Ye Says He Invented ‘Every Style of Music of the Past 20 Years’
Ye and Ty Dolla $ign sat down with Big Boy to talk all things Vultures for an exclusive interview. They touched on a variety of topics, ranging from the duos chemistry, Ye trying to convince Ty Dolla to make a “clean” album with no profanity, how their No. 1 song “Carnival” came about, and family. But the clip that stood out was the one in which Ye claimed he “invented every style of music of the past 20 years,” essentially saying he birthed the careers of The Weeknd, Drake, Future, and Young Thug.
“I done invented every style of music of the past 20 years, I created this genre. I created Weeknd’s genre, Trav, Drake…I’m gonna go ‘head and say it, with all love, Future and Thug also, because of the autotune album if you think about it,” Ye said to Big Boy.”
Now, that is certainly an interesting take. Some may agree while others would be right to bring up T-Pain when it comes the question of who popularized autotune. We all know those two have a rocky history, so maybe it’s not all that surprising Ye would conveniently forget to mention the influential Florida artist.
It’s also interesting that Ye did not give Kid Cudi the credit many believe he deserves for ushering in a new style of melodic hip-hop. After all, it’s well known that Cudi heavily influenced Ye’s 2008 album 808s & Heartbreak. That’s the “autotune album” he’s referring to in the interview. It’s also the album many believe paved the way for an artist like Drake to flourish.
Elsewhere in the interview, Ye explained that the reason he decided to go on this album run with Ty is due to the fact that Ty stood by him when “a million people told him to not stand beside me.” He also compared the singer/songwriter to another longtime collaborator, producer Mike Dean, saying, “you can give him something, even just like a murmur or something, and he could bring it back with the words; he can fix all the notes on it; he can bring the drums, the music.”
Also interesting is the origin of the Vultures duo. Ty said the idea for the group and the album originated when the two met up in a studio while in Japan. He asked Ye if he would executive produce his next album and Ye agreed. The first song they made after that was the Band of Thieves-sampling “Burn” which lead them to say “f**k it, let’s just do a whole [album]!”
Released on February 10 after months of false starts and delays, Vultures 1 debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 200 albums chart. The album’s third single, “Carnival,” featuring Rich the Kid and Playboi Carti recently hit number one on the Hot 100 chart, marking Ye’s fifth chart topper and Ty’s second.
The full sitdown with the legendary Big Boy clocks in at around an hour and 20 minutes. You can watch the entire thing below.
Angel Diaz
Billboard
