6.5/10
Favorite Track: "Reborn" Least Favorite Track: "FREEEE (GHOST TOWN PT. 2)
2018 was a very busy and successful year for rapper, singer, producer, Kayne West. With the year featuring a best selling single with Lil Pump, some amazing production on Pusha T’s Daytona and a self produced album in Ye, his collaboration project with Kid Cudi was much anticipated. KIDS SEE GHOSTS is the self titled, debut studio album from the American super-duo of Kid Cudi and Kayne West. The psychedelic and eerie production style is far more experimental then most of Kaynes other work. This record also pulls from a large range of genres and successfully blends together elements of pop, rap, rock, electronic, and even a little Grunge with the final track featuring a Kurt Cobain sample. The sounds off this record are very deep and multi-dimensional with a ton of interesting aspects to them, and certainly were not thrown together over a span of a few days. The attention to detail on this record is for the most part what makes it an enjoyable listen however, there are aspects that are boringly average like the sometimes apparent lack of hooks. The intro track Feel The Love, kicks off the album with this eerie and bone chilling vocal section with Kid Cudi shrieking
“I CAN STILL FEEL THE LOVE” with the phrase echoing off into oblivion. The rest of the track is padded out with a Pusha T feature and these intense and frightening sounding screams and renditions of Kayne simply yelling “YAH GRRRR”. It has the urgency and anxiousness of an up tempo marching band drum line, while simultaneously sounding like something as strange and psychedelic as the Disney land live show “Fantasmic”. The track Fire starts with another urgent sounding beat which could once again be mistaken for another marching band drum line, and some commentary by Kayne who is talking about “shit talking”. Cleverly, the commentary easily and smoothly transitions into the beginning of his verse beautifully. His delivery on the his verse off the track is cold blooded and vicious. He doesn’t say a single word, rather he spits them all with this toxic and hostile vibe that sounds great. The track eventually fades off into this artistic string section that while enjoyable, doesn’t really seem to know where it’s going. It doesn’t add any transitional value so I didn’t exactly see why it was just thrown on the back end of this track. With another very off the wall intro choice, 4th Dimension starts with a sample of all time Jazz Great Louis Prima’s 1936 Holiday tune “What Will Santa Claus Say” which explodes into some hard hitting bass yand snare which surprisingly fits the sample very well. I love the hilarious outro sample where someone is talking about making an album and says “Just do that, and then let the music do something and that’ll be enough for a record.” The next track Reborn is an emotional ballad with Cudi and Kayne accounting on their drug problems and issues with mental health. I love the cute piano in the background that provides an awfully nice contrast to the darker and more heavy bars delivered in Kaynes verse. I love his flow and passionate delivery when he spits “I was off the chain, I was off the drain, I was off the meds, I was called insane.” The courage it must take to admit to millions that you were “Off Pills and called insane” is beyond me. That particular verse got to me more than any other section on this record. The outro track Cudi Montage features yet another sample. This time it’s Kurt Cobain’s “Burn The Rain”. I love the back half of the track with the inspirational vocals from Cudi uttering “shine your light on me save me please”. Although this album is rather short it truly does have some decent tracks. That being said KIDS SEE GHOSTS does lack cohesiveness as a full length project and it’s replay value is rather minimal, but that doesn’t change the fact that at this albums best points it is for the most part enjoyable.