Everybody’s got something to say about Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign’s new collaborative album Vultures. As such, it’s no surprise that one of the most popular and wide-reaching voices in hip-hop culture right now has a hot take for the masses. Moreover, The Joe Budden Podcast recently reviewed the project on their latest episode, with its main host expressing that he overall likes the LP. Specifically, he had great things to say about the production and many of the duo’s featured guests on this supposed series’ first installment. But the biggest problem that the Slaughterhouse MC had with Vultures is none other than the Chicago creative behind it.
“This is some bad rapping on here,” Joe Budden shared with his show’s co-hosts. “I’m only talking about Kanye West. Freddie Gibbswent cr*zy. All the rappers I heard went cr*zy, except for Kanye West… He’s just chanting.” Elsewhere, he added some loose thoughts on a few moments here and there, remarking that some of Vultures‘ cuts are “a little too funky” and “too Yeezus-ish,” in his opinion. Still, the New York MC had some praise for the production overall, and for other specific guest appearances.
“He showed his a** on the production,” Joe Budden posited. “His production is unbelievable on here. ‘CARNIVAL’ on down is nuts… I’m still a little thot inside. Dawg, what a creative flip of ‘Back That Azz Up’ [on ‘DO IT’]. I need to hear this in the strip club loud. I absolutely love [‘BEG FORGIVENESS’], I don’t care that this beat stays the same. This is cr*zy.” Although there are certainly many admirable qualities about Vultures, it’s hard to deny that Kanye West is not as consistent as he’s been on past releases when it comes to his own performances. This isn’t even accounting for how much you condemn or ignore his recent controversial behavior concerning antisemitism, the far right, and his peers.
Meanwhile, Vultures resulted in a big payout for Ye and Ty Dolla, so all this discussion probably means little to them. They dropped this independently and likely plan on dominating as much as they can through this method. We’ll see whether this results in an uptick in quality, or if Joe’s take on Vultures 2 will be harsher. To find out, stay up to date on HNHH for the latest on Kanye West, Ty Dolla Sign, and Joe Budden.
Kanye West is apparently making a lot of money off of Yeezy right now following a Super Bowl ad and a brand-new album with Ty Dolla $ign. Moreover, he recently brought back items from his YZY GAP collab on his website, selling hoodies, sweatpants, and the like for $20 each. This led to a big sales spike due to previously high-priced items getting a significant cut, so it’s natural to assume that this wouldn’t be the end of this strategy. Whether or not the Chicago creative’s extracurricular behavior and statements holds you back from copping a piece or two is a personal decision. However, it’s clearly not one that concerned a lot of fans who contributed to this success.
Furthermore, Ye’s profits from the release of Vultures, and those belonging to Ty Dolla, seem quite impressive. According to a Billboard estimate, their independent drop has resulted in almost a million in profits for them without having to give any cuts to a record label. Despite the promotional and marketing power behind the album lessening, fans still took the project to No. 1 on the publication’s albums chart. We’ll have to see just how much more success it finds in the near future.
Both artists had pretty cut-and-dry reactions to hitting this top spot, which points to the misleading nature of this “independent” claim. While nonetheless impressive, it’s also the kind of thing that only massive artists can pull off without hurting their pockets in the long run. Although it would be great to see more artists find more freedom within their label contracts and release limitations, it seems like only artists like Kanye West have the pockets and reach to sidestep this outright. Perhaps we can start thinking not just about how artists can reach this at an individual level, but also about how they can support each other and create wider change.
Meanwhile, do you think you’ll cop some of these new (well, restocked) YZY GAP drops? Are you heading to one of their European listening parties this week? Whatever the case, let us know in the comments section down below. Also, stick around on HNHH for the latest news and updates on Kanye West.
Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign’s collab album Vultures did not come out in collaboration with a record label, and that means the artists earned a whole lot more cash than usual. Moreover, Billboard recently released a report on their estimated earnings from this release method, only partnering with distributor Label Engine to put the record out commercially. After its No. 1 debut on the Billlboard 200 chart, we can assume that they netted a lot of money from not having to split this with a label. As such, the outlet believes that they took home about $986,000 from this supposed series’ first installment.
Furthermore, this made them look back at Ye’s previous 2020 comments on label contracts. He advocated for artists to earn at least 80% of their music’s profits and full ownership of their copyright that they can lease out to labels and publishers for a limited time. Label Engine, Vultures‘ distributor, indicates that clients get 82.5% of revenue, something that Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign have plenty of leverage to raise in their favor. But the outlet thinks that this number (under the assumption that 5% of earnings went to the distributor) goes up when considering global streams and publishing.
INDIO, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 21: Kanye West performs Sunday Service during the 2019 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival on April 21, 2019 in Indio, California. (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images for Coachella)
Of course, these numbers hinge on streaming success and some additional sales for a slight boost. This situation is a big change from Kanye West’s old contracts, such as his 14% royalty rate for The College Dropout. In earlier contracts, he would’ve had to reach this commercial success seven times over to reach the same amount of profits Vultures netted. Sure, this is also only possible for someone of the Chicago rapper’s magnitude, plus Ty Dolla’s own success and that of their featured guests. As such, this is independent in the technical sense of the term; Ye is no indie darling on the industry hustle.
Also, we must consider all the money behind promotional, budgetary, and marketing benefits that partnering with labels provided in the past. Given the Yeezy creative’s antisemitic behavior, this extra push that his albums had to become mainstream cultural benchmarks isn’t there anymore. But add onto this clothing sales, and there’s been a lot of revenue to collect around Vultures, for better or worse. For more news and the latest updates on Kanye West, Ty Dolla Sign, and Vultures, come back to HNHH.
Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign’s collaborative album Vultures just went number one on the Billboard charts despite a lot of release issues plaguing its rollout, plus all the antisemitic bigotry associated with it. All that aside, it seems like the album really connected with fans, and both artists seemingly reacted to this news. Of course, they’ve both boasted about it going number one in a lot fo countries before this Billboard confirmation. “It’s a beautiful time,” Ye stated to Complex, whereas Ty posted a video of himself saying, “Huh? Hm? S**t…” to the haters while holding up one index finger.
Vultures sold around 148,000 units in its first week, and this marks Ty Dolla Sign’s first-ever number one album. On the other hand, this is Kanye West’s eleventh number one album, and he technically hasn’t broken this consecutive streak of chart-toppers if you don’t count his G.O.O.D. Music compilation from 2012 or KIDS SEE GHOSTS with Kid Cudi. Even though they’re both huge artists, they should be grateful for having all this work out in their favor, as they are extremely lucky. Still, when you have as much money and infamy as they do, sample clearance issues become much easier to handle.
Another big problem with Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign’s first collab’s release was its distribution method, as original distributor FUGA took it off streaming services temporarily. “On Friday, February 9, 2024, a long-standing FUGA client delivered the album Vultures 1 through the platform’s automated processes, violating our service agreement,” a statement from the company read. “Therefore, FUGA is actively working with its DSP partners and the client to remove Vultures 1 from our systems.” This resolved itself promptly, though.
Meanwhile, the duo is now looking forward to some European listening events, kicking off in Italy and (at press time) wrapping up in Paris. Perhaps this will be the opportunity they have to celebrate this number one and to celebrate getting a new distributor for it. What do you think about Vultures 1 and how the next installments will shape up? Let us know in the comments and come back to HNHH for the latest on Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign.
If you didn’t already hear, Donald Trump bizarrely unveiled his new sneaker line at Sneaker Con in Philly on Saturday (February 17). Apparently the 1,000 available pairs already sold out at about $400 each, and the “NEVER SURRENDER HIGH-TOP” is a pretty ugly golden shoe with a U.S. flag plastered onto it. But that’s not what caught a lot of hip-hop heads’ attention about these shoes. Instead, it has to do with one of the disgraced former president’s strongest allies, and former competitor, within pop culture: Kanye West. According to The Neighborhood Talk, he posted a clip of Trump’s sneaker reveal on his Instagram Story with the caption: “This made me smile.”
Furthermore, since this clip is not on Ye’s IG page at press time, we can’t confirm for sure whether he really posted this or this is just an edit. Regardless, it was particularly notable because the video included a snippet of Kanye West, Ty Dolla $ign, Rich The Kid, and Playboi Carti’s song “CARNIVAL” instead of the actual music Donald Trump played during this reveal. It would’ve still made sense if he played the track, though. After all, what better way to soundtrack a bigot than with another?
All that aside, the Chicago artist did legitimately establish his support of Donald Trump for the 2024 election recently. This is after his own presidential campaign for this season failed to materialize, and following an unsuccessful run back in 2020. Kanye West doesn’t seem to be harping on this as much as he was a couple of years ago, which is at least an improvement. However, with all the controversies involved with them right now, we can’t say that this is a net positive reunion for anyone.
Meanwhile, with more listening events on the horizon for the 46-year-old, we’ll see what else is in his antics bag. As for No. 45… we can’t wait to laugh at how he will style his sneakers with a regular suit. Should make for a nice meme, at least. Jokes aside, for more news and the latest updates on Kanye West, log back into HNHH.
Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign will be repping their new collab album Vultures for the rest of the year, it seems. Moreover, the former just announced another listening party -– sorry, “listening experience” -– for the project or its supposed sequels, this time in Paris’ Accor Arena next Sunday (February 25). Earlier this week, the duo announced two other listening events in Italy for Vultures, scheduled for February 22 in Milan and February 24 in Bologna. As such, it looks like they really want to ramp things up ahead of Vultures 2. Whether that even ends up dropping is anyone’s guess, but fans are holding onto hope.
Furthermore, European fans may want to hop onto these parties if they’re big Ye and Ty fans, because they don’t know for sure when they’ll get to listen to Vultures in its intended form. Of course, the release of this album came marred with sample clearance issues, distribution disputes, disappearances from streaming services, and a whole lot of drama. As is typical for a Kanye West rollout, it was the hottest topic for a moment, and then everything just kind of fell back into place. Unfortunately, we can’t really pinpoint what there is to learn from all this.
For folks on the other side of the Atlantic, though, they might have another chance to see Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign perform. Rolling Loud California announced that they will perform at the festival on March 14, which is days after Vultures 2 is supposed to come out. Will this sequel project actually come out, and will the duo actually show up to perform at this rap festival? Again, it’s a tough call to make, and betting on the Chicago artist’s word is mostly a fool’s errand.
Meanwhile, the first installment’s commercial performance has been unsurprisingly impressive, although Billboard doesn’t seem to count it for its charts. Maybe they don’t want to give Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign any more press for the antisemitic bigotry associated with the rollout. Or, some fans think, their distribution model could’ve played a part, but either way, fans are still bumping it. We’ll see how these listening events keep the story going. For more news and the latest updates on Vultures, stick around on HNHH.
Say what you will about Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign’s new collaborative album Vultures, but it’s been the talk of the town all week. Moreover, whether folks are discussing some of their favorite moments or unpacking the controversies behind the release, everyone has something to say about the LP. If you remember last time we got projections for its first-week sales, this first installment in an allegedly longer series was expected to sell around 140K units. However, a new report from HITSDailyDouble on Friday (February 16) indicates that it’s now expected to sell over 150K units and debut at the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart with less than a full week of availability.
Furthermore, this last point will be quite an interesting one for Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign because of how difficult it’s been to put Vultures out. The album already disappeared several times from Apple Music after failing to appear on Spotify in the first place. This was due to various distribution issues, which since resolved themselves temporarily with a simple change letting the album back on the streaming platform. As such, many folks wonder what difference these removals and issues caused when it comes to the project’s bottom-line sales, streams, and marketing.
Not only that, but Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign faced a whole slew of other technical problems with Vultures. Sample clearance issues, delayed live events, clearing verses… the list goes on. Still, it seems like the duo hasn’t given up yet and doesn’t mind continuing to deal with these headaches. They are apparently holding more listening parties for the collab album and for its supposed sequels, but this time, in Italy.
Meanwhile, with more live performances scheduled (such as for Rolling Loud California), we’ll see how much longer the Vultures train stays on track. Well, not having a clear track seems to be the point, so we’ll see how much longer they can keep this all up. If previous Ye rollouts are anything to go by, then this is just the beginning. On that note, stay up to date on HNHH for the latest news and updates on Kanye West, Ty Dolla Sign, and Vultures.
After pushed-back release dates and cryptic posts, Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign released their collab album Vultures 1 on Friday, February 9. Over the past few years, Kanye has been consistent with having unconventional or in some cases, inconvenient releases. For this one, the album was only on Apple Music for hours. It took hours to appear on Spotify, pulled from Apple Music then re-uploaded with a slightly different album cover. The album’s release was preceded by several listening parties that were open to the public. This has been Kanye’s method for the last few years which has gotten mixed reception due to the often chaotic outcome.
This collab album from Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign comes after years of developing their chemistry. The first time they worked together on wax was in 2015. However, the subsequent collaborations honed into various styles so fans went into the album with a rather open mind. These collabs had a variety of production styles and tones so listeners went into the new album with open minds on how it would sound. Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s ability to perform on a variety of prediction styles is a testament to their skill and range as artists. We’re looking at some of their collabs across the years and how they led to their collab album.
One could say that Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign have been day one collaborators. They worked together on Ty Dolla $ign’s debut album Free TC which was released in 2015. Their collaborative track “Guard Down” was an emotional effort that paved the way for their collab on Kanye’s The Life Of Pablo on the track “Real Friends.” This TLOP track was even more emotional as Kanye shared glimpses into his personal life on the track. During 2016, Kanye posted several tracklists for The Life of Pablo – originally titled SWISH – and “Real Friends” was there every time.
Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign also collaborated on another song from The Life of Pablo titled “Fade” which also featured Post Malone. This track found the duo on a house sample, something that audiences did not expect. In an interview with W Magazine, Ty$ spoke on how the song came to be. “We came up with that song in five minutes—the lyrics and the idea. He did the beat on the spot, like from scratch. It was really dope.”
Prior to Pablo, Ty Dolla Sign landed writing credits on two surprise releases from Ye, “FourFiveSeconds” and “Only One.” In an interview with Billboard, Ty$ spoke about the process of creating the tracks with Ye: “[In] like 24 hours, [we recorded] seven songs or nine songs that day…He was open to my input, like, ‘do whatever you want to do. Here’s your mic. Do you need anything?’ I’m like ‘Awesome! Let’s get it!’”
2018: The Wyoming Sessions
Ty Dolla $ign is one of the main people who ventured to Wyoming to record with Kanye for The Wyoming Sessions. Ty Dolla $ign made appearances on two of the five albums from these sessions. He has writing credits and provided vocals for Kanye’s album Ye and did vocals for his collab album with Kid Cudi, KIDS SEE GHOSTS.
In an interview with HipHopDX, he spoke on how the Wyoming sessions went and how he admired Ye’s process during them. “I went up there for two days and did every song that you heard from all those projects…It was a movie out there. He [Kanye] always picks dope locations to record from…It was basically his bedroom where he had the studio set up and it was overlooking this big-ass field and all these mountains. It was beautiful…”
2019-2020: JESUS IS KING & Featuring Ty Dolla $ign
Several of the songs Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign made had some emotional weight to them. Many have likened Ty Dolla $ign’s vocals to a gospel singer’s whenever he links up with Ye. Evidently, their collaborative streak continued once Ty Dolla $ign appeared on Ye’s gospel albumJESUS IS KING. “Everything We Need” went through a variety of changes but Ty$’s vocals stayed on them through the track’s entire transformation process. The original title of the track was “The Storm” and allegedly came from the sessions for the scrapped Kanye album, Yandhi.
Then, Kanye West made two appearances on Ty Dolla $ign’s creatively titled album, Featuring Ty Dolla $ign. These came on “Track 6” and “Ego Death.” The latter finds the duo – along with vocals from FKA Twigs and production from Skrillex – rapping and singing on a groovy house-esque beat. Boogzadabeast and Ty Dolla $ign himself also have production credits on the song. Meanwhile, “Track 6,” was another song where different versions with different people contributing to it. One demo version made its rounds online as “Thank You Vol. 2” and actually featured Kid Cudi. Some sources have stated the track was originally created for the KIDS SEE GHOSTS album.
2021: Donda
Donda is another unique release in Kanye’s discography that Ty Dolla $ign appears on. He appears on “Junya pt 2” which is a different version of “Junya.” The only thing different from the original is Ty$’s verse being on it. This track is one of several “pt 2” versions on the deluxe edition of Donda. With Kanye and Ty$’s history at this point, it seemed right to still have him be on the album in some form instead of leaving his verse on the cutting room floor.
2024: Vultures
Often during Kanye West’s outbursts, rants, monologues, etc, he names specific people. When he does this, he’s either condemning them, praising them or comparing himself to them. Ultimately, Ty Dolla $ign has remained in Ye’s good graces throughout it all and vice versa. Despite the controversies, Ty Dolla $ign didn’t stray from Ye’s side, leading to the release of their collaborative album.
While it’s almost guaranteed that working with Kanye would be anything but smooth sailing, Ty Dolla $ign remained committed to the process and provided fans with updates since they told fans Vultures would be “coming soon” in November 2023. Though the album faced a multitude of setbacks, the two came together strong on the first installment in their series of projects. With two more volumes in the trilogy reportedly coming, only time will tell if this remains the case going forward. There’s also allegedly another solo Kanye album coming and listeners are wondering if Ty$ will be on that one too or rather, if any songs from the Vultures sessions will appear on that album.
Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign have their eyes set on the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 with their new album Vultures. According to HitsDailyDouble, Ye and Ty$ will take the top spot with 140,000 album equivalent units.
The chart also projects Usher’s Coming Home album for No. 3 with 78,000 units.
If you haven’t yet, tap into Vultures below.
In other news, Kanye West is back on the Donald Trump support train. Paparazzi caught up with the rapper and asked about his support. Ye made no secret about his endorsement. “Yeah, of course, it’s Trump all day. What you talking ’bout? You know what it is.”
Kanye West is back on the Donald Trump support train. Paparazzi caught up with the rapper and asked about his support. Ye made no secret about his endorsement. “Yeah, of course, it’s Trump all day. What you talking ’bout? You know what it is.”
The endorsement comes after a 2022 video from Ye detailing a visit to Mar-a-Lago that didn’t go well.
While YE was at Trump’s Florida home, he offered the idea of Trump being his running mate for President. Trump would be the vice president.
“I think the thing that Trump was most perturbed about [was] me asking him to be my vice president. I think that was, like, lower on the list of things that caught him off guard. It was the fact that I walked in with intelligence,” Ye said.
Ye said in the conversation that Trump insulted Kim Kardashian and told the former billionaire he would fail in the election. “And I was thinking like, ‘That’s the mother of my children.’ Since we and all the Christians in America that love Trump know that Trump is a conservative, we’re gonna demand that you hold all policies directly to the Bible.”
What was Ye’s response: “‘Woah Woah, hold on, hold on, Trump. You’re talking to Ye.’”
Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist, also attended the controversial dinner. More on that below.
