In a vacuum, it wouldn’t have been wrong to assume that a project as hyped as Ye and Ty Dolla Sign’sVultures 2would hit streaming services as a polished piece of music—especially after it's been delayed for a few months now. But in the world we live in, every post-Yeezus Ye drop has been chaotic, from the release dates to the alterations he makes after his albums hit the internet. This one was no different.
Released at around 3:00 a.m. this past Saturday, Aug. 3, Vultures 2 is a collection of stylish sounds and occasionally interesting songwriting that rarely coalesces into anything great. That part is somewhat normal for post-2016 Ye. But this one was uncharacteristically riddled with objective mistakes. On certain songs, there’s weird stuff with Ye’s vocals, with fans speculating he used AI punch-ins. The mix seems off in certain parts as well, and the album cover is grainy.
Of course, the mistakes are a lot easier to stomach in the streaming era. Dating back to The Life of Pablo era, Kanye revolutionized the industry by treating albums as living, breathing documents. Which is to say he updated TLOP well after its release, famously tweeting the message that he would “fix ‘Wolves’” when fans made it clear they weren’t happy with the update. He’s continuing that tradition now, updating Vultures 2 on both DSPs as we speak. You’ll also hear updates if you buy the album digitally for $5. (Apparently, they will email you updates of the album.)
Today, we take a look at all the ways to fix Vultures 2, an album that’s got potential, but falls short of Yeezy’s lofty standards. This is a mix of objective and subjective suggestions. So, Ye and Ty Dolla Sign—or ¥$, as they call themselves—take it or leave it.
Use the hi-res version of the cover
The Vultures 2 album cover is similar to the artwork of the first album, which featured Ye standing next to his wife, Bianca Censori. The new cover features a masked Ty Dolla Sign holding up a photo of his brother TC, who is currently incarcerated. We have no qualms with the design or imagery of the cover (it’s great) but the problem is with the grainy version that was uploaded to DSPs. As is, it looks like he took a screenshot of some concept art and threw it on Spotify at the last minute.
What’s interesting is that the hi-res version of the cover has been floating around for a while. Back in March, Ty released the official cover on his Instagram account, which looks much better. Did they lose the files? Is this a stylistic decision? What’s going on here?
Give the album a new mix, fix “My Soul” audio
For an artist who was known for meticulousness throughout much of his career, everything surrounding Vultures 2 has felt decidedly incomplete, indecisive, and unpolished—and that’s trickled right down to the audio engineering, too. The mix for Ty Dolla Sign’s adlibs on “Fried” are conspicuously foggy. And at this very moment, you can still only hear the main vocal tracks for “My Soul” out of the left side, which creates a disorienting all-around listening experience. On the initial few listens, instances of overdosed reverb and murky vocals were numerous, but Kanye has made some much-needed edits since then. Still, there’s a lot to clean up.
Fix some of these hooks
Even at this phase of his career, you can always count on Ye to deliver piles of beautiful sounds. The problem’s always been how he’s used them, and those issues continue on Vultures 2. While the first Vultures wasn’t perfect, the sequel is a notable step down in terms of hook quality, as many of the choruses are made up of long, unimaginative sentences that are more crass than they are creative. The chorus for “Promotion” sounds like an indistinct beginning of a Future verse. The hook for “Lifestyle” sounds like a ChatGPT result for, “Make a song about gold-diggers.” Contrast that with the quirky, infectious madness on tracks like “Back to Me,” or the absurd hedonism of Rich The Kid “Carnival.” The choruses for both songs are obviously silly. But there’s plenty of phonetic fun with Kanye rapping about “beautiful, big titty, butt-naked women” and Rich The Kid’s chant hook made the track irresistible. There’s a fundamental lack of flavor with Vultures 2, which is a shame considering that Future and Kodak Black are on the album. While there are spurts of good, the LP too often plays out like more of a molly-induced jam session than the work of pristine curation and production wizardry.
Turn “Isabella” into an actual song
“Isabella” is a funny little interlude that would’ve been cool to extend. Imagine dousing it all in some twitchy reverb, with more vocal distortions to add another minute to it before transitioning to “Promotion” for a seamless tale of materialism.
Use the original version of “River”
As someone who’s toyed with sounds for years before actually releasing them, Ye has never been a proponent of, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” In the mind of a genius, ideas are fluid elements that can always be refined and reimagined to more potent effect, and with the advent of streaming and the accompanying ability to edit songs freely even after their release, Ye has spun the block on tracks countless times. “River” is one of those instances, and comparing the OG with the final version, it’s clear he should’ve quit while he was ahead. The bassline melody for the original is a little breezier, and the drums are less overwhelming, letting the ethereal ambiance of the track resonate more.
Speaking of reverting, bring back the old “Time Moving Slow”
The current “Time Moving Slow” is pretty cool, but the OG version was a bit more engrossing. Layering a jovial melody with dystopian elephant and string sounds adds a contrasting dynamic to the whole affair, creating a cool push-pull vibe to a track that might even be a little too smooth. Also, the Inter Milan vocals just feel a little tacked on—they’re good everywhere else, though.
Make “Husband” the interlude to “Lifestyle”
Look, Ye has made some very bad songs in recent years. But “Husband” is a mindless murmur that should’ve been left in a MacBook trash bin. Floating above an aural bassline designed for introspection, he lets loose a paternalistic croon-rant that’s not sensitive enough to be endearing or funny enough to make up for its juvenility. Neither heartfelt nor entertaining, it plays out like he was going to send it as a voice note to Kim K, but decided to turn it into a song instead.
In retrospect, Ye should have shortened “Husband” and made it into an interlude for “Lifestyle.” As is, “Husband” seamlessly fades into the beginning of “Lifestyle” anyway, and its visceral babbling is way more tolerable—maybe even more fitting—as a short segue rather than the premise for a whole song. Everything he says a woman needs in “Husband” basically comes down to money anyway, so it would be cutting excess space while also enhancing the overall coherence of the album. It would also reverse some of the weirdness here; curiously, “Husband” appears as an outerlude on “Lifestyle.” Given the sloppiness of the project, it almost makes you wonder if Ye just misplaced the track to begin with.
Rewrite "530"
The “go listen to Drake, bitch” line is funny, but “530” is a meandering mess that feels like “Husband Part 2.” Here, he serves up some bars that are lazy, even by murmuring standards. The ending of the song is actually fine; if you’re trying to simulate a dissolving, drunken conversation, it will usually turn into stupid babbling anyway. That’s real. But mid-way through the third verse, before it even gets to that point, Ye pretty much stops enunciating entirely, stumbling over his own words to the point where they’re virtually indecipherable; good luck to anyone trying to transcribe those bars. “530” is one of the songs that have been floating around for a while—it’s been on his YouTube page since last year—so the chances this gets changed seem low. Still, we can ask.
Re-record “Sky City” and “Field Trip” verses
Midway through his verse on “Sky City,” Ye starts punching in, but the sharp intonation change in some of the transitions has left fans thinking he just used some really sh*tty AI. Listen to how abruptly it sounds when he raps about his wife asking about a gym and getting her waist to slim down. It sounds like he punched in multiple times to deliver just one or two lines. It would have been easier to ignore if “Field Trip” didn’t have some of the same issues. As a fan noted, one of Ye’s verses appears to be a Ty Dolla $ign vocal rendered through an AI Kanye filter.
Actually, maybe Ye should just rewrite multiple verses
Over the last eight years, Ye has been more focused on aesthetics than bars, prioritizing feeling over technical rap structures. Still, on Vultures, his bars were witty enough that they distilled the still-likable aspects of his persona. Much of that is gone on Vultures 2. On tracks like “Husband” and “Promotion,” he sounds like he’s reading off cliff notes about how to be a jerk rather than convincingly playing the role of one. It’s like he’s pantomiming 2k12-2k16 Kanye. While some people might say Vultures was no different, I beg anyone to find bars anywhere near as quotable as his Urkel line on “Back to Me” or the Apple Payday bar from “Do It.” More than the punchlines, there were at least spurts of propulsiveness in his rhyme schemes and cadences that at least made him sound like he could be inspired. It’s more inane, but “Carnival” matches the intensity and crass wit of most Ye songs, and the same most definitely can’t be said for any track on Vultures 2. As of now, tracks like “Fried” and “Dead” are actually better off without Ye—which is a problem because it’s his album.
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