As a music lover, one of my favorite things to do is to listen to all the new tracks my favorite artists dropped over the weekend. Recently, two highly anticipated rap albums were released by Yeat and Ye (formally known as Kanye West) respectively, and I feel like there were more lows than highs.

ADL by Yeat

Yeat became popular in 2021 with his songs “Gët Busy” and “Dub,” which were the songs that introduced me to the artist.

This new album is a lot different from his usually synth-heavy production and was brighter and clean.

As much as I wanted to like ADL, most of the songs either fell flat or were forgettable entirely. 

Some of his more recent projects have had an issue of having too many songs, and with a total of 21 tracks on this album, it didn’t allow for the music to stand out.

Not all was bad on the album, though. Yeat proved he could thrive with this new sound on “Back Home,” which also had amazing vocals from artist Joji.

Yeat always succeeds in the visual aspect of his work and is no different on this project. I love the cover for this album, and the merch he released looks great, too.

ADL is a solid 4/10, but I have hope Yeat will refine this new era in his music and come back with the great production he is known for.

Bully by Ye

Ye is one of the most controversial artists of generation, but also one of the most talented. Unfortunately, I feel like his music has been on a sharp decline since the release of Donda in 2021, and terrible through the two albums he made in collaboration with rapper Ty Dolla $ign. 

When I heard some of the previews of Bully, I was optimistic that the project was going to be great, and that Ye was done with his crazy antics and now focused on making great music.

But that wasn’t the case, and the album was delayed several times for around a year.

Ye’s music always has amazing production, so it was almost guaranteed that the instrumentals were going to hit. His use of samples brought a little bit of life into the songs, too.

The song that stood out to me the most was “Father,” which featured rapper Travis Scott. They flowed great on the gritty instrumental, and I’ve had it on repeat ever since it came out.

Just like ADL, though, a good amount of the songs were pretty boring and lacked substance.

I’m sure if Ye focused more on refining his music than trying to get into headlines, the project would have been a lot better.

While it isn’t his best work, it is certainly an improvement to his more recent discography, and I rate it a 7/10.