Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign Surprise-Release New Album ‘Vultures 2’

Steven J. Horowitz and Jem Aswad
·4 min read

After months of keeping fans waiting, Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign surprise-released their new album “Vultures 2” on DSPs, hours after dropping the song “Slide” on yeezy.com and then live-streaming the project on YouTube.

While full credits for the album had not been posted on streaming services as of Sunday afternoon (Aug. 4), according to Genius.com, other online sources and a close listen to the album, collaborators appear to include LIl Wayne (on “Lifestyle”); Don Toliver, Kodak Black and Playboi Carti (“Field Trip”); Future (“Promotion” and “Dead,” the latter also with Lil Durk); Lil Baby (“Forever Rolling”); 070 Shake, CyHi & Desiigner); Charlie Wilson, Young Thug and the Inter Milan Ultras (“River”); James Blake and Fred Again (“Maybe” and “Slide”); and Big TC with, curiously, veteran rocker Todd Rundgren on the closing cut, “My Soul,” although the latter’s contribution is unclear.

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Several of the songs on “the album “Vultures 2” appeared on shortlists for other West albums or were played publicly at advance listening events, such as “Donda 2” and even the unreleased 2018 set “Yandhi,” so it’s unclear whether some of the collaborations were recorded before or after West’s highly divisive antisemitic comments, which began publicly in October of 2022.

Interpolations of Leon Bridges’ “River” and the Five Stairsteps’ 1970 hit “Ooh Child” also appear on the album. A rep for Bridges told Variety on Saturday that the use of his song had not been cleared; a rep for the publisher of “Ooh Child” did not immediately confirm whether permission for the use had been granted.

The album also apparently features a straight sample of the beat from Portishead’s 2008 song “Machine Gun” on “Field Trip.” Portishead’s duo’s Geoff Barrow posted a clip of the song on X, writing, “FFS. Not again,” apparently referencing the Weeknd’s allegedly uncleared sample of the beat on the song on his “Belong to the World” some 10 years ago.

West interpolated Donna Summer’s hit “I Feel Love” on “Vultures 1” without clearing the use earlier this year and was sued by the late singer’s estate; the song was subsequently removed from major streaming services.

Last week, West’s website stated that the album, which was first announced in January and has missed several scheduled release dates (like most of his recent projects), would finally be publicly available Friday. But after fans and media took notice, the release date was swiftly removed from the site, leading the Internet to speculate that the waiting game would continue. While most albums are released at 9 p.m. PT on Thursdays, that hour passed last week without “Vultures 2” — but instead it arrived 24 hours later.

Many of the songs were previewed over the past few months or even years. “Slide,” which was the only song made available across DSPs at first, was first teased in September 2023 during a West and Ty listening session at Le Baroque in Geneva, Switzerland, and was then played by Fred Again at his Shrine Expo Hall shows in Los Angeles two months later. “This is madness for me, I made this with my brother Ty a few months ago,” said Fred at the time.

The song was once again performed in December 2023 at the Vultures Rave in Miami, and a few months later a tracklist on North West’s shirt suggested that James Blake was featured on the track. It’s unclear who made the final version of the song.

It’s been a long road to “Vultures 2,” as West first announced that it would be the second in a trilogy of albums back in January. “Vultures 1” was released on Feb. 10, while the second installment was scheduled for March 8. That came and went, and after several track teases on social media, a May 3 release was teased. But that too came and went, and the scheduling and subsequent cancellation of listening events across the world threw water on any optimism that “Vultures 2” would see the light of day.

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