Kanye West & Kid Cudi - Kids See Ghosts

The Guardian 80

One week on from the underwhelming, muddled solo album Ye, West is newly galvanised by Cudi’s stoner wisdom

Christian scripture teaches that on the seventh day, God looked over the world, nodded to himself in satisfaction and settled down for a hard-earned rest. But seven days after unveiling his own imperfect creation, self-proclaimed god Kanye West has had no time for slumber. Kids See Ghosts, West’s joint project with Kid Cudi, has arrived just one week on from his polarising, half-baked eighth solo album Ye – the worst record in his previously unimpeachable catalogue.

Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock to have his liver pecked out. Kali trampled Shiva while wearing a skirt of human arms and severed heads. Now here comes West, whose rollout of Ye was punctured by his courting of America’s grim forces and offensive commentary on the history of slavery. The controversies that eternally follow West had always dissolved when it came to music-making – the component of his legacy that will endure long after the reality TV shows are pulled from the air and the pageantry around him turns to dust – but Ye suggested that even the music had lost its godlike vision and reach.

Pitchfork 76

The psychic bond between Kanye and Kid Cudi yields a spacious and melancholy album about brokenness—thoughts are fragmented, relationships are ended, and societal ties are cut.