rolling donda thread

his production has gotten so boring

synth pad synth pad synth pad synth pad kick snare patter *lion king ass grandiose singing for like 3-4 minutes* *a rap finally*

like jfc you don't have to repeat every fucking singing line like 27 times before you move on to the next part

this shit is not live to me at all, it's the opposite of everything i value in hip hop

been listening in fits and starts. the pop smoke moment is completely embarrassing. he didn't even bother trying to mix it into the rest of the song. it was clearly a voice note from pop's phone, complete with background noise and a very tinny drill beat that completely clashes with the main instrumental. the verse itself probably never should've seen the light of day, but of course v*ctor and co. will never turn down a check.

hell, i would take TMBG 88-98 over Kanye 04-14

TMBG 04-14 even :)

Of course you'd say that.

xxp this is why I find it odd that it's just taken as a given that "Kanye is the best hip-hop producer of all time". what exactly does "producer" mean in that context? because from a technical perspective, even back on MBDTF, it seems clear sometimes that he's doing things in a really clumsy way, just time-stretching stuff and leaving everything brickwalled so it sounds the same on $5 headphones as it would on a big setup. if they're talking about the sounds he uses and how he combines certain things, that I get, but is that "production"?

the overblown, wall of sound of mbdtf was an artistic choice, like it or not.

producer in hip-hop generally means "person who creates the instrumental backing track"

Genuine question: is he considered the greatest producer in hip-hop?

Genuine question: is he considered the greatest producer in hip-hop?

By idiots, sure.

Sorely missing an interpolation of this track at the end of the album as a quasi-callback to "Fade"/Pablo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUlRx5IU1dM

^that on repeat for 1h 48 mins >>>>>>>>>>> this album

kanye sucks but not nearly to the degree that i'm not still going to listen to anything new he puts out out of morbid curiosity, or delete his back catalogue from my library, etc

the only thing this album has over pablo is it doesn't have the real wtf misogynist lyrical moments that pablo did, which were some of his worst (or maybe it does and i didn't pay enough attention, that's possible, but either way they're not the same jarring presence). nothing on this comes close to the best stuff on pablo - "ultralight beam", "30 hours", "fade", "highlights", "no more parties in la", etc. and i don't really rate pablo much at all

Genuine question: is he considered the greatest producer in hip-hop?

By idiots, sure.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, August 30, 2021 3:31 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i don't deal in this kind of hyperbole but i think the guy that produced "drive slow" was/is very good at what he does

it’s not worth engaging the trolls who come out and say he was “never good” or whatever

Two points before I leave this thread:

1. Kanye was definitely great once upon a time, he got lost in the way and he’s a fucking burned out asshole nowadays, but he was a great producer and an artist with a vision a decade ago.

2. I only listened once to this album albeit skipping pretty much half of the tracks after a minute. I don’t want to support him but got morbid. Immediatly regret it as I don’t want to be involved in most of the conversations in here or other forums regarding this album. People have been in heavy denial because they think the old kanye is still somewhere in there. I think this is the final nail in the coffin for me.

godspeed

been listening in fits and starts. the pop smoke moment is completely embarrassing. he didn't even bother trying to mix it into the rest of the song. it was clearly a voice note from pop's phone, complete with background noise and a very tinny drill beat that completely clashes with the main instrumental. the verse itself probably never should've seen the light of day, but of course v*ctor and co. will never turn down a check.

there's a more complete though still pointless & embarrassing version on the posthumous pop smoke album this year which only makes the one on this album seem even more confusing

even though it's basically panning it the p4k review comes across as way too generous to this lol

it got interesting for a bit when you focused on style, fashion, stadium events etc., but once manson & co hit the stage - turned out there's hardly any substance

You’ll notice: P4K FINALLY rated him below a 7.0.

this is why I find it odd that it's just taken as a given that "Kanye is the best hip-hop producer of all time".

i don't even think he's top 10

lol I forgot they gave Jesus is King a 7.2, what a joke

no fan but Donda is better than JiK

I actually like jesus is king more than this, i think. People were understandably turned off by the MAGA stuff when that dropped, which led people to say, insanely, that it was worse than ye.

synth pad synth pad synth pad synth pad kick snare patter *lion king ass grandiose singing for like 3-4 minutes* *a rap finally*

You can dismissively describe anything that way though.

People were understandably turned off by the MAGA stuff when that dropped

MAGA, Jesus, bad couture, Musk-like behaviour...take your pick

His production work for Pusha and Nas in recent years has been great and has also made it hard to resist not listening to any of his albums since Pablo but somehow I'm managing

He found a way out of the materialism+misogyny that was so constant (the “meet me in the bathroom stall” verse of even one of his best songs). That’s the stuff I could never get past with him. The lack of status symbols and negging on the last two albums have kept them from having those lowest low points (sweet and sour, bleached asshole, etc.).

You can dismissively describe anything that way though.

― treeship., Tuesday, August 31, 2021 9:30 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

No you can't

U Pussy. U really wore that trump hat too. You did a-lot of corny shit in ur career and got a pass. Bitch ass nigga apologize to Taylor swift @kanyewest

— Soulja Boy (Draco) (@souljaboy) August 31, 2021

ye is just kinda boring but it's still more listenable than the two since

just toning down the misogyny from his very worst moments and adding in a bunch of inane even by his standards religious stuff isn't really much of an improvement

& the music itself has really declined too of course

haven’t listened to this yet but life of pablo is awesome, i didnt realize there we’re ppl who dont like it

iirc pablo did not appreciate having his life aired out like that

i pretty much loved life of pablo, dumb lyrics and all

I love pablo.

That’s just the waaaaave.

i always forget that ilm doesn’t like any kanye after graduation/808s. weird

pablo is like 2/3rds decent but has some of his worst lyrics and the sequencing is dreadful, a real incoherent mess. was really the beginning of the end

mbdtf is overrated elsewhere but still good, just really could have used an editor, some very bloated track lengths

yeezus is a classic

i tried to resequence tlop into something good again recently and there's just no way to make it work at all idk

lol i think the sequencing of pablo (at least before it falls off the rails post “wolves”) is really kinetic and great, each song flows into the other, sets up a rise and fall of anticipation where i can’t really imagine say “famous” without “feedback” following

Yeezus and Pablo are my faves, easily.

I couldn't get into Kanye until Yeezus and that one hit me like a ton of bricks. It brought his prior work into focus for me and Pablo had a similarly loose production style that I liked. I'm done with him though. I was curious if he would move past the Trump shit and own up to mistakes (silly, I know), but instead he brings more shit-bags to the party. Pure troll.

I bought Late Registration when it came out and could not understand what the big deal was. The hype around Graduation convinced me to try that one... nope. Sold both of them back. I listened to Yeezus nonstop for a long time. It might be the last big major current superstar thing that felt Important to me.

sequencing of Pablo is fine to me. maybe im just used to it

Pablo is pretty uneven imo. Def some filler, was tired of panda -2 months before pablo came out, got super tired of BEAUTIFUL MORNING bc the bar I was going to for awhile kept playing it & draining it of its magic. Idk I think it’s got good parts but. Chance convincing him to keep “Waves” on it for example. What the hell

Some heaters tho for sure in that era. “Real friends” especially. “Fade” of course. No more parties in LA. Was the lil pump song this cycle?

"waves" was extremely half-baked yeah, there were some ideas there but they weren't developed enough at all. other real duds: "freestyle 4", "fml", "facts", "low lights"

"father stretch my hands" and "famous" also kanye at his most obnoxious. "father stretch my hands" kinda emblematic of the album as a whole - there's a ton of ideas thrown together & while some of it is inspired the execution is pretty rough

"i love it" (the lil pump song) was ye-era

says a lot that the discussion in this thread is currently focused on anything but the topic

i revisited mbdtf today. “so appalled” is like a tour through the worst rap verses of all time + an ok pusha verse

idk how ppl can make it through that and “hell of a life” and think “wow what a masterpiece”

says a lot that the discussion in this thread is currently focused on anything but the topic

― octobeard, Wednesday, September 1, 2021 12:31 AM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

album is radioactive