While Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness” is a popular song at bars and parties (especially Steve Aoki’s remix), a closer look at the lyrics reveals that the song has a darker meaning. Besides a handful of winning throwback moments, the record feels like a homework assignment cobbled together out of a sense of obligation.Kid Cudi live in October 2009. He doesn't respond to the recent allegations of physical and mental abuse by his ex-wife, the singer Kelis, and his reflections on current events are more rote than thought-provoking. Compared to his last record, the (seemingly) revealing post-divorce confession Life is Good, Nasir is opaque and closed-off. When he's not grumbling about vaccines, conspiracies, and Fox News, he sounds listless. Nas, an unquestionably brilliant lyricist with a weakness for silly conceptual gambits, appears lost wandering through the vast corridors of the art-rap mansion West has built for him here. The pairing of Kanye West with a legendary rapper like Nas sounds potentially appealing on paper, but you know the execution is off from the second you hear the opulent strings of "Not for Radio," which samples the score for The Hunt for Red October.
GOOD Musicīest songs: "Cops Shot the Kid" and "Adam and Eve" "I was off the chain, I was often drained," raps West, "I was off the meds, I was called insane/What an awesome thing, engulfed in shame." It's exactly the self-aware mix of bravado and vulnerability that ye lacks. Instead of the quasi-psychedelic ramblings of later Cudi or the incoherent inspirational talk of recent West, you get songs like "Reborn," which contains one of West's most potent verses in a while. This less hyped team-up isn't terribly ambitious or revelatory, but it's effective. Kids See Ghosts is like a scaled-back, less politically mindful version of Watch the Throne, West's record with fellow rap legend Jay Z. The two play well off each other, as Cudi's gift for melody consistently enlivens West's songwriting and West's production keeps some of Cudi's more baroque tendencies in check. Kid Cudi has been an important collaborator in West's career ever since 2008's 808s and Heartbreak, a mournful and raw record that grows more influential with each passing year.
Best songs from kid cudi mixtapes full#
That's what I've done with the Spotify playlist below, and further down you'll find some thoughts on which of these records are worth listening to in full and which ones should have stayed in the mountains.īest Songs: "Reborn" and "Kids See Ghosts" So, in the half-assed and impulsive spirit of the project, why not pick the best two songs from each record and make a decent 10-song sampler? It's a crowded month for pop music's A-list, with Beyoncé and Jay Z releasing their Everything is Love on June 16 and Drake's Scorpion arriving on June 29, so not everyone has time to sift through the clutter.
Best songs from kid cudi mixtapes upgrade#
Taylor's record, that final one of the batch, is getting another upgrade soon because of sample clearance issues. Sometimes they were so of-the-moment that they weren't finished until the second they debuted, with West snapping the cover art for ye on his scenic drive to the release party. (Taylor's KTSE, the last of the bunch, has eight tracks.) They would be intimate, provocative, and of-the-moment.
Each was supposed to consist of only seven songs. On the surface, the quintet of records that West has produced from his musical workshop in Wyoming over the past month feels like a rejection of Pablo's bountiful excess. With even more music this time around - and, if recent interviews are to believed, a possible 52 additional records coming at some point in the future - the opportunities for playing armchair A&R are endless. The album's messy promotional roll-out, hyper-publicized production process, and the post-release tinkering by Kanye himself (best encapsulated by the phrase " Ima fix wolves") inspired a sense of ownership in listeners who went on to create their own versions of the record, dropping songs and rearranging the tracklist. When The Life of Pablo dropped in February of 2016, many fans of the endlessly controversial rapper spent the rest of the year grappling with the record. In addition to his MAGA-supporting posts on social media and often toxic public interviews, it's been the most exhausting and bewildering period for the 41-year-old rapper since… well, the last time he released a record.
Over the last five weeks, Kanye West has released a solo album, a collaborative project with Kid Cudi, and three records for other artists - Pusha T, Nas, and Teyana Taylor - that he produced and released under his GOOD Music label.
The month of Kanye has ended, but now the real work begins.
0 kommentar(er)
