The Current GOATs of Hip-Hop

Tyler, Kendrick, and Ye are on top

Hip-Hop is a very contested genre of music and always has been, however in the modern day I believe there are 3 main artists that are making classic albums and innovating with new ideas that are pushing past the stereotype of what these “rappers” are able to do.

Tyler The Creator

Tyler Gregory Okonma would be born on March 6th, 1991 in Hawthorne California. From a young age Tyler felt like a social outcast never fitting in with the other kids. However that wouldn't stop him from pursuing his dreams in music.

At the age of 15, Tyler The Creator would create a Youtube channel named bloxhead and it would serve as the first piece of media we would receive. This youtube channel would have videos of him rapping with his friends and classic videos such as “Jesus Eats Jello With Obama''. Nothing would really come from this youtube channel. 

Tyler the Creator and his friends would form the rap group/magazine/clothing brand Odd Future in 2007. Odd Future would release “The Odd Future Tape” in 2008 which was a group album with songs from all group members. Iit wasn't the greatest project, it had lots of sloppy rough production, as the whole album was recorded on fellow Odd Future member Travis Bennett’s (also known as Yung Taco) laptop, nothing had really come from this initial project. However, 2009 would be Tyler's big break. 

In 2009 Tyler would release his mixtape “Bastard” a fully self produced mixtape which would be a continuing trend as he produces all his music. This project would gain lots of attention for its rebellious and dark themes but this would all be leading up to the mass amount of attention Tyler The Creator would get for his debut album “Goblin”.

Tyler The Creator would release his album “Goblin” in 2011 and for the most part it wasn't very special artistically, he did win MTV’s best new artist award, and it still appealed to teenagers with its rebellious lyrics and marketing. This album and Odd Future got extremely popular very fast by using the internet to make funny videos and this marketing worked extremely well. Tyler The Creator would later end up getting a spot on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon where Tyler The Creator would perform the song “Sandwiches'', which surprised the audience with the “foul” language and this brought even more attention to the entirety of Odd Future. Goblin Debuted at number 5 on the Billboard 200 and wouldn't receive a Grammy nomination.

Tyler The Creator and Odd Future would go on to do many things such as having their own TV show on Adult Swim called “Loiter Squad” where he and his friends would perform lots of funny skits. Odd Future would also start its clothing brand along with Tyler The Creator's own clothing brand called Golf Wang. Tyler The Creator would go on to release five other albums. Tyler The Creator would go on to release the album “Wolf '' in 2013 where he would expand his musical talent as in this album the production was extremely good and he was telling a very interesting story showing the world his creative abilities. “Wolf '' would debut at number 3 on the billboard 200 and wouldn't receive a grammy nomination.

After “Wolf” Tyler The Creator would release his experimental album “Cherry Bomb '' with heavy inspiration from the album “Yeezus” from YE. “Cherry Bomb” would receive very mixed reviews with some loving the new experimental sounds and with some hating this new sound. This album had moved from more typical punk rap to jazz rap, rock, melodic rap, and lots of other sub-genres, however this was all leading up to his next studio album “Flower Boy ''. “Cherry Bomb” would debut at number 4 on the Billboard 200 and wouldn't receive a Grammy Nomination. 

 “Flower Boy” would show great success with its more melodic sounds and with the topics of the album. “Flower Boy” was the project where Tyler The Creator opened up about his sexuality, shocking everyone with the announcement that he was bi-sexual. This had shocked lots of people and the album would have lots of success however the album would lose the grammy to Kendrick Lamar's “DAMN.” “Flower Boy” would chart at number 2 on the Billboard 200 and would be nominated for Best Rap Album . Around this time Tyler The Creator would also go on to start his designer brand Golf Le Fleur

Following “Flower Boy”, Tyler The Creator would release “IGOR” which to date is his most critically acclaimed album. “IGOR” isn't really a rap album but has more of a pop neo soul style. “IGOR” is an album about him falling in love with a guy who is already in another relationship and this story is told through every track in the album. This album is widely considered to be amazing and would go on to win the Grammy for the urban category. However Tyler The Creator felt as thought this was a backhanded compliment as he felt he should have been placed in the pop category as it was a pop album saying “It sucks that whenever we — and I mean guys that look like me — do anything that’s genre-bending or that’s anything they always put it in a rap or urban category. I don’t like that ‘urban’ word — it’s just a politically correct way to say the n-word to me,”. “IGOR” would debut at number 1 on the Billboard 200 and would win the Best Urban Album Award.

 Tyler The Creator would receive lots of comments from people saying he wasn't a rapper anymore so he would go on to release “Call Me If You Get Lost”. “Call Me If You Get Lost” was Tyler The Creator returning to his rap roots, still telling a story that was very similar to “IGOR’s” story as it also has lots of storytelling of him falling in love. This album is still very creative, however lots of his fans consider “Call Me If You Get Lost” to be the least creative and don't mean to downplay it but compared to other albums it does feel more uninspired. Tyler The Creator has gone on to work on his designer brand Golf Le Fleur and to design a collection for Louis Vuitton.

 Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar Duckworth was born on June 17th, 1987 in Compton California where he would be surrounded by crime seeing his first murder when he was 5 years old outside his apartment. At a young age Kendrick Lamar would become interested in poetry writing it day in and day out showing his lyrical skills at a young age.

When Kendrick Lamar went into Highschool he began getting involved in the gang life of Compton at a time where the crime rate was at its all time high. For example a total of 3,143 total violent crimes per 100,000 residents were committed in 1990. In comparison Los Angeles had 924 violent crimes per 100,000 residence in the same year. During high school Kendrick Lamar would begin rapping taking most of his inspiration from Tupac releasing his first mixtape “HUB-CITY THREAT MINOR OF THE YEAR” under the name K-DOT. Kendrick Lamar's friend, Dave Free, who was the co-president of the record label Top Dawg Entertainment pushed Kendrick to show the album to Anthony Tiffith also known as Top Dawg who was the president and founder of Top Dawg Entertainment. However Top Dawg wasn't interested in a mixtape made by a 16 year old. Top Dawg wouldn't even give the mixtape a chance to the point where Kendrick had posed as a computer repairman trying to fix Top Dawgs laptop while playing his mixtape in the background and this had worked as Top Dawg was instantly impressed by the rapping skills Kendrick Lamar had. Kendrick would go on to release 6 other mixtapes and it had seemed like Kendrick Lamar had finally made it, however the real success would be soon to come. 

Kendrick Lamar would release his first full length LP “Section 80” under the name Kendrick Lamar. In this LP, Kendrick Lamar talks about the life of living in Compton. This album achieved lots of success, but most people don't consider it to be anywhere near as good as his future projects and typically is left out of conversations talking about the albums he has made. “Section 80” would release On July, 2nd, 2011 and would debut at number 113 on the Billboard 200 and wouldn’t receive a Grammy nomination.

Kendrick Lamar would go on to release the album “Good Kid M.A.A.D City''. “Good Kid M.A.A.D City" is considered to be an amazing album where Kendrick Lamar tells his story of growing up in Compton and the storytelling is through the skits and lyrics and you have to piece it together to understand the story. This album talks about lots of drug use, alcoholism, murder, burglary, religion, fraud, lust, and the duality of man. In short the story is about Kendrick Lamar going from a life of crime to accepting God but that short explanation down plays the album you need to listen to. has some of the best storytelling in rap and this is a trend that would continue with Kendrick Lamar's future albums. “Good Kid M.A.A.D City'' would release on October 22, 2012 and would debut at number 2 on the Billboard 200 as well as being nominated for Album of the Year, Best Rap Album, Best Rap/Sung Performance with the song “Now or Never”, and Best Rap Performance for the song “Swimming Pool”

Kendrick Lammar would go on to release the album “To Pimp a Butterfly ''. “To Pimp a Butterfly” is widely considered to be one of the greatest if not greatest Hip-Hop albums ever made. “To Pimp a Butterfly'' is a very political album that discusses topics of the black community being held down by the government, religion, corruption, greed, and lots of other topics. There are songs like “How Much a Dollar Costs'' which Kendrick Lamar tells a story where he is in South Africa when a homeless person asks for one dollar and Kendrick Lamar says no and a small confrontation begins and at the end the homeless man tells Kendrick Lamar that he has lost his spot in heaven for his greed and that he is god, this is a very strong idea to think about as most people will do nothing for charity and if it's really worth it to not even give away a dollar. Again this is an album that needs to be fully listened to as not only are the songs amazing but the stories and topics they talk about show the perspective of living as a minority in the USA. “To Pimp a Butterfly'' would release March 15th, 2015 and would debut at number 1 on the Billboard 200 and would win Grammy for Best Rap Album, Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance for “Alright”, and Best Rap/Sung Performance for the song “These Walls”, as well as being nominated for Song of the Year and Best Music Video for “Alright”, and he was also nominated for Album of the Year.

After “To Pimp a Butterfly", Kendrick Lamar would release a compilation album called "Untitled Unmastered” on March 4th, 2016 which were all the demos and cut songs for “To Pimp a Butterfly”. There isn't really much to discuss about this album, don't get me wrong the songs on it are amazing but again it's just demos and cut songs and with some songs you can tell why they got cut. “Untitled Unmastered '' would release on March 4th, 2016 and would debut at number 1 on Billboard 200.  

Kendrick Lamar would go on to release “DAMN.” .“DAMN.” has some of the best storytelling, songs, and lyrics. In the song “DNA” Kendrick Lamar lists 23 things in his DNA such as loyalty, poison, pain, etc what makes this lyric so clever is because humans have 23 chromosomes formed DNA, the thought that goes in to lyrics like this is crazy and I have no idea how you could even come up with these lyrics. However, the story of “DAMN”. is the most interesting part as it is a story of picking between wickedness and weakness and can be listened to in two different ways. You can listen to the album from the start to the end where every second song is a wickedness song where Kendrick Lamar is filled with pride and is living out a wicked life and every other song is weakness where Kendrick Lamar talks about things such as fearing god and hating himself for the acts he has done, if you listen to the album from start to end it ends with Kendrick Lamar picking weakness putting his faith in god and moving away from sin. However if you listen to the album from end to start it ends with Kendrick Lamar moving to a life of sin and eventually getting shot and killed. The reason people love this album so much is because of the religious themes of the album and feeling doomed. This again is an album that needs to be listened to. I can't explain how amazing this album is and the topic that it covers without butchering it. “DAMN.” would release on April 14th, 2017 “DAMN.” and would debut at number 1 on the Billboard 200 as well as winning Grammy for Best Rap Album, Best Rap song, Best Rap Performance, and Best Music Video for the song “Humble'', and winning Best Rap/Sung Performance. “DAMN.” also won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. The Pulitzer Prize for Music is the highest national honor that can be given for things like journalism, books, and music. Kendrick Lamar is the first rapper to win this award and for good reason the Pulitzer committee would say “a virtuosic song collection unified by its vernacular authenticity and rhythmic dynamism that offers affecting vignettes capturing the complexity of modern African American life.” the composer Ted Hearne who was also nominated for the The Pulitzer Prize for Music would call Kendrick Lamar “one of the greatest living American composers, for sure.”

After “DAMN.” Kendrick Lamar would work on the Black Panther album in 2018 which would be used as the soundtrack for the Black Panther movie. There isn't much to really say about this album; it has good songs but similarly to Untitled Unmastered there isn't really an overarching theme. 

In 2022 Kendrick Lamar would release “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers.” This album was about the duality of man and depicts Kendrick Lamar still dealing with his problems from his troubled past well living an extremely good life. This album would release to very mixed reviews as it had a lot of new sounds that some people didn't like and were disappointed with as his last album came out in 2017. “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers” would release on May 13, 2022 charting at number 1 on the Billboard 200 and would win a Grammy for Best Rap Album and would be nominated for Album of the Year.

As of today Kendrick Lamar has been off the radar mostly however in the song “Like That” by Metro Boomin and Future Kendrick Lamar has a verse where he disses rappers J.Cole and Drake. This beef pretty much caused a civil war in rap but luckily the beef seems to no longer be active.

YE

YE (formally known as Kanye West) was born on June 8th, 1997 in Atlanta Georgia later moving to Chicago at the age of three with his mother after his parents had got divorced. From a young age YE would show his talent in music when he started to fully produce beats in grade seven and he would sell these beats to other rappers and he would continue to do this throughout his life. However YE always wanted to be a rapper but growing up in Chicago there wasn't much of a big Hip-Hop presence as there was in places like New York. This left YE fighting an uphill battle to make it into the music industry.

 In 2000 YE would get to meet Jay-Z and he would go on to produce beats for his album “The Dynasty: Roc La Familia” and YE would continue to work for Jay-Z as a producer. Shortly after meeting Jay-Z Ye would get evicted and move to Newark New Jersey. YE would then later produce the song “Izzo” for Jay-Z which would be YE’s first hit single. This brought YE a lot of attention and it finally seemed like he might get signed, however the heads of the labels would still continue to say no to signing him as a rapper. YE would go on to meet Joe 3H from Capitol Records who really wanted to sign YE and it was looking really good for YE, but at the last minute Capitol Records pulled out of the deal. Luckily for YE Roc A Fella had become interested in signing him and when YE lost the deal with Capitol Records Roc A Fella had swooped in and signed YE. However Roc A Fella would keep pushing the release date for YE’s album and wouldn't give him the studio time he needed so he would go on to start working on mixtapes. However on October 23rd 2002 YE would get into a brutal car crash almost killing him, breaking both his legs and shattered his jaw in three places. After this accident it looked like his career was over before it started. However YE would go on to make his debut single “Through The Wire'' where he rapped with his jaw wired shut, this song was a huge success and pushed Roc A Fella to release the album sooner. 

In 2004 “The College Dropout” would be released and it was very revolutionary for Hip-Hop as at this time Hip-Hop was mostly gangster rap but “The College Dropout” was more of a backpack style rap album. Backpack rap is a style of Hip-Hop that focuses on talking about real world topics that matter instead of say rapping about selling drugs. “The College Dropout” would debut at number two on the Billboard 200 and win the Best Rap Song award for his song “Jesus Walks” and Best Rap Album as well as being nominated for Best Rap Solo performance for “Through The Wire” as well as Best Rap/Sung Collaboration with the two songs “Slow Jamz” and “All Falls Down”. After winning Best Rap Album YE gave this famous speech “I know everybody ask me that question, they want to know, "what Kanye is getting well louder, he's gonna do something crazy." Everybody want to know what I would do if I didn't win... I guess we'll never know.”. After the success of “The College Dropout” YE would go on to found GOOD Music a record label that would give artists long term control of their work without having the restrictions typical record labels would have.

A Year later YE would go on to create “Late Registration”. “Late Registration” is very similar to “The College Dropout”, the only big difference is YE would begin moving away from a sampling style he had used called chipmunk soul. hipmunk soul is a very simple idea all it is is sampling things then speeding and pitching them up. YE would go on to use a more common industry method of sampling which still sounded good but some fans were slightly disappointed with this change. “Late Registration” would debut at number one on the billboard 200 and sell 860,000 copies within the first week. “Late Registration” would win three grammys and  would make YE the second artist ever to win Best Rap Album back to back as well as being the first artist to win Best Rap Song in consecutive years with the song “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” and YE would win Best Rap Solo Performance as well as being nominated for Record Of The Year for “Gold Digger” and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.

On September 2nd, 2005 YE would go on live TV along with other celebrities to raise money for the victims of hurricane Katrina when he would go off script and say “George Bush doesn't care about black people”. YE would say this because he was disappointed how the government would label black people as looters during the floods. This wouldn't be the last time he would speak his mind on topics that bothered him and this became a recurring theme in his career.

After “Late Registration” the expectations for his next album were extremely high and YE went way above these expectations with “Graduation” in 2007. Graduation would take a giant leap from “Late Registration” as it had more of an electronic style. The songs on “Graduation” are amazing with hits such as “Stronger”, “Flashing Lights”, “Champion”, “I Wonder”, “Can’t Tell Me Nothing”, and many more. “Graduation” would be competing against “Curtis” by 50 Cent as they had the same release date and neither YE or 50 Cent would push the date back. When it reached September 11th, 2007 and both albums were released, “Graduation” would outperform Curtis. Within the first week Graduation would sell 957,000 copies, “Curtis” would only sell 900,000 and by the end of the year “Graduation” would end up selling 2,116,000 copies and “Curtis” would sell 1,336,000 copies. “Graduation” was a phenomenal album and is often arguably his best album and would debut at number 1 on the billboard 200. “Graduation” would go on to win 4 grammys including Best Rap Album and Best Rap song. 

YE, as if he was on top of the world, he had 3 amazing albums that all one the Best Rap Album Grammy, he had out-sold one of the biggest rappers at the time, and “Graduation” would win the following Grammys Best Rap Album, Best Rap Solo Performance for “Stronger”, and Best Rap Song for “Good Life”.

  Sadly on November 10, 2007 YE’s mother Donda West would die undergoing plastic surgery. YE was always a mama's boy and loved his mother more than anything so when he found out this information he was destroyed. YE and his fiancee Alexis Phifer would split up. This would lead YE to make “808’s & Heartbreaks”. “808’s & Heartbreaks” is often considered to be YE’s worst album for the new direction it took with a sad electronic type sounds, however this album would also be extremely influential for Hip-Hop as was the first big mainstream album to use 808’s and started the Hip-Hop subgenre named emo rap which would become extremely popular during the late 2010’s. Even though “808’s & Heartbreaks” is generally known to be YE’s worst album it is a very pivotal part of YE’s evolution and pivotal to Hip-Hop in general. “808’s & Heartbreaks'' would be released on November 24, 2008 and would chart at number 1 on the Billboard 200 however wouldn't be nominated for any Grammys.

At the 2009 MTV Video Music Award Taylor Swift would win the Best Female Video award and during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech YE would rush up on stage drunk and would say the infamous speech “Yo Taylor I I'm really happy for you imma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.”. After saying this YE would shrug and walk off stage. Instantly YE would face mountains of backlash and was essentially exiled from the entertainment industry. YE would go on to apologize the next day in an interview however people were still mad and didn't want to accept YE’s apology. However this would be vital for the next album that would be made.

YE would go on to move to Japan and Italy to avoid the press before eventually going to Hawaii to work on “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”. “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” is widely considered to be the best Hip-Hop album ever made, and for good reason thousands of hours would be spent working on songs like power. YE and other collaborators work 12 straight hours a day perfecting songs, even re-doing verses over and over again to make them perfect. This hard work would pay off with people instantly loving the album. “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” would have tracks like “Runaway”, “Power”, “All Of The Lights”, “Hell Of A Life”, “Blame Game”, “Devil In A New Dress”, “Gorgeous”, and many more would become staple tracks of the 2010’s. “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” was released on November 22, 2010 and would debut at number one on the Billboard 200 and win the following awards Best Rap Album, Best Rap Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for the song “All Of The Lights”. After the amazing success of “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” YE would be forgiven by the public and Taylor Swift. Time Magazine would also give YE the title person of the year in 2010.

Very soon after “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” YE would go on to work with Jay-Z on a collaborative album called “Watch The Throne”. “Watch The Throne" was released on August 8th, 2011 and immediately charted at the number one spot on Billboard 200 and would win the following awards Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for “No Church In The Wild”, Best Rap Performance for both “Otis” and “N****s In Paris” and winning Best Rap Song for “N****s In Paris” as well as being nominated for Best Short Form Music Video with “No Church In The Wild”. The combination of Jay-Z and YE’s ideas worked perfecting together and would lead to amazing tracks like “Otis' ' and "No Church In The Wild”. For the most part there isn't really much to say about “Watch The Throne" but some of the best Hip-Hop songs ever would come from this album.

A year later on September 14th, 2012 the compilation album “Cruel Summer" would be released by YE’s record label GOOD Music. “Cruel Summer” would include songs from YE, Kid Cudi, Pusha T, CyHi, Chief Keef, Travis Scott, John Legend, and many others. “Cruel Summer” is widely considered to be a bad album and for good reason with production that sounded very generic and at times sloppy, songs that felt very uninspired and typically felt like basic Rap which disappointed fans as most fans would love YE for his intricate rapping and production style. “Cruel Summer” would reach the number one spot on Billboard 200 and would be nominated for the following Grammys Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance both being nominated for the song “Mercy”.

On June 8th, 2013 YE released the experimental album “Yeezus" which was extremely electronic. Initially “Yeezus” was a pretty hated album when it was first released but would later become considered a classic Hip-Hop album. The experimental nature of “Yeezus” brought a new sound to Hip-Hop inspiring artists such as Tyler The Creator, Denzel Curry, xxxtentacion, and many others. “Yeezus” would debut at number one on Billboard 200 and would be nominated for the following Grammys Best Rap Album, Best Rap Song for “New Slaves”, Best Rap/Sung Collaboration and Best Rap Song for “Bound 2”. Despite the initial hate “Yeezus” is a vital album to Hip-Hop and as stated before would go on to be loved by Hip-Hop fans. YE would also Partner with Adidas for his sneaker and clothing brand Yeezy.

 At this time it would seem as if YE was at his peak being considered the best rapper of all time pushing him into rockstar status.

From 2013 to 2016 YE would spend time creating his next album. YE would deal with lots of struggle during this time period. This album would go through multiple name changes initially being named “So Help Me God" before YE would change the name to “SWISH” then changing the name again to “Waves” and eventually picking the name “The Life Of Pablo”. “The Life Of Pablo” was initially meant to be released in 2014 however the album would go through a great quantity of delays. “The Life Of Pablo” would eventually be released on February 14th, 2016 after being delayed for 531 days. “The Life Of Pablo” would prove that despite how much music had changed YE could still release amazing albums however not everything was all good. Some people would be upset with the “Life Of Pablo” as a lot of the album YE uses it to gloat and express his frustrations and this would upset people. The big issues would start with the Saint Pablo tour. The Saint Pablo tour was an extremely tough time for YE causing him lots of stress which in turn led to him lashing out well performing. During one performance YE would stop performing mid way through to start discussing American politics saying "If I would have voted, I would have voted for Trump" after saying this some fans were upset with some booing him. Problems wouldn't stop there. During one performance YE would go on to diss his long time collaborator and friend Kid Cudi after Kid Cudi would go on twitter and saying YE and Drake were using a ghostwriter and was disappointed with YE for collaborating with Drake, YE would go on to say "Kid Cudi, don't ever mention 'Ye name. I birthed you," continuing with "Don't try to say who I can do songs with," You mad 'cause I'm doing songs with Drake? Ain't nobody telling 'Ye who to do songs with! Respect God!". Kid Cudi would be put in a mental hospital and when YE found this out on a later tour date he told his fans to “sing for Cudi'' continuing with “Cudi you hear em” and referring to Kid Cudi as his “brother”. The beef between YE and Kid Cudi was squashed however the troubles on tour would continue. During a performance YE would end the concert extremely early as he was upset with how he was performing. However the worst incident was well YE was performing YE’s at the time wife Kim Kardashian would be robbed at gunpoint in Paris. All of these events would lead YE to have a massive mental breakdown that ended with him being hospitalized and getting a bipolar diagnosis. After all this struggle, YE would cancel the Saint Pablo tour early leaving fans disappointed. It is also around this time YE would go on TMZ and say “When you hear about slavery for 400 years … For 400 years? That sounds like a choice.” continuing with “You were there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all. It’s like we’re mentally imprisoned.”. YE would face major backlash for this comment. The Life Of Pablo would also have a piracy problem as it would be pirated 500,000 times. “The Life Of Pablo” would debut at number one on the Billboard 200 and would be nominated for Best Rap Album, Best Rap Song and Best/Sung Performance for “Famous”, Best Rap Song and Best/Sung performance for “Ultralight Beam”

After all the stress YE would go on to work heavily on his sneaker and clothing brand Yeezy and move to Wyoming to work on his 2018 album “Ye”. The Wyoming sessions are considered to be some of YE’s best work. “Ye” is YE’s shortest album being 23 minutes but is still amazing with songs like “Ghost Town” which talked deeply about mental health. This new era of YE talking about mental health was loved and the era was not over yet. “Ye” was released on June 1st, 2018 and would chart in the top 40 before moving up to number 8 on the Billboard 200 and would have no Grammy nominations.

The same year YE and Kid Cudi would team up for a collaborative album “Kids See Ghosts”. “Kids See Ghosts” is considered to be one of YE’s best albums despite how short the album is as it's 23 minutes long and only a couple seconds longer than “Ye”. “Kids See Ghosts” had a big focus on mental health and fans loved to see YE and Kid Cudi working together again.

“Kids See Ghosts” would be released on June 8th, 2018 and would debut at number 2 on the Billboard 200 and wouldn't be nominated for any Grammys.

After the release of “Kids See Ghost”s and “Ye”, YE would work on the album “Yahndi”. “Yahndi” would be an extremely infamous album despite it never being released. From leaks we know “Yahndi” had amazing songs however YE would give his life to Christ scrapping “Yahndi” and would rework songs and give them a religious twist. This album would be called “Jesus Is King“. "Jesus Is King” would follow the trend of “Ye” and “Kids See Ghosts” only being 27 minutes. The gospel rap album is extremely content with fans and a lot find it to be interesting and others love it for the amazing production and songs. “Jesus Is King” would be released on October 25th, 2019 and chart at number 1 on the Billboard 200 as well as winning the Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Music Album. Following “Jesus Is King” YE would announce he was running for the 2024 election.

After “Jesus Is King” YE would go on to work on his album “Donda” which had a very interesting creation process spending thousands of hours to work on songs as well as spending a million dollars a day to move into a small room in the Mercedes Benz Stadium that resembled a prison cell to work on his album, as well showing fans songs to get feedback straight from the audience. This ended with an album that fans would love as they were a part of the creation processes. “Donda '' would have a runtime of 1 hour and 48 minutes making it YE’s longest album. “Donda” would be released on August 28, 2021 and would Debut at number 1 on the billboard 200 and win the Grammys for Best Melodic Rap Performance for “Hurricane” and Best rap song for “Jail” as well as being nominated for Album of the Year and Best Rap Album.

Following “Donda” YE would go on to make “Donda 2” which would be YE’s most confusing album. “Donda 2” wouldn't release to streaming services and could only be listened to on the Stem Player. The Stem Player was a product YE had helped to create which was a glorified speaker but it allowed you to change the mixing of things like drums on the tracks. “Donda 2” would release on February 23, 2022 unfinished and failed to chart on Billboard 200 and wasn't nominated for any Grammys. It is around this time that YE and Kim Kardashian would divorce which led to Kim Kardashian dating Pete Davidson. Pete Davidson would receive threats from YE and his fanbase. 

2022 would become YE’s most controversial year yet as he started working with Nick Fuentes (known white supremacist) for his presidential campaign as well as going on a Twitter rant saying “I'm a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I'm going defcon 3 on Jewish People,” followed by him going on Alex Jones show Infowars where he would say “I like Hitler'' continuing with "Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler,". After the Infowars interview Addias would end the partnership with YE.

Following the controversy YE would go quiet and proceed to work on his album with Ty Dolla $ign. This album would be named “Vultures”. Vultures went through various delays initially planned to be released on December 15th, 2023 then being pushed back to new years and eventually released on February 10th, 2024. “Vultures” was also planned to be released in three parts however the two other albums are far overdue and at this point most people believe we aren't getting “Vultures”. “Vultures' ' would debut at number 1 on the Billboard 200 and it is unknown if it will be nominated for any Grammy awards, however due to the recent controversies it's probably safe to say that “Vultures” won't be nominated.

Conclusion

This has been the history and discography of Tyler The Creator, Kendrick Lamar, and YE. Hopefully you will go on to listen to some of the albums named in this paper and understand the influence these artists have had on Hip-Hop and music in general.