After its wide release Friday morning, Kanye West has revealed the credits for his new album, ye. Check out the breakdown below, via Tidal and SPIN. Guests on the record include Ty Dolla Sign, Ant Clemons, Kid Cudi, Charlie Wilson, and 070 Shake, as The New York Times points out. Nicki Minaj leaves a voicemail at the end of closing track “Violent Crimes.” Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon was also involved. He said the track “Wouldn’t Leave” started off as a jam with Phil Cook. “Phil on piano and Jupiter synths and me on some op-1 gospel samples,” he tweeted. There have also been rumors swirling about unconfirmed guests. For example, Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker thought he was on the album—turns out he is not. Kanye debuted ye at a listening session in Jackson Hole, Wyoming Thursday night. Read Pitchfork’s report from Wyoming. The lyrics for each song are credited to the composers. 01 I Thought About Killing You Composers: Mike Dean, Benny Blanco, Kanye West, Francis Starlite Producers: Kanye West, Mike Dean 02 Yikes Composers: Mike Dean, Kanye West, Ayub Ogada, James Mbarack Achieng Producers: Kanye West, Mike Dean 03 All Mine Featuring: Ant Clemons and Ty Dolla Sign Composers: Kanye West, Francis Starlite, Mike Dean Producers: Francis & The Lights, Mike Dean, Kanye West 04 Wouldn’t Leave Featuring: Jeremih and Ty Dolla $ign Composers: Mike Dean, Reverend W. A. Donaldson, Kanye West Producers: Kanye West, Mike Dean 05 No Mistakes Featuring: Kid Cudi and Charlie Wilson Composers: Ricky Walters, Mike Dean, Kanye West, Che Pope, Edwin Hawkins Producers: Kanye West, Che Pope, Mike Dean 06 Ghost Town Featuring: 070 Shake and Kid Cudi Composers: Trade Martin, Kanye West, Mike Dean Producers: Francis & The Lights, Benny Blanco, Mike Dean, Kanye West 07 Violent Crimes Featuring: Ty Dolla Sign, Nicki Minaj, and 070 Shake Composer: Kanye West Producer: Kanye West Read “Kanye West and Why the Myth of ‘Genius’ Must Die” on the Pitch, and revisit Pitchfork’s review of 2016’s The Life of Pablo. Correction: An earlier version of this story indicated Valee, PartyNextDoor, Dej Loaf, and John Legend feature on ye based on a New York Times report. Their contributions have not yet been confirmed. This article was originally published on Friday, June 1 at 11:27 a.m. EST. It was last updated on June 1 at 7:23 p.m. EST.<doc-sep>’Ye. Photo: Scott Dudelson/FilmMagic Good Friday! Almost everything to do with Kanye West these days is seemingly sporadic and lacking thought, but not his release schedule. Kanye’s new album, YE, has arrived just like Kanye declared that it would. It features everyone from Kid Cudi to Nicki Minaj (via voice message), touches on mental health, #MeToo (particularly the Russell Simmons allegations), his wife Kim Kardashian’s loyalty, Stormy Daniels, and drugs. Also, its album art, which reads “I hate being bi-polar. It’s awesome,” was photographed by Kanye on the drive to the album’s listening party, per Kim. This is a tight ship ‘Ye is running this release season, promising five albums across his label, GOOD Music (and Nas), within the span of a month. Up first was Pusha-T’s Daytona last week; now, the spotlight is turned to Kanye, with his self-produced, seven-song eighth album. And then it’ll be Kanye’s turn again in another week, when he and Kid Cudi release their collaborative album Kids See Ghosts. Just, you know, mark all your calendars, set Google alerts, put sticky notes all over your desk, your bedroom, your bathroom, everywhere. YE first premiered at a listening party in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where it was livestreamed on a mobile app. But it has since hit streaming services. Now go forth and chatter!<doc-sep>It can be argued that this is his most important project considering that so many people are demanding answers out of him. Does he fulfill the prophecy? Only time will tell but here are five things that immediately jumped out at us upon the first run through of Ye. Kanye West Embraces His Mental Health Issues For the past few years, there have been questions about Kanye West’s mental health. This has been magnified by West’s actions over the past few months that have drawn the ire of even his staunchest supporters. But if Ye does anything, it’s address these issues head-on. From the opening track “I Thought About Killing You,” West is addressing the challenges he is facing. The manner in which he approaches the subject of suicide is staggering. On “Yikes” he looks at being bipolar as a superhero trait, which may strike a chord with many people going through the same thing. It’s not necessarily the crux of the album, but it is touched on throughout the 23-minute endeavor. Ye Doesn’t Actually Explain Anything There was a promise that everything that has transpired over the past month would be explained on Ye. If you were looking for some kind of explanation for Kanye’s wayward tweets, liposuction revelation, ardent support of Trump, free thinking or claims that slavery was an "option," you are absolutely not in luck. Ye doesn’t answer any of these questions in any capacity other than alluding to the rapper's mental struggles. Instead, the 7-track project is about family, mental health and learning how to treat women better. But then he also has songs about threesomes and taking women to get plastic surgery that completely contradict those thoughts. Perhaps that is the beauty of it all, but nothing on this album brings Ye's previous antics into context. If anything, West pointedly used controversy as a marketing tool for his album. It’s a strategy that will certainly pay off considering that all eyes are on Mr. West at this moment, but it’s disappointing that the Chicago artist doesn’t bring clarity to any of the things that he said over the past month. The only line that comes close is on “All Mine” when he says: “They say build your own I say ‘How Sway?’/ I said slavery’s a choice they said ‘How Ye?” Yup, that’s about all we got. And we really didn’t even get a mention of Donald Trump. The Production Is Throwback Kanye Like Pusha T’s Daytona, Ye takes Kanye West back to his earlier production techniques of sample chopping. Sparse arrangements litter the album on songs like the Young Thug and Jeremih assisted “All Mine” and the album opener “I Thought About Killing You.” If anything, the album is a hybrid of production from Late Registration and 808’s & Heartbreak with a hint of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. However, what it doesn’t do is push the sonic envelope as we’ve known Kanye has been apt to do over the years. It’s truly missing that one undeniable beat that has everyone nodding in unison. Nevertheless, Kanye has proven to be a maestro of production and offers some impressive work here from the rolling guitars that power the John Legend, Kid Cudi and 070 Shake assisted “Ghost Town” to the chopping of Slick Rick’s “Hey Young World” on “No Mistakes.” It’s rare that you get something truly bad when Kanye West is behind the boards. No matter where he’s at in life he’s still ahead of the curve. But Kanye’s Rhymes Are Not Up To Snuff Unlike Pusha T’s Daytona, Kanye doesn’t pack the lyrical punch that is necessary to take the production to the next level. Instead, we get Kanye West at his most elementary. The regression in his lyrical ability is staggering and there are a number of reasons that can be attributed to this. Is it that he’s so detached from the rest of the world that he doesn’t really have much to say? Could it be that he’s missing the voices (and pens) from the likes of Rhymefest and Consequence, who grounded Kanye and assisted in providing his most thought-provoking rhymes? Who knows what to make of this, but what we are left with is a rapper who is a far cry from the somewhat conscious and introspective artist that delivered My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. "Let me hit it raw like fuck the outcome/ None of us would be here without cum,” he says on “All Mine.” On the same song he drops the gem "I love your titties cuz they prove I can focus on two things at once." Ultimately, Kanye does his production no favors by packing in so many cringe-worthy lines in such a brief offering. That’s not to say that everything is bad because he does have his moments where the aesthetic all comes together like on “Ghost Town.” But that song is more about the guests than it is Kanye himself.<doc-sep>Kanye West’s new album ye is here. Listen to it below via Tidal. He originally premiered the seven-track LP during an outdoor listening event in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Chris Rock introduced him. The album art reads, “I hate being Bi-Polar its awesome.” Guests on the LP include Nicki Minaj, Ty Dolla $ign, Kid Cudi, Jeremih, and more. Across the record, Kanye references Russell Simmons, Wiz Khalifa, North Korea, #MeToo, Stormy Daniels, and much more. ye marks the second of five promised projects from Kanye West. Read Pitchfork’s report from the listening session in Wyoming. Last week, Pusha-T released Daytona, produced by West. Coming up, West plans to issue Kids See Ghost (a collaboration with Kid Cudi), a Nas album, and a Teyana Taylor album. He recently previewed some working song titles from the records. In recent weeks, West has shared the unusual song “Lift Yourself” and the contentious political track “Ye vs. the People.” He also appeared on Travis Scott’s “Watch” and produced Christina Aguilera’s “Accelerate.”<doc-sep>
Maeve McDermott USA TODAY Kanye West's eighth album has arrived, and it's likely to be just as controversial as everything else in the rapper's orbit. Unveiled in a livestreamed listening party in Wyoming on Thursday night before landing on streaming services Friday, West’s new album Ye is the culmination of the most tumultuous stretch of his career — which is saying something, considering the countless cycles of controversy the rapper has weathered, many of which were self-inflicted. Ye is, as West promised in a tweet, seven songs long, a drastic change from the 20-song behemoth that his 2016 album The Life of Pablo ballooned into after he spent months adding extra tracks. The new album addresses many of the controversies of West’s past few years, mainly his mental breakdown and his recent burst of pro-Trump support, with West refusing to apologize, seeing little value in introspection and declaring on Yikes that his bipolar disorder is “my superpower — ain't no disability.” And while the combination of Ye and Pusha T’s West-produced Daytona album last week proves that the rapper is as strong a producer as ever, his ego gets in the way of his hitmaking abilities, with Ye lacking the easily lovable potential singles of West’s past albums. For all of West’s declarations of his Ye era’s “dragon energy” genius, the music, taken together, is the least impactful of his career. More:Kanye West raps about Stormy Daniels and his slavery comments on new album 'Ye' Analysis:Greatest rapper alive? Kanye West has devolved into just another Internet troll Many of the most striking moments of Ye come in the first two tracks — I Thought About Killing You, with West’s spoken-word meditations about suicide, and Yikes, which delves into opioid addiction over a radio-ready beat — which suggest an album more honest about his health struggles than the one West actually delivers. Topical moments show up throughout the rest of the album, to lesser effect, as he mentions the grief his political outspokenness caused his wife Kim Kardashian on Wouldn’t Leave, which turns out to be less an ode to supportive women than it is absolving the misbehaving men by their sides, and devotes much of No Mistake to what sounds like a half-hearted Drake diss. As for the album’s flaccid allusions to Stormy Daniels and Me Too, West isn’t the cultural critic he used to be. And even as West’s production sparkles, switching between anxious-sounding barely-there beats and moments of uplifting soul for the album’s lighter moods, he sabotages himself with inexplicable songwriting choices and unnecessary features that only weigh down the album’s potential hits. Vocalists appear on songs to attempt features that sound half-finished, from Jeremih’s mumbled appearance on Wouldn’t Leave to the squandered potential of Ghost Town, which could’ve been an album highlight had its jubilant instrumentals not been wasted in service of an incomprehensible John Legend intro and an unnecessary several-minute-long appearance by 070 Shake. The album’s best feature comes from Dej Loaf, who adds a touch of sweetness to the otherwise-misguided father-daughter anthem Violent Crimes, the album’s closing track that sees West trying to get real about the challenges of parenting a girl, but instead misfires with lines like “Don't do no yoga, don't do pilates / Just play piano and stick to karate / I pray your body's draped more like mine and not like your mommy's.” For a 23-minute album, easily West’s shortestrelease, Ye doesn’t feel concise, and that's not a good thing.It’s an album that, in its tedium and tonal shifts and verses that overstay their welcome, feels longer than an album like My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which flies by in its smash singles and genius-level flows. Ye also drums up nostalgia for The Life of Pablo, a release that received mixed reviews , but in retrospect, is both a better work of social commentary than Ye, and is an infinitely more enjoyable listen. For fans who are still on board with West’s visions of his own grandeur, they may very well find enough to love in Ye's bright spots, the moments on the album when his discordant creative decisions come together to remind us of the old Kanye. But for the other listeners hoping for a work of Kanye West brilliance that would somehow nullify his controversies of the past few months, or even attempt to explain them, Ye will almost certainly disappoint.