Whether it’s due to Ty’s own aspirations or the words of Kanye West urging him “Dolla, you too good to put your voice on that generic shit,” the message remains clear - whether it’s a music project or a whole career, have the confidence to take things to the next level. That motif carries over to solo tracks like “Return” and “serpentwithfeet Interlude,” which grapple with great expectations and preach a renewed sense of purpose, emphasized by the serenading spirituality of the vocals. This sets up the angle that the music industry needs Ty, not the other way around. “Intro” and “Status” take the leap into a more self-reflective vibe, introducing an essential theme of this album: “It's time to wake they ass up” to Ty. Perhaps counterintuitively, the album’s first two songs contain no features. The busyness of the 25 tracks and the influence of various featured artists, however, overwhelm that agenda. It’s a shame, because the project as a whole is a clear attempt by Ty to take his sound to the next level and evolve beyond the same mainstream concepts. Unfortunately, in the process of adapting to other artists’ energies, his own sound takes the backseat and his lyrical genius is given little space to shine. In his album “Featuring Ty Dolla Sign,” he furthers that impressive range and calls attention to a slew of impressive collaborations, enhancing each track with signature vocal backings catered to its featured artist. No matter what hat he’s wearing - producer, vocalist, or collaborator - Ty’s artistic genius shines. Although I will say I’m interested to see if Ty ever does drop another album similar to “Free TC”.There is no doubt that Ty Dolla $ign is as talented as they come. Even if this wasn’t necessarily what you were expecting from the album, I feel it’s still incredibly enjoyable and replayable. Ty displays his typical brand of smooth and wavy singing throughout the entire project while also reminding us of his ability to pick features, structure a project and choose dope production. Paak stan, but I think that song is the main standout, Aside from that, I also enjoyed “By Yourself” featuring Jhene and Mustard as well as “Lift Me Up” featuring Future and Young Thug. If Ty’s goal on this project was to try and place himself in the conversation of most versatile artist out right now, I feel like he succeeded.įor me, my absolute favorite track on the album is “Track 6” which features Anderson. Even the more experimental, EDM type track “Ego Death” performs well in the right environment. There aren't many, if any, bad songs on the album. Ty makes good music and is great at deciding who would sound good on what track. It feels less like a Ty Dolla $ign album and more like one of DJ Khaled’s summer compilation projects like “Major Key” or “Father of Asahd”.įor what the project is, it’s really good. This project essentially has every sound and every artist on it. Also, with albums, the main artist is typically the person you hear the majority of the time. Albums typically are concise and focused on a particular theme and sound.
The reason I can understand someone not loving this project is because it feels more like a playlist/mixtape rather than an album. You could throw this project on at a party/kickback, put it on shuffle and I don’t think anyone would be disappointed. With 25 tracks and tons of features, the album almost certainly has at least one or two tracks for everybody. The project features over 20 different artists ranging from lyricists such as Big Sean and Kanye, to wavy rappers like Roddy Rich, Quavo and Young Thug, to singers like 6LACK, Jhené Aiko and Kehlani. The way I would describe it is it seems like Ty called in every industry favor he’d been owed over the last 5 years and used them for this album. I personally enjoyed this album because I had no specific expectations coming in aside from dope music. (Joe actually came on the podcast and said he hated this album.) For people who shared Joe’s sentiment, this album may not be what they were looking for. Joe specifically has spoken about wanting to hear more music from Ty similar to his “Free TC” mixtape from 2015.
Joe, Mal, Rory and Parks have spent a lot of time over the past year excited for a new Ty project. I am an avid listener of the Joe Budden Podcast. That’s why it was only fitting that his album was titled “Featuring Ty Dolla $ign”. He's been on so many albums it’s impossible to keep count. He’s among names such as Drake and Lil Wayne when it comes to being able to make any track better once your vocals touch it.