BeatRoute Magazine BC Print Edition July 2018

MUSIC REVIEWS
Kanye West et al.
Wyoming Sessions
G.O.O.D. Music/Def Jam Recordings
In May 2017, it was reported that Kanye West,
months removed from his psychiatric hold at The
UCLA Medical Center, was working on his new
album from a mountain peak in Wyoming. The result
of these ‘Wyoming Sessions’ were five individual
albums, released on consecutive weeks in May and
June.
Teyana Taylor’s Keep That Same Energy — the
fifth and final fruit from Kanye West’s Wyoming
sojourn — was released at the end of June, capping
off the exhausting latest saga from G.O.O.D. Music.
Like the four previous instalments, K.T.S.E. premiered
via livestream and was later uploaded to streaming
services. It was the first of the five to deviate from
the seven-song formula with its eight tracks.
Taylor isn’t the most gripping songwriter, and the
influence of Beyonce and Rihanna’s recent albums
are unmissable. However, Taylor has as voluptuous
a voice as either and, rather than shackling it to
obnoxious drums and a litter of hi-hats, West
inspired her with acoustic guitars, church piano and
’60s gospel. Rap was expected, yet the collective
result is a very fine soul album. West was reportedly
still tweaking the album while airborne and en route
to K.T.S.E.’s listening party, a similar anecdote to the
release of ye. Could you imagine if someone had told
you, before this whole kerfuffle, that Teyana Taylor’s
album would be better than Kanye’s for that exact
same reason?
Five weeks, five albums. Pusha T’s DAYTONA,
Kanye’s ye and Kids See Ghosts in tandem with Kid
Cudi, Nas’s Nasir and Teyana Taylor’s K.T.S.E., released
respectively. At first it seemed like a cool schtick,
and maybe in time it will be seen as a triumph — a
testament to unbridled creative fervour and the
unstoppable urge to be heard on your own terms,
whatever they are. It was the type of bold promise
expected from the mercurial head of G.O.O.D. Music,
though even the most ardent stan cocked his head at
the idea of it being fulfilled. For the most part, it was
indeed fulfilling. West produced every song (mostly
true) and each album was delivered on schedule
(kinda true). He played a game of five-card stud with
the public and, in some ways, he won.
In a lot of other ways, he didn’t win. And fuck has
it been exhausting.
Conjecture is a waste of precious time. As it
stands, the Wyoming Sessions produced a contender
for rap album of the year, two good tasters from
artists needing a PR boost (K.T.S.E. and Kids See
Ghosts), and two mistakes (ye and Nasir) where
lessons were hopefully learned from and need not be
revisited. The production is uniformly great, which
is a commendable achievement at 36 songs and 115
minutes. The only real clunker was K.T.S.E.’s closer,
“WTP,” and its excruciating sample. But in at least
two of the five albums, West brought out the best in
Pusha T and Kid Cudi.
There were moments in this adventure that felt
like career milestones. It’s important to remember
that, regardless of what he preached from his
pulpit of bullshit, Kanye West still has a staggering
capacity for making music that simply sounds good.
DAYTONA is a masterpiece and rap album of the
year contender. The skeletal menace of an album
solidified Pusha T’s long gestating claim for all-time
greatness, and for about a week and a half he was
the best rapper alive. Kid Cudi’s legacy as one of
the most influential rappers of our era is finally
being acknowledged, and Kids See Ghosts was a
much-needed injection of recompense to the titular
duo’s careers. Plus, Teyana Taylor actually released
something.
At the same time, West’s grand saga was an
overall mess. The live streams were janky and
streaming releases were delayed. ye is the worst
album of Kanye’s career, and fails to measure up to
his past achievements. Scattered throughout all five
albums are verses that range from among his best
in recent years, and a bunch that vie for worst of his
career. Nas’s cachet was called into question, and
all excitement for the chimera that was a Kanyeproduced
Nas album came and went like a fart in a
vacuum.
Ambition is the cousin of exhaustion. Since
April, when he took to Twitter to start “writing” his
“book” of “philosophy,” Kanye and G.O.O.D. Music
have been inescapable. The last time a label was as
omnipresent, Kendrick Lamar released good kid,
m.a.a.d. city. Throughout the end of spring alone,
Busdriver, Jay Rock, Freddie Gibbs and Jay-Z &
Beyonce all released notably stellar albums. Kamasi
Washington’s Heaven and Earth came out, and it’s
longer than DAYTONA, ye, KSG, Nasir and K.T.S.E.
combined. And in the meantime, both of Drake’s
parents have publicly defended their son’s honour.
West’s tenure in Wyoming was a labour of anxiety
and selfishness, the nucleus of which being his
fraught relationship with the media. In theory, it was
a noble endeavour — tailor an EP’s worth of beats
for associated artists, gifting them an advantage both
creatively and commercially — sharing the wealth
in a sense. But even on the biggest stage of their
life, West manned the spotlight. His production, a
virtuosic display of sample manipulation, flirts with
the ‘Chop Up The Soul Kanye’ that’s so dearly missed.
When we considered West a scrappy wunderkind,
all he needed to prove was that he was deserving
of his own praise. His stock turned to stardust and
now judging him requires careful considerations of
mental health, race, economic divide and countless
variables. He’s not quite a villain, but he does himself
no favours.
Kanye West has always expressed himself best
through music — it’s when he jumps on camera and
spouts reactive flimflam that he ires the mob. We use
his music to reconcile Kanye the man with Kanye the
idea. Lately, that idea’s become suffocating. It’s time
for a breather.
• Thomas Johnson
• Illustration by James Mackenzie
July 2018 27