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Vultures 1 flaps into view from beyond the pale, out where Ye, aka Kanye West, has apparently exiled himself with antisemitic remarks and praise for Hitler. Or is he beyond the pale? The big streaming platforms are carrying his new album. And the star rappers and producers joining him, a macho frat-house of enablers, clearly don’t consider one of the best-selling figures in hip-hop history to be unacceptable either.
The album is a collaboration with Ty Dolla $ign, the Californian rapper known for his crooning style. Guests include Travis Scott, Playboi Carti and Quavo. Among the many credited producers are Jpegmafia, Timbaland and James Blake. The rollout has been customarily chaotic, with false release dates and unruly listening parties. Expectations are rock-bottom. Ye hasn’t made a good album since 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. (Its follow-up Yeezus was overpraised but actually marked the start of the steep decline.)
Vultures 1 shifts the dial a bit. It contains the mirage of a good album, which instead becomes another bad one. The highs are found in the beats and production. The lows relate chiefly to West’s rapping.
The 16 tracks are more cohesive than wilfully slapdash affairs such as 2016’s The Life of Pablo. “Keys to My Life” has washed-out electronic drones, subtle beat switch-ups and a striking contrast in vocal styles. A rare female voice appears here, that of the singer India Love. Another belongs to Ye’s daughter North, who turns up with a cutesy chant in “Talking”, a track that makes striking use of the modern gospel mode that West botched in 2019’s Jesus Is King.
Sing-song melodies and abrasive basslines make for an effective juxtaposition (highlight: “Carnival”). Ty Dolla $ign’s sleepy, husky voice leads the melodies. But he doesn’t utter much of worth. Meanwhile, West’s rapping is bumptious and hammy. He turns everything to lead whenever he takes the microphone. The antisemitism furore is treated with toxic flippancy on the fleeting occasions it’s raised. Most of the time he and some of the other rappers swap misogynist banter like incels on a 4Chan thread. If this is to be West’s rehabilitation, then something is rotten in the state of hip-hop.
★★☆☆☆
‘Vultures 1’ is released independently by Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign
