Sure. It's about Jesus. I love it ok. Kanye wins. Whatever.

I don't think this is a bad album at all....mostly because Ye knows how to put together records no matter the topic. It's got a lot of classic Ye sounds throughout the songs to hold it together.

For a record with so much Timbaland, you can hardly tell. There's like 0 bounce to the beats....I think I'm just giving Tim props for being able to be more diverse than most producers.

Don't know how many times I'm gonna come back to it tho....I wish there was more actual rapping might be my biggest gripe. I would've loved some Common or Lecrae verses.

I really hate the last song because it seems like the beginning of an epic song....then it just turns off lol.

No Malice has the best verse on the whole thing. I'd like to petition for Ye to produce a whole record for him....since most of the No Malice solo work has had wack beats.

>For a record with so much Timbaland, you can hardly tell.
>There's like 0 bounce to the beats....I think I'm just giving
>Tim props for being able to be more diverse than most
>producers.
i was surprised to see so much timbo in the credits.

>No Malice has the best verse on the whole thing. I'd like to
>petition for Ye to produce a whole record for him....since
>most of the No Malice solo work has had wack beats.
i would be very down for this

Some interesting musical moments - if I listen much further, it will be for the music. Very few memorable lyrics of note (and many terrible ones).

I have a high tolerance for a lot of gospel and actually enjoy a fair amount... so that's not an issue for me. But when you start citing scripture references (not even just quoting a verse) -- I don't know, it starts to feel silly. The whole thing felt pretty scattered and not in a good way.

But if I have a high gospel tolerance, at this point I have a pretty low Kanye tolerance --- this might get a few more spins from me but that's it. Too much other quality out there right now for me to care and it's hard for me to buy in to one of his moments when it seems so manufactured, like, "Here world, this is my gospel album and we're all gonna wear white robes and stop swearing..."

(Had secret hopes this might be a Dylan/Slow Train Coming moment, but no such luck...)

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

there's other great, complete, music that dropped today (see: Xavier Omar & Sango - Moments Spent Loving You) that this isn't even worth a second listen

album sounds like a bunch of demos and not in an intentional way

Consequence tweeted this morning that the album was delayed last night and that he skipped dinner to make sure the mastering process was completed.. that kind of made me laugh because skipping dinner isn't really that big of a deal to me LOL. but i really hope he got to eat a nice breakfast sandwich this morning..

what would you recommend

just lookin for a recommendation

madgibbs
larry june
LNDN DRGS
Griselda's stuff
Danny Brown
SIR
Knxwledge
Skyzoo/Pete Rock
Big Krit
Brockhampton
Robert Glasper
Britanny Howard
Jamila Woods
Tuxedo 3
Raphael Saadiq
Pond
Khruangbin
Alfa mist
Benny Sings
Makaya Mccraven
Durand Jones & the indications

>what would you recommend

Statue of Limitations
new Gallant (haven’t heard it all)
Griselda Ghost

Just off the top of my head in seconds

Xavier Omar & Sango - Moments Spent Loving You
Teebs - Annica
Gallant - Sweet Insomnia
AJ Tracey - AJ Tracey (Deluxe)

Definitely better than everything he has done post My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy. Easily.

>Definitely better than everything he has done post My
>Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy. Easily.

Not counting production for others, that includes:

Solo:
Yeezus (2013)
The Life of Pablo (2016)
Ye (2018)

Collaborative albums

Watch the Throne (with Jay-Z) (2011)
Kids See Ghosts (with Kid Cudi as Kids See Ghosts) (2018)

Plus all the Cruel Summer/GOOD Music stuff (if we throw that in the mix).

I'm no stan but at the very minimum:
- Despite Yeezus's divisiveness and lyrical sloppiness/cringe, it's musically engaging throughout most of the record
- Life of Pablo has really grown on me (surprisingly) - copy+paste my above comment re: Yeezus here. I might like it more as a record than Yeezus.
- Watch the Throne wasn't a masterpiece but had a lot of high points (to me) and is more enjoyable to me today than I remember it being when it was first released - again, musically interesting if not always lyrically on point.

Haven't heard Ye or Kids See Ghosts...

Went back and gave JIK one more listen this weekend - it's not just lyrically boring, it's mostly musically boring. For a record about being reborn or finding new reason to live, the music here feels totally drained of any real energy or vibrancy.

That to me is the surprising thing and the bigger sin - because if you've been listening to any of the Sunday Service stuff that's been floating around, it's been way more interesting than what he put on JIK: the record is just plain flat musically, and combined with pretty awful lyrics it's absolutely forgettable. It's kind of like what Chance just did with Big Day - another record where high expectations were met with way too many tracks that were just plain boring - except on steroids. Chance's record at least had a good handful of tracks that are solid. The best tracks on JIK are still incredibly weak.

It's too bad - maybe he'll revisit the project for a part II and surprise us.

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

I really think people have a problem with anything unapologetically positive. It's so predictable and consistent I'm sick of arguing about it. Had the same conversation around logic with 'Everybody' same conversation around 'The Big Day' now the same conversation around 'Jesus Is King'.

Positivity and jesus talk might turn off some, but to suggest that anyone who dislikes the album is coming from that space is way reaching, especially on a music board with a lot of folks that are capable of at separating content and art (to the extent that they can be, which, of course, has limits).

A more thorough (but concise) version of my argument/perspective is: Over the last decade, Kanye's rhymes have generally gotten lazier and lazier (regardless of subject matter), but his production has remained at the very least interesting and often still exceptional. On JIK, however, the rhymes are as lazy as they get and the content is one-dimensional (you can do jesus and/or positivity and still give your words plenty of depth). As someone who grew up in the church and still listens to gospel on the regular, I find the number of religious cliches that are jammed into each track here simply artless, and the actual rhyme schemes and delivery are relentlessly repetitive and uninteresting. The real problem, for me, is that the music is seriously lacking --- even the best production feels like demos or throwaways. It's sad that the most interesting musical moment is probably the album intro, and that virtually every guest verse is more interesting than anything Ye himself utters here. So where music saved past albums, it fails here.

I will say that Kanye's absurdity as a character - his ego and delusions of grandeur, his self-conscious attempts to style himself as a cultural revolutionary/visionary, which he won't let up on even on his "gospel" album! - make it harder than with others to take the lyrics of Jesus is King seriously. Chance's sincerity always feels, well, sincere, and that goes along way toward making even his cheesiest musical and lyrical moments at least interesting. His record was less marred by utter flatness than by overthinking: it was bloated, a lot of the tracks were way overproduced (that's how you get a totally unnecessary Randy Newman cameo, even if I love Randy Newman), and it didn't help that a good number of the rhymes felt phoned in or formulaic - it just wasn't a very good performance, especially coming off an exceptional run. At the end of the day, some editing could easily have taken Big Day from middling (at best) to pretty good (at worst). JIK couldn't be saved by an editor... there's nothing to save.

Also, if you're gonna have a fred hammond feature --- have a real fred hammond feature!!! That probably would have raised the whole album a star, at least - who doesn't like fred hammond? Instead we get a Kenny G feature that surprisingly isn't all that bad but doesn't help the general feeling that we're being trolled hard... (although I'll take the Kenny G feature over just about any of the verses Kanye himself put down here...)

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

... records have been very dope, *especially* Coloring Book which is probably, at this point, an all-time favorite of mine.

But I will say that generally, music that is overly positive tends to be less interesting because the sense of urgency isn't there, for lack of a better way to put it.

This is especially true in hip-hop where, for example, many of the artists we grew up with in the 90s came from nothing, were raised in the era of Reaganomics, they were broke, they were hungry -- and it showed in those first couple of albums.

Once they made some money and the sense of urgency and chip on their shoulders were gone the music became a little less interesting.

But again I see what you're saying for sure, and agree in theory that "positivity" shouldn't be immediately dismissed, in a vacuum. Just saying the results usually bear out that albums with more quote unquote "negatvity" are just more interesting on balance.


>I really think people have a problem with anything
>unapologetically positive. It's so predictable and consistent
>I'm sick of arguing about it. Had the same conversation around
>logic with 'Everybody' same conversation around 'The Big Day'
>now the same conversation around 'Jesus Is King'.

And I would put it over that if I'm giving points for subject matter.

The one on here sounds like a bad do over. I'm not going to hate on the whole album, but someone else nailed it when they said these sound like demos. I'm still playing the Yahndi fake leak with New Body on it. He should of perfected those songs & put that stuff out officially..

Everyone would be all over this album.

....not enough to overlook wack rhymes and doo doo beats

I think you are spot on about how interchangeable Jesus is to a drug on this album but that's the reason why I think it's a shitty gospel album.

I've always dislike Church or Gospel Music where the main point is "God is Great".

Like I hear Kanye's album and I keep wondering, well why do you think Jesus is King? What does that mean for you? How does that changed his life, and how you treat people?

I think the reason Kanye is so into Jesus right now is that he feels persecuted like Jesus and it's just a matter of time before dude starts talking alot about how he is the second coming.



**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

Big Boy asked him why he named the album Jesus is King. Ye said.....cuz Jesus is king.

I actually like Water although I'd prefer an instrumental/chorus-only version...

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

n/m

Also, it doesn't' overstay it's welcome.

I suggest you guys give this one more spin. Seems like it was written off by many people, but this is his best work in a long time.

Anyway, It's working for me.

So you just gon' walk without me? You tried it. The snares don't even smack on this jawn! (c) Jesus

Having heard quite a few Gospel Hip-Hop albums by good to great lyricists, this wouldn't even crack the Top 25. I even looked past the "Chik-Fil-A" cringe type moment to give it an honest listen. Unimpressed and I was a Kanye fan from jump.