If Vultures 2 is an accurate representation of how Kanye West sees the world, then the Chicago rap legend, who has never been shy in portraying himself as a modern day renaissance man, is one of the world’s greatest victims. A victim of the music industry (“Slide”). A victim of adidas (“My Soul”). A victim of Drake‘s chart dominance (“530”). A victim of his divorce from Kim Kardashian (also “530”). Everything is just so unfair for Mr. West.
The 20th anniversary of his seminal solo album The College Dropout passed earlier this year and retrospectively, it’s interesting how prominent many of the traits the world seems to now deplore in Kanye — the permanently wounded ego, his conservative Christianity muddled with an irrepressible libido, the bruising braggadocio — were embedded from the start.
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“Slide,” Vultures 2’s opener and the only pre-release single from the album, is both the much-delayed project’s high point and also the blueprint for the following 15 songs. For an album that is so dominated by Kanye’s direction, the first voice we hear on Vultures 2 belongs to Ty Dolla $ign, an erstwhile reminder that this is in fact a collaborative project, if perhaps just in name only.
His trademark smooth croon introduces the album and he immediately gets to the cynically misogynist rhymes, spitting: “Pretty girl, all she ever do is take selfies / So she only fuckin’ with a n-gga ’cause I’m wealthy.” And that’s one of the lines that are least likely to send Gloria Steinem after the duo with a sledgehammer.
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With an ensemble of producers on the song including London on Da Track, Wheezy and Fred Again, there’s a venomous beat switch that somewhat harkens back to the industrial darkness of Yeezus which taps into Vultures 2 at its best — as an apocalyptic rave at the end of the world. That’s the level on which the album works. Eyes closed. Headphones on. Brain switched off. And you can just about have a fun time with it.
Ty does what he does, and does it well. But after two albums, potentially two more on the way, and endless days, weeks and months in the studio with each other, they have still yet to find any cohesive chemistry, even by post-The Life of Pablo Kanye standards, feeling stitched together by half-completed ideas and dueling demotapes. Though his voice is a constant harmony throughout Vultures 2, Ty remains oddly anonymous, which for all of West’s faults, that is something he can never be accused of being.
At its most repugnant, Vultures 2 is the product of a woman-hating nihilist who appears to spend too much time on PornHub and not enough hours of his day touching God’s green grass. Lyrics sway from viagra-fueled infantilism (“Reach for the popcorn, oops, that’s my cock”) to aggressive misogyny that’s barely a yard away from an Andrew Tate or Adin Ross livestream (“Neighbors know this shit get out of hand, but they smile / ‘Cause you been so long without a man / And it won’t be, and it won’t be long ’til you’re out of bands / The only thing you really need is a husband”).
West also saves a dose of poison for ex-wife Kardashian on “530” which dates back to the infamous days of Donda 2, around the same time their divorce was legally finalized. After a confessional opening verse that sees him appear to hint at a dependency on alcohol, his self-reflection swiftly pivots to solipsism and self-pity as he attacks the SKIMS mogul over her parenting and his lack of access to his children: “The past year been a strange time / Visitations on FaceTime / And who gon’ break who’s heart first? Always just breaks mine / Looking for blessings that God’ll hand me / I’m tryna just raise the family, somebody should raise the nanny.”
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The song really symbolizes the confusion at the heart of Vultures 2. For every interesting idea, there are five awful ones. Soccer fan chanting does not get used in music very often for a reason but “River,” which heavily interpolates the Leon Bridges track of the same name, should have been a pillar that the album was built around. “Fried” is a manic rave of a song, purpose-built for a rager in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere, but then its lyrics appear to have been written by a teenager who has just discovered his first boner.
In its own perverse way, Vultures 2 is emblematic of 2024 — it is loud, brash, utterly devoid of substance and almost certain to be lauded as Kanye West’s latest masterpiece by his rabid legions of stans.
RELEASE DATE: August 3, 2024
RECORD LABEL: YZY
Listen to Vultures 2 below:
