Ye, Fetty Wap, Yeat, Chief Keef, Juvenile, AI Vocals In Music

This is Friday to Friday, your weekly rap wrap-up going through the releases in rap and hip hop from Friday, March 27th to April 3rd. I have with me today, we got artist and producer hailing from the Twin Cities, Minnesota, Terry V.

Yo yo.

Producer hailing from Detroit, Michigan, Lunar G.

What's up? What's up?

And producer and artist manager hailing from Montreal, Canada, Matt Kerier.

Yo yo, what's up?

Listing off this week's releases, we have Central Sea with All Roads Lead Home, Chief Keef with Skeletor, Dick with Brilliance of a Falling Moon, Fetty Wap with Xavier, Juvenile with Boiling Point, Ye with Bully, Yeet with ADL, Milo Remora with Art School EP, Flip a Tea with I Am the Program, Toby with For Good Measure at Dreamhouse Studios, 54in with Still Standing, Josie with Soundtrack to Get Her Back, Nicholas F with The Undisputed, TG Tut with Sunset of the Titan Twilight, and Young Blue with World at War. We got a lot of good [expletive]. Some heavy hitters, even though I'm pretty disappointed we didn't get that Stove God Cooks album. I don't know what happened.

Man, I was searching all over for that. It looked like I couldn't even find it on Swizz Beatz' page. I couldn't find the pre-release anymore. Like, I don't know what happened. You have to go digging to get back to the pre-release.

And I've seen different reasons for it, but I don't know. Like, I've seen it was label issues and I've seen like mix and mastering delays. I don't know. But—

I heard mix and mastering delays for Bully because Bully also came out one day late and that was supposedly because of mixing and master, or specifically mastering delays.

Apparently he's still not happy with the mastering. So, I mean—

Yeah. So we should probably expect an update.

But I did want to say, although we didn't get that Stove God Cooks produced by Swizz Beatz album this week, we did actually get, funny enough, Swizz Beatz on two different releases that we're going to talk about this week. So at least we still got some Swizz Beatz.

Yep.

All right, let's kick it off with a pick. I want to start off this week with Fetty Wap, Xavier.

Okay.

This is on a whole new energy for him. He just got out of prison. He got out early, but he was in there for four years. He's done a bunch of interviews since. He's talking about how focused on his kids he is and how ready to get back into his career he is, and he's clearly feeling really inspired again and it shows on this album. The songwriting is amazing. He goes all over the place genre-wise. It's like jazz, R&B, soul, disco, trap, rap. On the whole, there's so many different vibes that from A to Z, you just get everything on this album. And the first song being like an automatic save is something I feel like I haven't seen in albums recently. I feel like albums kind of have lost that special intro song or that like number one song that like you save. I feel like most albums you save songs like three, seven, and 11, you know? Like this one was like first song was amazing.

Second song great, third song, it was just like starting off really really hard. And honestly that's just, that's how you're supposed to come out of prison if you're an artist. Like he did it well. That's how you do it.

Yeah, I agree. The start of the album was really strong and then the second song also was one of the strongest on the album. Like a Taylor featuring Wiz Khalifa. No drums. Beautiful. Actually, the drums only come in for the Wiz Khalifa verse, which is really—

The first time I heard it, I wasn't happy with it. I was like, I can't save this song because it takes way too long for the drums to kick in. But then I don't mind it at all because he can sing. The beat is beautiful. I don't, you know, I like the drums. I like when Wiz comes on, but I really don't mind just the little— 'cause it's almost like two, three minutes of just no drums.

Yeah. And then once Wiz is done, they drop back out.

I love that. And for me, like the first time I even heard the album, I did not think I would go back to it as much as I did. Like I knew the first song, I knew White Roses, which kind of has like a 50s swing kind of style. Like I knew which songs I was going to go back to, but I've been surprised that really to me the whole thing has just been like honestly, it's just different. The last time you brought up the term auto-crooning, which I've been kind of thinking about, and I found on this album, like if that's what the kind of like singing is that Fetty does, it sounds amazing throughout the whole thing. I didn't find there was any like cringe use of autotune or like anything. Like everything was just cohesive, sounded good.

I actually think he probably barely used autotune on this. I heard almost no autotune, really.

Wow. That's impressive.

Maybe like Melodyne or something, like a little bit of pitch correction, you know? I think that's pretty standard.

Not in an effect way. He didn't use it as an effect really on this album.

He did on a couple standout tracks. The way it's so melodic, it must be like, you know, drenched in something. But hey, if that's his vocals—

Especially like what you were saying too, Matt, with the like the drumless intro on the track. Specific artists will kind of do this. Like a handful of them will have these tracks where it is like this really really slow burn kind of feeling. And I think it's almost like they're doing something different having those drums come later. It's almost like, let's get rid of the concept of a drop or whatever. Like they're kind of like, let's, this is just a song, you know? Like I kind of think it's sick that they're like breaking down the hip-hop barriers of like, oh yeah, you can't have vocals unless you have the drop and the drums and like that's when it all comes together.

And it's ballsy to do that second track.

Yeah.

You're waiting for it and then—

And I get what you're saying, like that feeling of like, I don't like that anticipation. Like I felt like the whole time it should have dropped, but then relisting you're like, oh no, I kind of, I get it. Like there is, there's a reason. Yeah. I don't know. I think that's sick. And especially like the first song being like high energy. The first song right away had me moving. Like the second the bass hit everything like, and then that second, like it's such a crazy transition. Very very brave, but he did it. He really picked out the right beats.

It was nice to see there's a Monty feature on there as well, which is like, you know, just what you want to see. I like the Max B feature on there. That was good too. It was honestly solid.

We like Max B sometimes.

That's— yeah. I wanted to make sure to throw that out there. Yeah. It was a good—

Hood.

It was— I'll give him the flowers when there are some to give. You know, this, it was good.

Yeah, that White Roses song was special. It's not rap, it's not hip-hop, it's not soul music. It's like something like you said, like 50s rock or something.

Like doo-wop swing.

My vocal stem of the week. Like it's all I've been saying is just White Roses. It's so, like it's really infectious. That's the one that I really got into. Like that's what set the tone for me with that project. So I was like, whoa.

And a snap-heavy song.

Like I feel like with snaps, I feel like it was a lot of like the kind of Jersey club beats and everything. The snaps came back like being really part of the beats, but like this is just like the whole song is just snaps and kicks and it's really good.

I love that.

And then the other standout track for me was End Love as well.

Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, I was surprised to see a Tink feature there too. I feel like I don't see much of Tink anymore, and when I do hear her, I don't recognize her right away. Not that she changed her sound, but I feel like she's trying to kind of, you know, step out of her lane, do different things. And so I was really surprised that she was on there. I had to— really good. That's why I was like, "Oh, who's this?" And then, okay, yeah, I like Tink.

Mhm. If we go to a Fetty Wap resurgence, bro, take me back to 2015, 2016. I'm totally cool with that.

Mhm.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, I'm good with it. Absolutely.

He's still on the 300 Entertainment label. They still have like Thug, Gunna, Megan. Like that's going to be a lot of drops for the year already. That's crazy 'cause I feel like this Fetty album is really being talked about even by people who don't generally listen to hip-hop. Of course, like it comes with a good story coming out of prison and everything, but I feel like this album is really going to do a lot for Fetty.

I love how much genre blending has happened lately. People imitating, I get that. Like, but when you have a clear like leader of something and then everyone else is just trying to hop on, it's like makes it feel tacky.

Cardi.

Yeah, that's what I was exactly referencing. Jacob is like all of these Cardi copies. And then like it happened with Yeet when his sound popped, like everyone was like, "Oh, I can just be Yeet now." You got Can, can you Can Carson, you got— thankfully some of them have matured and grown.

Yeah. Found their own sounds, which is a great transition to Yeet, ADL, because he really did find his sound with this in a way that I hadn't heard with anything from him before. I was pretty impressed with how developed this was compared to other projects.

Yeah.

He's definitely getting more personal with his lyrics. I mean, even though you still get your occasional geeking on Molly line here and there.

Yeah.

How'd you guys feel about YeDL?

Yeah, I loved it. To me, it's kind of the perfect example of someone who writes lyrics for them to sound good, melodic, and cohesive, and not necessarily— even though, yeah, there's a few bars here and there that are that are deeper, more, you know, introspective, for the most part, it is writing words that just sound good together. And so, even on the song with Elton John, the feeling and the vibe of it, everything is very epic. When you take a second to learn the lyrics, it is a bit funny, you know, but it's the vibes. Yeet brings the vibes. And I don't know if it was like an album where he got quadruple the budget from the last one, but every single thing sounded so polished, but without losing its identity. Like it was still Yeet. It was 100% Yeet, but just perfect. I don't know. Like just perfect amount.

Yeah, dude. There wasn't anything that I was like, I don't really like this.

Yeah.

And I will say that like I was a huge fan of Yeet when he came onto the scene. Like first two albums, I went and saw him live at Summer Smash. That was one of the craziest performances I've been to. Like loved him. And then all the imitation stuff I was talking about kind of like made me just chill on him. I was like, "Ah, it's too much. It's oversaturated." And I missed the last album. Like I went back and listened to it. And this just blows it out of the water. It's like going back to what made him popular in my opinion.

Yeah.

But different, which is kind of crazy.

It's a double album, ADL. It stands for both A Dangerous Life and A Dangerous Love. For some reason, they didn't split it into two discs on digital, but if, in case you're wondering, the second disc starts at track 12, right after the track with Cudi. But he said that he used to never go back into a song ever. You literally finish a song, then like delete the session right away.

And then move on.

And now this album, one of the big differences is that he's actually going back into songs and refining them literally for the first time in his career. He's made thousands of songs just one, one try and then that's it. That's been his whole career up till this album.

Oh my god. I didn't even know that.

Damn.

I had no idea that happened. Like didn't know that he was kind of doing like these one-take sessions.

So you think that's part of the budget and they're like, no, we're giving you the extra money, go back in there again. And it's kind of like, to me it feels kind of like what you said, like it's like Wayne where it's like, you know, if you have a method that works, trying something different is scary, right? 'Cause you know, you've gone platinum, you know, you've gotten the numbers. Like it's like if Wayne started writing all of a sudden— he made all his money not writing, you know? I can't wait to hear the next one then if he's refining stuff, like—

I liken it to I Am Music, like the Playboi Carti stuff, 'cause that's exactly what he said was the idea and the intent of releasing that album. He's like, "Understand this is not for the words. It's not for you to put me in a genre. Like I'm calling this I Am Music because it's just music. It just sounds good." And like I think Yeet kind of took that idea. It's really really cool. I thought one of my favorites was the 15th song, Went Wrong with 070 Shake.

Yeah.

I'm a huge 070 Shake fan and I just thought that that was totally out of left field for them to do something together, and it just sounds so good. Like the girls that he had featured on here. Um, the Kylie on Let King Tonka Talk—

Which is actually King— that's actually Kylie Jenner, by the way. King Kylie is Kylie Jenner. She has about four lines on there. It's pretty funny.

Yeah. It's just— it's so weird. They're so out of left field and they sound good. Like it's just they sound really good. So this one was interesting to me.

I'm happy with getting another 070 Shake feature. She's been due for an album. I've been waiting. I can't wait for it. I think she's still under GOOD Music, so I don't know what's going to happen with that, but I'm definitely looking forward to hearing her next album.

Yeah, lots of fascinating features on this.

On the song Face the Flame, Yeet was able to get YB and Grimes on the same song. That [expletive] blew my mind.

I was like, I can't talk about every single feature, but that's insane to me.

That's insane to me.

Money, bro. Everything. I mean—

It was so polished, so well done.

I don't know about you guys, I just like sat back through all the promo stuff. I know like fans were just foaming at the mouth for ADL. Like it's been teased for so long. I was like, I can't get myself excited 'cause I'll get antsy about it.

Dude, I was so psyched when I saw this drop and like just went through it.

For me, it's been like Lose Control has been— I'm the type of person to really like self, like really obsess with like a singular song and just keep it on repeat. I've definitely done like a couple of hours of Lose Control.

Which by the way, Lose Control is the song with Elton John. It samples Elton John's 1975 song, Someone Saved My Life Tonight. And it's pretty cool because Elton John stays super current with new music. He's a huge fan of rap and hip-hop. He's, you know, famously worked with Young Thug before, but he stays tapped in. So that was really cool to see that. We got a massive list of production credits, but just some highlights. Benny X of course, Saptor, Lucid, and then a track with Honorable C.N.O.T.E. and Sonny Digital.

Like what?

Yeah. So—

Bro, Saptor needs a little shout out to him 'cause I don't think that dude gets enough credit. He puts out like drum kits and stuff online and like sells beats, like that whole thing. Like, he's very accessible.

Okay.

Very, very impressive in my opinion. I think super super slept on in that scene. Like that name just doesn't get credit.

And he's the one who produced Come and Go on the last Yeet album. Come and Go Loco. I think pretty much the entire thing.

The top songs are a lot of times quietly produced by him and it's— yeah, it's really sick. He gets some love on Reddit and stuff I'll see, but I just wanted to shout him out.

Okay, so there's this song. You guys got to tell me if I'm overthinking this or not. There's this song on this album called No More Ghosts featuring Kid Cudi.

Yeah.

It seems to me like this might be a message to Ye 'cause he has—

That's what I thought.

One of Ye's ops featured on it. It's dropped on the same day as Bully and the title of the song is No More Ghosts, which sounds like a reference to Kid Cudi and Ye's collab album Kids See Ghosts.

Kids See Ghosts. It's the only song fully capitalized too. Stylized just like Kids See Ghosts.

That's crazy.

I missed that.

That's crazy.

That's crazy.

It's the only one on here stylized in that way.

Yeah.

And on that Friday, so ADL and Bully are supposed to be like the two like competing huge releases. So I mean, like, are you overthinking it?

I don't think so. You might be pulling at a thread of a conspiracy there. You know, who knows? Maybe there's just— see, there's so many—

More interesting part too is that the song isn't like, [expletive] this guy the song. It's— the song has this whole message of leaving the past in the past.

Yeah.

So if he is talking to Ye, you know, it sounds like maybe a message of forgiveness, but—

Yeah, that, or Kid Cudi being like, "No, we're done. Leave that."

To me, it felt more like, like you are the past.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. But it's— yeah. I don't know. It's weird. It's weird.

The problem is there's so many subliminals. There's so many things that I thought were a thing that then later in the interview, the person says, "No, I never meant anything by that." But you're probably right. I mean, it's too big of a coincidence. It's like same day, the capital, the like ghost, like, and like you said, the general like subject matter of the song, but we'll never know. That's the truth.

We may never truly know. But that is a great excuse to talk about Ye, Bully. I can't remember an album probably ever having so much criticism going into it. Between the anti-semitic rants, then the album was full of AI vocals, and then he apologized for the rants and now apparently he's being medicated now, which is good. It's been a lot of media attention outside of the music. Now it's finally dropped a day late. When it didn't come out on Friday, I was like, "It's cooked. This isn't coming out. We're never going to get that. World War II was just a joke."

Oh, damn.

Well, let's talk about the AI vocals because there are conflicting reports of how many AI vocals are on the version we have now. Ye himself made a post saying vaguely no AI.

Mhm.

But a different version of Bully was pre-released like a year ago for a limited audience, and that version for sure had AI vocals because Ye was like into it at the time and then at some point over that year he was like, [expletive] AI, I don't like it anymore. And there's these eagle-eyed fans that have pointed out that there are exact vocal takes that are the same between the two versions of the album. The one that was released a year ago with AI and the one that was just released that supposedly doesn't. So there's some sleuthing being done by the internet that's kind of saying like there actually is still some AI vocals on this album.

I don't like that because even if you are the biggest Ye fan, why wouldn't you want to hear your favorite artist? I feel like the biggest apologists for the AI vocals are like the biggest Ye fans, or the stans rather. You know, it's like people that, you know, are stans and just make their whole personality about, you know, an artist. Wouldn't you prefer to have real takes, a real take of him in the booth getting it? I understand that he was using this AI technology to help him for references, but he released an album that's largely AI vocals, and it makes me uncomfortable. I don't like it. I'm not a fan of this trend, and Ye is so huge in the industry that it's— set.

Yeah.

Yeah. But all of that aside, I did listen through it a couple times. I thought that it's good. I thought that it's interesting. There's some really good melodies, some strong melodies, some interesting production. I actually liked it. And to be honest, I did all that research on the AI stuff after having listened to it, and that was a fascinating experience 'cause I had no idea that those were AI vocals. The technology is at a point now—

First time I'm hearing this.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I got tipped off by my buddy rapper A Snakeo. That's a huge Ye fan. He was telling me about it. So—

I was fooled. I could not tell. I had no idea because I didn't know about this. And that makes me even more annoyed and bothered by it because the technology is at a point now where you can't tell.

Personal.

Yeah. So I listened through the whole thing and I was like— and I was already ready. Okay. Look, I was ready to not like this album because I was like—

That's fair.

I think people are shooting Ye too much bail right away. They're too excited for the music. We should slow down and make sure that we want to be supporting this. But I gave it a couple listens. I did enjoy it. Even though there was AI vocals on it— I feel weird about that. I probably won't ever listen to it again now that I know that. I'll say that.

Yeah, that's it. That's all my thoughts on— I didn't have that much to say on the actual music. It's just there's so much [expletive] around the album. It's insane.

I didn't know about the AI vocals either. I had heard a little bit about it before, but I didn't know how big or how much there was on it personally. So my take on AI is that AI I don't feel threatened by. To me AI is, no matter how advanced it will get, I don't believe that it could ever replace what a human can bring to the table. And so if I— like I heard the whole album, I didn't know about the AI. So if it fooled me, shout out to technology. To me, what matters, I guess— which is also contradictory, but it matters if it sounds good. If you give me something, you tell me it's fully made by AI and it actually gives me feeling and I enjoy it, I guess I can't, you know, hate on it. I'm not going to hate on it because it's AI. I think that you could have given, what, let's say, Kanye had access to, to someone else and they might have made something that was garbage with it.

For me personally, I feel like in terms of vocals on Kanye albums, I haven't been much into like the subject matter or the rapping in a couple of Kanye albums. Maybe that's why I didn't notice the vocals. Like to me, the rapping and the vocals, it was good. I'm not saying it was bad, but it wasn't like crazy standout like how I have like hooks etched in my mind from like 808s and Heartbreak and stuff like that, you know? But I will say the production to me did give me the exact feeling that every Kanye album gives me, which is that some of the beats sound not simple. Not that I say I could have made it, but they sound like a risk was taken. So a lot of Kanye beats sound like, if you show— depending on who you show, they might tell you that it sounds garbage. And I think that's exactly what Kanye brings to the table. It's these kind of beats that, you know, these muddy 808s and like these kind of weird drums—

Heavy distortion.

Yeah. And so, you know, you show one person, they go, "Oh my god, this is crazy. This is the hip-hop of, you know, of the future." And then you show someone else, they go, "This is garbage." Like, you know, just like Yeezus was the album too. I remember every single person had an opinion on every single song. And that's still my favorite one, so I—

Send It Up. Send It Up is such a disgustingly loud song, but I like it.

Blood on the Leaves is another one that just, you know—

And so to me, this album had that kind of weird production. I was like, "Okay, yeah, this is Kanye." So if AI was using the vocals, does it bother me? It very very minimally. I would say like it's a tool. If he uses it, maybe he doesn't feel confident in his ability to perform it. It is what it is. But I can tell that was a Kanye album. That was him. That was his soul. That was his brain. That was him. And we'll see. We'll see what's going to come next. I feel like with Kanye, one album doesn't mean, you know, that he's going to be quiet for the rest of the year. Usually means that, you know, a lot more is about to come as a roll out of something else. Maybe a new product, a new, you know, I don't know, a new beef with someone else. But I do feel like at the end of the day, he's a person just like anyone. And I feel like he put out this album and to a certain extent, you know, he is looking at the reception. He wants to see how people perceive it. He does look like he's trying to clean up his image. To me, I think it's hard to go on a run of such like craziness and then just be like, "Ah—"

I'm bad. Support me.

Yeah.

So for me, it's like— I only listened to Bully today for the first time 'cause I actually forgot about it 'cause I, like, to me convinced myself to be excited to listen to it. I was excited of the premise of him dropping it because I just like the drama of— yeah, you know, I like the stories, but other than that, like I don't know if I'll go back to it. It's uh, it's hard. It's hard.

Yeah. No, I feel that. This album hit me with a ton of confusion. So I was kind of tonedeaf to everything going on around it. I didn't know about the AI stuff until I was looking at Genius. Like you said, Matt, I don't really listen to Kanye's lyrics all that much. I do, and like I'll listen to the melodies, the hooks, but like he's a producer first and so I'm always just enthralled with, like you said, the different things that he does. Every album has like a— you can associate every album of his with a time period in his life and his career. And so it's like to do that, I think it's really really— every time we get something from him it feels very expressive. It's the internals being externalized. So I think it's kind of cool to like hear those different sonic risks. I guess, like you said, I really liked a lot of the production on this album. I didn't notice the vocal stuff as much. I more listen to— like if I'm looking at lyrics or content or anything like that, I'm usually looking at like what's the point of this song. I don't really look at like what are all of the words, like why did he write this song? 'Cause there's usually a why with his music.

There's all these meanings to each track. Like one of them I think was an apology or kind of like an acknowledgement of stuff that he's been doing and what's been going on, like—

So when I saw it and listened to it, I came from a different standpoint I guess 'cause I do like Kanye but I don't really follow him as a person. I don't care that much about him as a person. Obviously I don't support a lot of the things, pretty much anything that he's said for the past however long this has been going on. That's just my two cents on the album. I thought it was sick. I liked it. It wasn't anything like, "Oh my god, this is the album of the year." But I do think that it was kind of refreshing. It felt like old Kanye sonically in a sense.

Sometimes with all the craziness he's doing, it kind of puts him on this pedestal of like, is he this very evil being? Is he this god, this messiah, whatever the hell he wants to call himself? And every album he gets these songs where he's like, "No, he has a wife and he's not, you know, he's not the best husband sometimes and he's, you know, like he is still a person."

Yeah. No, that's exactly what I was— yeah, that's exactly the point that I was kind of trying to get to. Yeah.

Yeah. 'Cause when this came out, like, you know, I heard Preacher Man and I enjoy Preacher Man. Jacob was talking about like the AI portion of the album. Like I didn't know too— I heard it was talking about it. I kind of blocked all that out because like my thing with AI is like, 'cause I know artists who use it to get like choirs and things like that for their beats or for their songs and stuff like that. So that portion, I'm not mad at it. Like I'm not mad at the AI thing that's happening now. It just depends on how you're using it. How you were saying, Matt, like I don't think AI can fully replace what a human can do in terms of like— art is very good at copying things or doing things on like a low level, but like in terms of things that provoke emotion, it's kind of hard for an algorithm or, you know, computer or numbers to recreate that. And so when Bully came out— but me being a huge Ye fan, like I want to say I got off the boat right around what, The Life of Pablo, around that area or around that time.

Yeah.

Yeah. Kanye was whining. And so a part of me, as somebody who often would give him the pass in terms of the things that he was doing, you know, the swastika— I was in a relationship and that was one of the things we got into it about was like this Kanye thing, like, well, with your Nazi shoes and all this stuff she was throwing at me. I was like, "Whoa, that's crazy." But, uh—

I got into it too. Now that you bring it up—

It's so— It's—

No, 'cause it is. It's polarizing. You're like, "[expletive], I like the art, but I'm not [expletive] with the [expletive] thing and what he's repping, you know?"

Yeah. So I wore my Yeezys. And I didn't even think about it. I was like, "Oh, [expletive], I bet half the people in this room [expletive] hate me." Like, and so for me, for a while, with like— as somebody like who inspired me as an artist, it is hard to see him take that fall from grace, you know. Just also speaks to a reason why you, you know, shouldn't meet your heroes and put people on a pedestal because we don't know who people are behind the face that they present us with. But all that to say, so when Bully came out, listening to this project or listening to this album— was it the best Ye album? No. Is it a top five Ye album? No. But I enjoyed it and I thought it was pretty good. But what I like most about it was the content matter. He's not on that high Hitler [expletive] that he was on on Vultures 2 and all that other stuff. Like Bully more than anything felt like a return to some of the normal Ye. And that's where I'm judging it at in terms of it being close and familiar to like what we norm— or what I knew Ye to be. Being vulnerable, talking about the things that he's passionate about, talking about the— I mean even the, what was it? Last Breath, the Latin joint on there. I did not know that I wanted to hear Ye on those type of music and so it never crossed my mind a single time.

And I think I told a couple people, like, you know, redemption album, not in terms of like, oh, I done did all, but just more so like, okay, he's normalizing at least in terms of this music and art now.

Yeah. Now, I'm not going to, you know— anybody who says they done with him and off of them, like, I understand that. I feel that. I get it. He said a lot. It's not just easy to sweep that under the rug and then just continue going on as if he didn't behave that way. But judging this off of this project, man, it's really good to hear that he's in a better place. I don't know what this means for him going forward. We'll have to judge these next couple of months and things based off his actions and what he does going forward. But if this album is any representation of what we can look forward to, like that, I'm excited about.

Yeah. No, I liken Ye to like GG Allin and Marilyn Manson and like all the polarizing artists like that that are just like— yeah. No, I could never ever support 99% of what these people talk about, what they represent, what they do, but hell yeah, I'll listen to their music.

Donda was just— that was a— those were dark times. And for it to be his mom's name, like—

I got to say, I have not heard Donda 2. I haven't heard Vultures 2. I didn't know that he had ever even had an album that was like— he was not only spouting this [expletive] in interviews and online, but like he recorded it and put it out in music. Yeah. No, I had no idea.

Donda 1 I love. I remember when that came out. It was like— things were good, I think. Right? I'm not like—

No, that was phenomenal.

Donda— he was saying some [expletive] 'cause that was when he was— the choice and all that other stuff and it was— yeah, the Jay-Z and these guys are trying to kill me and all that stuff and it's all like, "All right, then we got Donda and then after that it just went like whoa."

And not to talk too much about his personality, but I do feel like what this album brings is that one day, or even today, you could really look at Ye's career, his catalog, him as a person. He's always been outspoken. He's always said what he wanted to say. Like even, you know, when he said George Bush doesn't like black people, or you know, like he's never stopped himself from saying what he wants to say.

Oh.

And so this is a great example I think of someone who has always been the same way. It's just that throughout his life got more confident into maybe like, hey, if I'm always, you know, saying the things I want to say and people are going to follow me, I believe this thing that might sound crazy but people are still going to follow me. And I think like it was a journey of seeing him saying mildly cancellable things, but people messed with him, people liked him. And then when he went full cancellable, I feel like he saw that the reception was getting kind of gross a little bit. And I feel like maybe that's what kind of pushed him to pivot a little bit because, like, there's no amount of— it doesn't matter how, what kind of person you are, how bad, good of a person you are. I can't believe that seeing so many people be disgusted by what you're doing makes you feel good at the end of the day. So, I mean, I like— to me, again, just going back to like Bully, like it was a good kind of coming back down to earth and just like showing just like a different path that his career is trying to take. I don't know. It's interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And everything I was saying— I know even you guys too, it's like it's such a confusing thing to even talk about because like technically speaking, I feel like in some ways we shouldn't even have listened to the album or even be talking about it, but then in other ways like that's a guy who's like a staple of hip-hop, you know, and it's kind of—

It's hard.

And I get what you— polarizing, and like we liked him when he was good polarizing, right? Like when he was saying the things that were the— we liked it. We were like, "Yeah, yeah, keep saying it." You know? And then it was like, "Whoa." Is he, like you said, testing boundaries? Like, how far will people—

Yeah.

—go with me, or is it actually genuinely like he's not medicated and some of the [expletive] he's saying is just absolutely outlandish and not even what he believes in. Like, there's so many different things. We know way too much about this guy. Like, there's way too— everyone knows way too much about him. So, throughout his journey— like look, the music's been good. Like Donda 2 will— it's hard to find the full album 'cause there's been like 30 different versions. So I'm just happy to get finally an album that's on a streaming service that is cohesive, that is good, that maybe one day I can go back to. But yeah—

Not me.

Yeah. So for me, it's like if this is a sign of what's to come, then, you know, I look forward to that. And people have their stances. I'm not here to change anybody's, you know, perception or even, you know, my own. Like, it's crazy. Like, just what that artist meant to me, it was like, "All right, cool." But some of the [expletive] is all like, "Damn." Yeah, you do. You make this [expletive] damn near impossible, bro. Like, it's hard. Like, 'cause some of his fans, like, some of the [expletive] his fans like the mental gym like, "No, you got to understand he means it from here." And it's all like, "But he said what he said." So it's like—

"Bro—"

"What do you mean?"

I will say, like, it made me kind of think about like how I see things 'cause like there's some names I can name right now that we're all going to be in agreeance with. No, like this person's on our no playlist, right? And it's like where are the lines drawn? Like how do we pick those lines? This guy is giving me so much like self-reflection and thinking about like, you know, I'm not giving him credit for that but I guess, you know, silver lining.

There's people I know that still listen to R. Kelly who were just like updating me about the R. Kelly trial. Like they were just, "I can't believe he did this and this and this and this and this," and then months later, man, Chocolate Factory comes on and they're like— this is just like— we were just at a— I was just at a birthday party and the whole room is dancing to Step in the Name of Love. So it's all like— it's yeah.

Here's the thing. He's on my no playlist, but it's hard not to dance to that. Tell me your foot wasn't, you know, like— Michael too. Like, it's crazy. It's crazy. It's wild. I don't know.

But I do love that Spotify has a "do not play this artist" feature. I think that, you know, that gives everyone the option if you, you know, if this is something that bothers you, you have the option there. And I've had artists that I've turned it on, off, on, off, on, off, and like, yeah, polarizing albums and polarizing artists, a very interesting thing.

Yeah. Is this the album that's going to change your mind about Kanye? No. But if you're a fan of Kanye, this is an album that— or if you're somebody used to listen to Kanye, it's like it gives you hope. It's hope. We'll see what he does next.

If he puts out like an album where, like, you know, he serenades us and says sorry over like soul samples or something, you know, like—

I think he did do— what's— I forgot what comment he made. He made a comment that he did drop like a soul sample beat and it was like, come on Ye. We're not falling for—

Yeah, that's low hanging fruit.

It's like— but it's Ye-ing [expletive]. I'm sorry, I've heard—

I don't know if we mentioned much standout tracks. Yeah, so the one with Pusha T was a good one. Last Breath. The one with Travis Scott, was it? Father Figure.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, Father.

Father, I'd say. Yeah.

Preacher Man, Father, and Mama's Favorite, tug on a string track where, you know, he has his mom talking in the back or at the end of it and things like that. We just like, you know, that's somebody who lost their mind. I was like, damn. You know, that hit you.

Yeah.

Yeah. He brought it on the album. Again, it's just— it's Kanye, it's him, it's him as a person. I will say, like what you said before, will this make me, you know, like forgive him or look out for the next album? Like, let's say he dropped another album next week. I do feel like I'd be good on it for a little bit. Like, I feel like I wouldn't rush out to— I feel like I've heard what he put out now. I understand where, I guess, he's trying to come from, but now I feel like I'm kind of good on him for now. Yeah, if that makes—

Yeah, that's where he's at.

That's— yeah.

Yeah.

Unless the album drops and people thought like, "Oh my god, this is the best thing ever." Then, yeah. But like I'm like, "Okay, I'll give this a listen." You know, like who am I kidding?

Kind of like Chief— Gav, Skeletor. Just saying.

Oh, yeah. 'Cause I want to know how you felt about Skeletor. Yeah. How did you—

Segue, bro?

Okay. Yeah. Let's talk about Chief Keef, Skeletor. Definitely a step up from recent projects.

Chief Keef does this thing I find on every album. He always has on every album one song where the kicks are very very different than what you would typically hear. And on this one I found it was— so the PS5 beat with Rich the Kid where the kicks are creating a really weird pocket. And Chief Keef might not be, you know, the best rapper when it comes to like pockets. He did his thing on this beat. I did find that Rich the Kid was fighting for his life a little bit on the beat. Like it was very—

I love Rich the Kid. That hurt.

It was hard. It was hard. But you know what? As like— if you're an artist and you hear a beat like this and you go like, "Hey, I'll do it." I respect it 'cause that was a hard beat.

Oh.

What I was thinking was Fenetto. Fenetto with like the— like Chief Keef has always had songs where there's just like a different type of kind of kick pattern. This one was just crazy. Yeah. And Rich the Kid, you know, tried.

He tried. Yeah, he tried.

And that's the thing, it's not a bad verse. It's like— it's a verse like any other Rich the Kid verse. It's just you can tell that like the pockets were kind of just flying by him, you know? Like it was a crazy beat. And the production too, like, you know, it might not have been a Mike Will Made It album, but production was good. It was what I'd want from a Chief Keef album.

Yeah. A lot of Sosa beats.

Lot of Chief Keef produced beats.

Yeah. I honestly, it just felt really refreshing. I thought when I heard Video Shoot with Ian, there was way too much hype. I'm kind of a hater naturally, which sucks for me, so I'm always late to the party. But like Ian was just getting way too overhyped, bro. So I heard like two songs and I was like, "All right, the kid's good, but I'm not going to listen to him out of principle." I was like, "That's just not cool. This kid came from zero to 100. What's going on?" No. So I heard Video Shoot and I was like, "Oh, all right. I'll give him his flowers on that." And then I didn't know anything about like this album. I didn't know any plans for it, like coming out or anything. And then the whole album kind of felt like that to me. I saved the first two songs like The Real Chief Keef. I loved that he did a reference to The Real Slim Shady. Like, I don't know. That [expletive] was just fun. There was no need. It wasn't tacky. Like, he didn't try and do the whole song in the same way or something. Like, he just kind of referenced it super— so I saved that. Yeah. I was just like, dude, that's fire. And then Markab Buddha I thought was really really good too. Those were two of my three— breaking down.

There are some crazy bars on this. Like—

Oh yeah.

Harry Potter has some crazy bars, dude.

Like, I did start going back and looking at them again. I'm like, oh my god. Yeah. I don't know. This is definitely listenable again for me.

There's something that happened with Chief Keef and I'm not sure what it is 'cause I didn't follow the story, but there's something like starting in 2024 with Dirty Nachos, then Almighty So, then Skeletor. Like before that, everything sounded kind of not lower budget, but more mixtape style. And I don't know if he just suddenly decided like, I'm going to lock in. I don't know if maybe he thought he was typecasted where he had to have a certain mixtape sound and then maybe went into like, hey, maybe I can put together like a studio LP. I don't know what it is, but something elevated and it's just been— the last three projects have just been consistent and good. I remember listening to like his 2021 project, 4NEM, and it's good, but again it has a bit of that mixtape kind of feel. And most of pretty much everything before that too. And even like where we know him from, like, you know, with his hits like from Finally Rich and all that stuff, like those are still albums that have a certain amount of grit and in a way like mixtape feel, which is what was the appeal, right? But like I don't know if he got a label deal or something, or like he just got a bag, or it's just been— it's been good. The output's been good and excited to hear more, bro.

Yeah. No, I'm glad you said something about Almighty So too, I forgot about that album. And again on that one too, there was a song where again the kicks are just like all out of whack and it's just—

And again it's a SSA beat like— he just, there's a certain curse I find when like an artist is a producer and sometimes it's like there's a line where you don't know how to push yourself out of your own comfort zone with production. Like it's hard to know what will make you uncomfortable, right? And so I find with him like he really seems to kind of, with his own production, try to force himself to rap a little more and kind of, you know, be a little bit more not lyrical but technical, I guess, with his rapping.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Growth, man. Just over time, coming out, what, 14, 15, 16—

Started a drill.

Child star, you know, a drill child star.

Yeah.

Like from getting together with your friends and, you know, just making records just for the sake of making records to, you know— and now out in LA and watching these other guys come up and it's all like, all right, well, let me step back into it and take it a bit more serious. I've always liked to see his growth just from where he started and then to where he is now. It's just all like, hey man, hats off. Good to see.

It's sick. I think you're absolutely right. Like he's kind of become an entrepreneur. He's running— he's, you know, running brands and doing companies and like I feel like his focus shifted. I think, like you said, Terry, he's kind of tapping back in like, "Okay, no, no, no. This is— we got to be careful here. We're gonna kill drill." And I feel like—

I gotta come and save this.

I feel like with his personality, like when I— like the impression I used to get of him was that he was a bit more of a shy, introverted guy, you know, 'cause it doesn't mean that you live a certain kind of more, I guess, violent lifestyle that you're not, you know, a more introverted person. Like to me, even on his earlier albums, he always kind of sound like he had a not a smaller personality, but like he didn't want to necessarily boast, if that makes sense. And again, the last couple albums feels like— he, yeah, that's it. You know, like it just feels like he found his voice. Even the interviews, like it really— like he has that confidence of like, hey, I'm working on my music and I'm putting out something I'm proud of kind of thing.

Yeah. Taking it a bit more serious.

I also enjoyed Slide featuring G Herbo and Talking featuring Fallout. Those were two of my other favorites.

Those are fire.

But he has two songs named DOA. There's one in all caps with Mike Will on the Dirty Nachos album, DOA. And then the last song on Skeletor is DOA. And it's just him though.

I know. I was just like— I was like, I— no, DOA's on this one. What's going on?

Yeah. Little tidbit.

The last release we want to talk about this week is Juvenile with Boiling Point. The Hot Boy back in action with Birdman. It's been five years since the collab album with Birdman and of course Birdman featured all through the project. First of all, I'll just say this threw me totally off guard how good this was. This is just a strong week. I was about to say my favorite of the week, but it was a really strong week, so it's hard to say between Fetty and Ye and this. But wow, I playlisted a lot of stuff on this. Lenny Kravitz featuring Mannie Fresh, Drop the Location, You Mad produced by Swizz Beatz. So at least, you know, we got some beasts this week. WM featuring Akeem Ali, who— Akeem Ali has shown up a few times on features since we started the show and I've become a fan. This was a really fire hook he did on this. And He Gone featuring Mannie Fresh. Couple Mannie Fresh tracks and beats on here. Super strong album. I was really pleased with this.

Hot Boy Summer.

Hot Boy Summer. I can't believe that one.

I don't know if you mentioned— to me, Juvie, Beverly too. I really like the beat.

Oh yeah. There's a DJ Khaled song on there. Fuego.

Fuego. This album just made me want to like— if I won the lottery, I would buy Juvie features and just put them on all kinds of different beats 'cause this guy's flow is like impeccable. The only thing I would have wanted more on this album was more— but I mean it wasn't that kind of album, but I would have wanted to hear it with more of like the younger generation, diff— like more of like the newer, more modern kind of beats. But I mean, like that— I don't think that's what he was aiming for. Like this, for what it is, loved it.

Like Jacob said, I was surprised at how much I liked it. I was also surprised, like, how many standout beats there were because I just feel like, you know, with label budgets and everything, like I just didn't imagine that Juvenile could have like an album well crafted like this in 2026, and like he got it. It sounds good and I hope that they give him a follow-up with it. He deserves a second budget for another album. I was really really happy to hear it.

There was a Timbaland beat and I didn't even mention that one.

That's how many good songs are on this.

Like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I wanted to mention too, I feel like since BG got out of prison, kind of hoping to hear something really good with him and trying to get that kind of, you know, that sound back and to kind of see like if his sound was polished. And I found that the songs that he ended up on after coming out were— made him sound a little rough. I found on this album, every BG feature was great.

I was going to say, yeah.

Honestly, he's going to land with it.

Impeccable. Yeah, BG sounded really good.

Just saw that when he came out, like I was really looking forward for him to be put on songs that were of his style to make him kind of, you know— like when someone comes out of prison, that's what you want to do. You want to make them sound good and kind of represent them to the world. And I found that when he came out he was like hot novelty where everyone kind of wanted a feature from him for a minute, put him on a lot of like quick songs to put out, and then there was like no big follow-up. So I was really happy to just hear him on something like this that was well polished, you know, good budget, good production.

Yeah, you said that you wanted to hear him on a lot more like modern beats and thing like— I— on this album, like he definitely showed that he can, but like you were saying, that this was a joint that he made for him and his peoples and the people that love his sound, like for the fans. Yeah. Really good bounce on there. The song he had with his son. Hot of the hottest. I like Juvenile flow. Hot Boy Summer. I want to play this at a cookout. Like I want to spin these songs at the DJ set like— Juvie, 'cause Matt, you were saying, like when this came out, he's like, it's a lot of dope beats on here, man, like throughout the whole joint. And they did not disappoint. Mannie sounded good. I wish I got a Wayne feature. I don't know if there's any issue between Juvenile and Wayne. I may just be out of the loop with that, but I wish Wayne was on here, but—

I feel like they're probably like— I'm sure it's fine-ish. It's just like that is because even if you're good friends with someone, there's an invoice somewhere, right?

I'm sure. Get your money, man.

Friends in business, dude.

Yeah.

Like, like Mannie Fresh. I can understand why he would— like I can see why he got the features that he got on this. To me the only feature he probably went out of his way for was like— to kind of, I don't know if there was a paycheck or something, it was probably the Megan Thee Stallion feature. Unless like that was kind of a favor, like a verse-reverse, you know, or something like that.

Mhm.

Yeah, 'cause he did two versions of that song too, which he's got a BBB original and then—

To me that sounds like he was like, "Oh, we need to put a feature on here." Or maybe she was like, "Hey, I heard that and I want to get on it."

Well, you know what was kind of weird about that was that the original was a different female rapper who's just not nearly as popular as Megan Thee Stallion. And then it was like, we kind of really— we wanted Megan Thee Stallion, so let's get her on.

Yeah, let's get her on the remix.

That's it.

To run up the numbers. That bugs me a little just because it's like, hey, let's make sure this hits the pages, you know, like let's make sure this gets in front of everybody, which I don't love that 'cause it's just like that loses the art a little bit, but that's just me again being a hater. So I didn't think it was bad or anything like that. I just— I'm like, "Oh man, don't do that."

That happens a lot.

I was happy with how balanced everything was. Like it just really— it sounded like a well put together project.

No. Yeah. I definitely recommend people go check it out. You should definitely check out Boiling Point. It's a dope album. It's a really dope album. And not for nothing, you know, 40 year olds, 50 year olds still in hip-hop doing their thing, still sounding good. That's a dub.

Definitely check them out. It's really worth it.

Yeah. All right. That was a big week. We talked about Chief Keef with Skeletor, Fetty Wap with Xavier, Juvenile with Boiling Point, Ye with Bully, Yeet with ADL also came out this week that we did not talk about, Central Sea with All Roads Lead Home EP, Dick with Brilliance of a Falling Moon, Milo Remora with Art School EP, Flip a Tea with I Am the Program, Toby with For Good Measure at Dreamhouse Studios, that's actually a live album. Rare in hip-hop, pretty cool. Worth checking out. 54in, Still Standing. Josie with Soundtrack to Get Her Back, Nicholas F with The Undisputed, TG Tut with The Sunset of the Titan Twilight, and Young Blue with World at War. So, let's talk about what else we've been doing in music this week. For me, I mixed and mastered two tracks. One for a rapper named Street Kid Turnup and one for a rapper named Aaron Wisdom. And that's about all I did this week. What about you, Gav?

Yeah, I've been starting to work on a project with our buddy Black. So I was working on some beats for him. That's really been the extent of my focus right now is just trying to kind of put together some beat packs and see what we can come up with for that project. I'm pretty excited to be working on that.

Oh man, I can't wait to hear it.

Yeah. Yeah, it'll be fun. You can check me out at Instagram, Soundcloud, YouTube, Spotify, all prod by lunar.g. Go ahead and find me anywhere. Follow me, hit me up for beats, anything.

Awesome. What about you, Terry?

This week, production, working on beats. I actually need to rebuild my beat catalog. I've been going through and finalizing, trying to finalize a lot of stuff that I have just sitting there, like we talked about it last week, Matt, and just just in terms of creating stuff and just letting it sit there. So I've been working on trying to finalize a lot of stuff. So that's been pretty cool. And then, as always, you can check out my music, my content at Yo Terry V. And that's on Instagram, TikTok, all social.

Excellent. All right. What about you, Matt?

Yeah, for me, just— actually same like you, since last week we talked about starting hundreds of beats and not finishing them. I was specifically thinking about that conversation. I should probably go back and try to finish a couple. So that's what I've been doing, going back to beats, you know, figuring out the ones that now sound terrible. The ones like— to me the ones that I thought were terrible before now that sound great to me. Trying to pick up a little bit more, you know, of knowledge in just mixing beats overall, you know, making them kind of sound a little bit better for the beat stores. And other than that, it's been mostly gardening. A lot of— the weather is getting a little bit nicer. I'm a big plant guy, so just been kind of prepping my plants and stuff like that for the springtime. And yeah, just it was such a busy music week. Honestly, I've done a lot of just sitting there and listening to albums.

All right, cool. So, releases coming up next week. We have Marlin Craft with The Internet Killed the Neighborhood, Wiz Khalifa and Curren$y with Roofless Records for Drop Tops, Codefendants with Lifers, Juicy Jay with The Trippy Tapes Volume One, Lip Head, that's Blockhead and Elliott Lip with The Long Way. The thing I'm most excited about, Mike, Earl Sweatshirt, and Surf Gang with Pompeii Utility. And lastly, Swae Lee with The Same Difference.

I'm excited to hear how that comes out. It's been a while since I've listened to Swae Lee. So—

All right. Thank you listeners. If you haven't already, please give us a like and subscribe on YouTube. Or if you're listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, take a second to rate us five stars. You can save the F2F Spotify playlist to follow along with what we're listening to throughout the week. You can find that link in the description. To get a hold of us, you can email fridaytofridaypodcast@gmail.com. Our intro and outro music by Lunar G. Find him at prod by lunar.g on Instagram. Podcast edited by me, Jacob from Frequency Overflow. You can find me at Frequency Overflow everywhere. Join us every week to stay in tune with hip-hop releases from Friday to Friday. Peace.

Peace.

Peace.