DAYTONA – Hands down, Kanye put the most effort into this project. The hype that lead to Daytona’s release was very well worth it. ‘The Games We Play’ and ‘Infrared’ are the stand out songs for me by far. When listening to all of the projects and then revisiting Daytona, this album is what got the momentum going at a steady pace for Kanye. With that being said, Daytona was indeed a hard act to follow. Out of all the projects, I believe this one has the most impact.
K.T.S.E – I was blown away at how spectacular these beats came together on Teyana Taylor’s album. The production was damn near too good, almost overwhelming for the type of vibe that I believe Teyana was trying to achieve, but I will leave that topic for a different post. I’m finding myself replaying ‘Gonna Love Me’, ‘Issues/Hold On’, and ‘Rose in Harlem’. To be honest, this could’ve been my favorite out of all the releases if it wasn’t for the abrupt mood change from ‘Never Would Have Made It’ to ‘WTP’. K.T.S.E could’ve been much stronger if it weren’t for that song simply just “thrown” in at the end, much less in the project itself. Aside from that, this album truly gets better the more it gets played.
Nasir – Anticipating a Nas and Kanye project would put any true hip-hop fan at the edge of their seat. Well, after Nasir dropped, I was rather unimpressed. Kanye’s beats paired with Nas’ lyrics didn’t mesh well, however again, let me stay on the topic of production only. After listening to Nasir a couple times and focusing on the beats, it’s satisfactory. ‘Everything’ and ‘Adam and Eve’ featuring The-Dream are both amazing tracks. I absolutely love when The-Dream provides vocals over a Kanye or Kanye-produced track. Outside of those two songs, nothing else stood out in particular within the album. Nasir wasn’t the best, but it certainly wasn’t the worst.
ye – Being a huge Kanye fan, I didn’t want to rank Kanye’s own project second to my least favorite on this list, but I had to do it. To keep up with the theme of his album, I understand that the production had to be somewhat of the same. I will say this now, I’m not a fan of the dark and somber Kanye West, so it was hard for me get into ye. The beats are actually exceptional contrary to what I stated above, but I wouldn’t choose to listen to these instrumentals on any given day. ‘Yikes’ is one of the more tolerable beats I can listen to on the album. The quality of Kanye’s production in ye I find to be better than Kids See Ghosts, however the overall feel and mood of this project just wasn’t for me.
Kids See Ghosts – To put this bluntly, I was bored while listening to Kids See Ghosts. I wanted to blame it on the day I chose to listen to this album, but that wasn’t it. The beats came across as safe. I was wanting and expecting extraordinary production on this album given that this is Kanye and Kid Cudi we’re talking about. On a positive note, I was satisfied with the sampling of this album. It was apparent that Kanye already had a very specified direction on this album prior to selecting the beats. If I had to choose one song from this album that was distinct to me, I would choose ‘Cudi Montage’. That track was one of the better songs from Kids See Ghosts. Overall, I really wanted to like this album more than I did, but I couldn’t get into it.
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