In their first collaboration project, Kid Cudi, and Kanye West come together to create the psychedelic, Hip-Hop album, KIDS SEE GHOSTS, attached to a string of releases led by, Kanye West himself, alongside ye, NASIR, and, DAYTONA. Starting with an eloquent album cover, made by Takashi Murakami, while colorful, vibrant, and elegant, is still very minimal, and has a lot of empty space in the foreground- a theme that foreshadows the way this album was constructed.

 

The greatest surprise, other than the fact that Kanye has been able to keep his promise of releasing his albums on the date that they were initially announced, is the chemistry of Kanye West and Kid Cudi. While, this shouldn’t be a surprise thanks to songs like, “Make Her Say” off Man on the Moon, or “Gorgeous” off MBDTF, it’s still polarizing as a listener to hear how easily Cudi and Kanye can intertwine their musicianship. Whether it’s how audibly pleasing both of their rapping voices, or their ability to transition seamlessly from spitting bars, and harmonizing, they show time after time that their chemistry is not to be questioned.

 

They start off the album with “Feel the Love”, featuring Pusha T, and to nobody’s surprise it’s littered with echoey, bass-heavy production, and Kid Cudi on the hook. This track does exactly what it’s supposed to as an introductory track, but as you listen to the rest of the album, you start to feel like every track is an intro. “Fire”, stands out this album as one of the more exciting tracks, accompanied by sleigh bells, a violin, and Kid Cudi’s humming, it’s impossible to not love a track that satisfies melodically all throughout, till the very end with the guitar outro. With, “4th Dimension”, sampling “What Will Santa Claus Say”, by Louis Prima, from the intro and that hard transition into drums, then some strange goblin-like cackling, and vocal samples that continue throughout, this song stands out as a highlight in this album.

 

This is where things begin to go downhill, after a couple of promising tracks with, “Fire”, and “4th Dimension”, things become a bit repetitive. If “Freeee” were the only track where you had to hear the same hook for five minutes, it’d be passable, but this theme repeats in “Reborn”, and “Kids See Ghosts”. For example, just as Kanye has his verse, it feels like the track is gaining traction, and there will finally be some introspective, and deeper verses, but it's cut short by Kid Cudi singing, "I'm so-I'm so reborn,I'm movin' forward//Keep movin' forward, keep movin' forward", for the rest of the song. This isn’t to say the songs are low quality or even disliked, but in a seven track project, these three songs accumulate enough lyrics to make up one real track. Luckily, “Cudi Montage” is what gives this album redemption, and this is the sort of interpersonal, and deep track that was much needed for such an empty project. From Cudi touching on his depression, and his recovery saying, “If I'm goin' alone, I've been gone for so long//Ain't nobody, you can't hear a word//Perched in the night, lookin’ out nowhere//Where's home? I done hit a nerve//Pain in my eyes, everytime I find, I'm stronger than I ever was.” To Kanye following it up with his own opinions on gun control, and pacifism, “Everybody want world peace//'Til your niece get shot in the dome-piece//Then you go and buy your own piece//Hopin' it'll help you find your own peace.” These are lines that encapsulate more raw, genuine emotion than any other track presented prior, and as enjoyable as a Kanye ad lib is, or a Kid Cudi hum, it becomes monotonous. And kind of act as a splash of water to wake up just in case you took a nap when you heard Kid Cudi repeat the hook for the 100th time.

 

The final verdict of this project, is that there was a lot of hype leading up to this release, and Cudi breaking his two-year hiatus, and while Kanye and Kid Cudi played to their strengths, there wasn’t much experimentation or risk outside of that. The best way to describe KIDS SEE GHOSTS is seven, fairly good interludes; it’s a project packed with beautiful production and infectious melodies but relies too heavily on those traits, and without the utilization of lyricism, or delving into a theme, or finding a way to not make every track feel so damn repetitive and carry it's own individuality, causes KIDS SEE GHOSTS to be a ghost of a solid project, pun intended. So, in a nutshell, this album is energetic, psychedelic, and comes with spacey production, but its greatest shortcoming is feeling like too much of a canvas that was left blank. While so much is done right, it’s downfall is feeling incomplete. As a listener, the only request is simply wanting more from the duo, and that’s nothing to be upset over.