSE is good but not really my thing I guess?

Ok, respect and all, but nobody wants a Tony Williams album.

And I am genuinely baffled by the harsh criticism of these albums. There’s like this unanimous sentiment that they’re good-not-great, and nobody has really zeroed in on what’s not great about them.

From what I can tell, “Ye” is not great because Kanye didn’t apologize for saying dumb shit. Which means that if he hadn’t said dumb shit the album would be adored. Which means the album itself has none of the vaguely defined “problems” I keep reading about. People are just mad that they didn’t get an apology. Yeah?

Nasir is somehow not good (seriously hard to process that one, as it’s clearly the best thing Nas has made in over a decade... by FAR) and that’s because of A.) the aforementioned sins of the Kanye and B.) Nas doesn’t apologize for the alleged domestic violence (if he didn’t do it, or it’s a legal matter, apologizing would not be something he could publicly do without declaring guilt, but never mind that... he didn’t apologize and he allegedly did the WORST thing so it’s tje worst of the albums.
I don’t even really like Nas that much as a rapper. I like his first album and second album and I go through phases with the rest of his stuff, but I’m not a serious fan. However, even though it’s the worst of the albums, I dig Nasir because it’s very obviously an expertly produced R-A-P album.
But hey he didn’t apologize for what he may or may not have done, so it’s gotta be bad.

Pusha hasn’t done anything “wrong” (except sell drugs and push drug culture for decades but that’s nothing compared to a spazz spastically saying they love Donald Trump in 2018), so his is the most well-received.

KTSE is well-received but with a caveat: Kanye apparently didn’t do right by her so... it’s the second-least bad but the sins of the Kanye make it still not good?

All these non musical reasons for music not being good! I had no idea music was about so many things OTHER THAN music!

I have literally wanted to be a music writer my entire life. I’ve come damn close too, as I’m now an entertainment editor for my publication. But now I no longer want that.

The music press is so fickle and full of shit, and ME? I’ve never been “not liberal enough” for ANYTHING. But goddammit, I am not going to try to end someone’s career because they don’t apologize for tweeting something stupid. And anyone who thinks it’s their place to do that is fucked. And any profession that assigns itself that task is fucked. At this point in my life I make a living writing news... and I’ll take non-biased reporting over this industry of public shaming masquerading as “criticism” any day.

Fuck all of it. I’m incredibly frustrated by this shit.

I’ve stopped visiting Pitchfork, but they’re still on my twitter feed and I see they published yet another article about the “failure” of the Wyoming project. “How can he fail this much?” They ask.
Uhhhh... he had two albums in the top 5 at the same time, but never mind that... he “failed” because you decided you needed to punish him, so you’re writinf that he “failed” over and over. That’s why. You stupid fucks.

Jesus Christ.

The Wyoming sessions are EASILY the most interesting thing that happened in 2018 when it comes to hip hop (musically as a whole in my opinion but hey, that may be subjective).

Drake and J.Cole both dropped their worst albums. Horrible fucking albums. Painful to sit through. That shit Jay did with his wife wasn't good. The other high profile releases somehow came from Cardi B and Post Malone.. not good. Pitchfork was pretending to be into some Playboi Carti album so they wouldn't get called out for being out of touch, but there's only so many half assed bars that end with "uh" I can take before I overdose.

"Fucking your bitch, uh
She jump on my dick, uh
I fight with the clique, uh
I jump and I hit, uh
What the fuck do you say, uh
I love girls I'm not gay, uh"

UH UH UH UH UH. 8.6, BEST NEW MUSIC IN 2018, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!

Jay Rock did a Drake album better than Drake himself, however sadly, it went under the radar, even with a Kendrick cosign. Common dropped a great album as August Greene and nobody gave a shit. Saba's album.. really impressive, best newcomer in the game by far, but again, nobody cared. Didn't even make it to the XXL Freshmen list.

Sev, you need to stop believing an "apology" would make any difference to those self righteous, hateful losers. If there's something we can learn from this Kanye situation it's we should live life and do us without worrying what others think, because everyone will never be satisfied.

Nah, I think if Kanye became outspoken anti-Trump all of a sudden, or even, like, low-key Trump trolling like Kendrick did on “The Heart Pt. IV” and “DAMN.” I think he’d be right back in favor.
It’s bloody infuriating that this is how t works now, but it is. And I was more pissed at him than most when he said that ridiculous shit. I realized I’d been engaging in more quasi-idolatry than I thought, because it fucked me up so much when he went off his rocker like that. But... when a I heard these album, it was like, “OK, obviously whatever is going on in his bizarro head is not fucking with his ability to make the best goddamn popular music in the world, so whatever.” I thought this would be obvious to everyone else too, but I have a lot of really liberal friends, and some of them just totally stopped being Kanye fans, at least publicly. (Granted, my friends are from places like Seattle, Portland and NYC, so they feel a lot of pressure to out-liberal everyone and everything always period).
Anyway, I think a change of course on that front would help him a great deal.

I’m listening to “KTSE” right now, and goddamn it really is good. Kanye has made four of the top 10 albums of the year so far. It’s unprecedented. I think this batch of albums is irreparably tainted by his shit antics, but I do believe he could bounce back in time to make his “Abbey Road” if he were to appease the need for everyone to fall on the right side of the line in the sand.

Fuck. Crazy ass muhfucka

Drake is really ridiculous. That album is something like the aural equivalent of a lukewarm bath.

“Nice for What” is great, but goddamn the rest of it sucks too hard to listen to.
If Drake had just released “Nice for What” as a single and did nothing else his year, it would be his best year since 2015, easily.

But nah. Had to make that godfucking awful streamtrolling piece of shit. That fuck r went “platinum” in one day. ONE DAY. Like fucking *NSYNC in 2001 or whatever. Shows how utterly fucked the streaming system is.

By the way, you don’t even have to listen to the whole song for it to be counted. Apparently every tap is counted, so I helped that motherfucer go “platinum” just by tapping through that terrible ass album to make sure I wasn’t missing a decent track.

Fucking Drake.

Kanye birthed Drake. Drake knows this. Drake has become the hip-hop Taylor Swift, and makes nothing but vanilla pudding. Also Drake disrespected Kanye on Sciroion. Kanye has never released a bad album. THEREFORE...


Drake is the biggest brick Kanye has ever dropped.

Drake was still adding stuff to his album in the last week prior to the release and dropped an update a couple days later. He still follows Kanye's footsteps closely haha.

Yeah, KTSE is the shit. R&B singing over some Madlib style chops? Goddamit.

Harlem Rose is insane.
I did NOT expect a Teyana Taylor album to be this good.

And of course the last minute something Kanye gets sliced open about in every review. Not a mention in any Drake review, or that fact is skated over.

Bottom line:

It is Yeezy Season once again.

My ranking:

1. Ye
2. Daytona
3. Nasir
4. Kids See Ghosts
5. KTSE (but that doesn’t mean this one is bad. Issues may be my most played track of all the albums.)

It would take a surprise Kendrick opus to overshadow these.

Beyoncé and Jay Z get praise for a single basically written by Migos who are totally un “PC”. Kanye gets slammed for being not Politcially Correct. Gross.

On Ye there are heartfelt songs about his wife, daughter and his ability to process emotions. On The Carters it’s all “we’re rich” and somehow Kanye is out of touch with how most people feel....

They ignore his verses on “Cudi Montage” and “Cops Shot the Kid” too. :rolleyes: Imagine the praise if Jay Z or Drake were the ones to spit those bars.