Kids See Ghosts (album)

Since 2008, Kanye West had frequently collaborated with Kid Cudi. On February 14, 2016, West released his seventh studio album The Life of Pablo, with the tracks "Father Stretch My Hands, Pt. 1" and "Waves" featuring vocals by Cudi. 10 days after releasing the album, West tweeted on February 24 that he would release an album titled Turbo Grafx 16 in the summer, named after the video game console of the same name. Later that month, his longtime associate Ibn Jasper posted a photo on Instagram showing West, Cudi, and record producers Mike Dean and Plain Pat in a recording studio working on the album. Cudi briefly fell out with West, criticizing him and Drake over their usage of writers in September 2016, tweeting that he had been loyal to his colleagues but now he was "your threat". West responded to the tweets at the Tampa stop of his Saint Pablo Tour, threatening Cudi not to mention his name again and assuring "I birthed you", before adding that he felt "hurt" and "disrespected". Cudi, who had admitted himself into a rehabilitation facility following a struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts, thanked West and other supporters in a Facebook post, writing that "words can't really express how much it made my heart glow". West had suffered from mental illness for 10 years prior to Kids See Ghosts, while Cudi reached post-rehab stage by the time of its release. Work on Kids See Ghosts began that same month and parts of it were created in the summer of 2017 during recording sessions in Japan and China. In November, and again in February of the following year, West performed "Father Stretch My Hands, Pt. 1" live with Cudi. West was spotted recording in the US state of Wyoming with various collaborators in March, including Cudi and fellow rapper Nas. He returned to the state two months later for the recording of several then-upcoming albums, which were later referred to as the "Wyoming Sessions". Outside of his own releases, West also executive produced, produced, and provided guest vocals for all of the albums by other artists that originated from the "Wyoming Sessions"; he had announced taking on the role of producer for the sessions beforehand. Fellow rapper Pusha T's third studio album Daytona was issued on May 25, 2018, as the first release of West's "Wyoming Sessions" recordings. On June 1, a week before the release of Kids See Ghosts, West released his eighth studio album Ye as the second album of the "Wyoming Sessions". West revealed via Twitter that the former was originally slated to appear on Kids See Ghosts. The release of Kids See Ghosts on June 8, 2018, served as the third album from the "Wyoming Sessions". A week after its release, Nas released his twelfth studio album Nasir as the fourth album of the "Wyoming Sessions". Recording artist Teyana Taylor released her second studio album K.T.S.E. on June 22, 2018, as the fifth and final album of the "Wyoming Sessions". == Music and production ==

According to Jordan Bassett of NME, Kids See Ghosts shows West and Cudi "catch[ing] up with the fragmented, fragile brand of hip-hop that they helped to shape", noting how "the ethereal, low-key beats" characterize the production. while Rrampt. magazine's Andrew Johnston deemed it a "truly adventurous movement in progressive hip-hop", with its seven songs traversing "scatted freakouts, bangers, space odysseys, psychedelic soul, and dream pop". Similarly, Dean Van Nguyen of The Guardian considered the album to be filled with "blistering electronics, laser-cut samples, psychedelic crescendos and edges as blurry as a half-remembered dream", while Van Nguyen categorizing track "Freeee (Ghost Town, Pt. 2)" as rap rock. The staff of Highsnobiety pointed out West "angrily scatting to the beat" on "Feel the Love". Prima received credit as a featured artist on "4th Dimension". "Feel the Love" and "Freeee (Ghost Town, Pt. 2)" include guest vocals from Pusha T and Ty Dolla Sign, respectively. The album includes prominent production from West and Cudi, though "Reborn" and "Cudi Montage" are the only tracks to not include production from West, while "Feel the Love" and "4th Dimension" are the only tracks without Cudi's production. Musician Justin Vernon was partially responsible for the production of "Feel the Love" and "Kids See Ghosts". The latter and "Freeee (Ghost Town, Pt. 2)" include production from record producer Andrew Dawson. Kids See Ghosts also includes production contributed by Francis and the Lights, Cashmere Cat, André 3000, Andy C, Russel "Love" Crews, and Jeff Bhasker. == Themes and lyrics ==

Lyrically, Kids See Ghosts includes references to mental illness throughout. The album's opener, "Feel the Love", includes a verse from Pusha T, while West contributes gun noises ("vocal rat-a-tats", as Christgau described) to the track and Cudi sings a hook about being able to "feel the love". The staff of Highsnobiety noticed that the position of "Fire" after the track serves as a reminder "of the ping-pong nature of mental illness — sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down", with the song lyrically seeing Kids See Ghosts take "a softer approach to diagnosing the self, exposing the failures of the aforementioned duo". Within "4th Dimension", Kids See Ghosts prevent being burdened by their feelings by putting forward the random in the form of the duo's current thoughts; this is an example of bipolar disorder. West shows that he is numb to criticism on "Freeee (Ghost Town, Pt. 2)", which is about the mind becoming free of any impediments. The song interpolates lyrics from the original "Ghost Town". "Reborn" is linked to getting past mental lows that inspire depression and usage of drugs. The throes of paranoia are addressed on "Kids See Ghosts", which also features political ideas from Yasiin Bey: "Civilization without society / Power and wealth with nobility / Stability without stasis / Spaces and places." In contrast to the song's lyrical content, "Cudi Montage" features Cudi remarking about the journey to his mind's reconstruction and West referencing an environment's cycle of violence. The track was described by the staff of Highsnobiety as closing out Kids See Ghosts "on a whimper, purposefully, to dictate the cyclical nature of mental illness". ==Artwork and title==

's series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, which was the basis for the album artwork's background that features a mountain. In August 2017, West and Cudi visited Japanese artist Takashi Murakami at his studio, with Murakami sharing images of the three via Instagram. Regarding the drawing, Murakami told Complex that he and his assistants followed their "very rudimental plan" of drawing different ideas on a paper with West and his assistants. Murakami also said that West had brought forward the idea of portraying an anthropomorphized bear and fox, to reflect him and Cudi, respectively. Cudi allegedly had suggested for his character to be represented by a dog, however upon seeing an early sketch, West insisted that Cudi was better represented by a fox. Murakami explained that Hokusai's Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji was the basis of the artwork's background picture. The pastel-colored cover art presents a psychedelic scene, showing a ghostly figure riding on top of a sperm-shaped monster that has sharp teeth and haunted eyes. The figure is flying through a forest, which is backed by a mountain. The title Kids See Ghosts continues "the spooky-ghost routine" that started with West releasing "Ghost Town", which is also continued by the album with "Freeee (Ghost Town, Pt. 2)". ==Release and promotion==

In late 2017, it was rumored that West and Cudi were working on a collaborative album, reportedly titled Everybody Wins. On April 19, 2018, West announced via Twitter that an album with Cudi was set to be released on June 8. On April 25, 2018, West revealed via Twitter that the album was scheduled to be accompanied by a short film, slated to be directed by Dexter Navy, who had collaborated with him in the past on the music video for "Flashing Lights" (2007). West tweeted out the track list on June 2, which included a track called "Devil's Watchin" that was ultimately not released on Kids See Ghosts. The spot of fourth track was blank at the time after "Ghost Town" had been removed, having a possibility of being taken up the track "Extasy" after it did not appear on Ye. "Freeee (Ghost Town, Pt. 2)" ultimately took up the spot of the fourth track on Kids See Ghosts. The same year as being digitally issued, the album was released on CD through the labels in various countries. , backed by a bonfire. On June 5, 2018, Cudi's manager Dennis Cummings announced a listening party for Kids See Ghosts in Los Angeles via Twitter, which was to be conducted a day prior to its release. Cudi announced on Twitter that the live stream of the listening party was intended to take place through WAV at 8 pm EST, simultaneously sharing a link to download the application. Following a series of unexplained delays alongside much frustration being caused, the listening party did not start until 1:50 am EST on June 8, 2018. It was unknown whether the live stream being delayed was because of a technical issue or Kids See Ghosts showing up late. Attendees of the listening party included the Kardashian-Jenner clan, Quentin Miller of American hip-hop duo WDNG Crshrs, rapper and singer Desiigner, and Trinidadian-American rapper Trinidad James. No music videos were released for the album or Ye. Kids See Ghosts made their live debut at the 2018 Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival, performing for 45 minutes inside a rectangular glass box that was floating above the stage. West forgot several lyrics from his verses on "Reborn" and "Cudi Montage". During the first concert of West's gospel group the Sunday Service Choir on January 6, 2019, the group and him performed "Reborn" while Cudi was in attendance. Kids See Ghosts performed numerous tracks live at that year's Coachella Festival, including "Reborn" and "Freeee (Ghost Town, Pt. 2)". In June 2020, Cudi shared a teaser for the album's animated show of the same name. The clip used "4th Dimension" as its soundtrack, while the show is directed by Murakami. ==Critical reception==

Kids See Ghosts was met with widespread acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 84, based on 18 reviews. Bassett asserted that Kids See Ghosts "sounds, suitably, ghostly and supernatural", offering a moderate "glimpse" into a different world, and is "the sound of two artists looking back over the vast distance they've travelled so far". It was listed at number two on Pitchfork Readers' Poll: Top 50 Albums of 2018; on others polls conducted by Pitchfork for that year, the album ranked as the third most underrated and seventh most overrated album respectively, while "Kids See Ghosts" ranked at number 14 on the top 50 songs list. Similarly, Slant Magazine listed Kids See Ghosts as the third best album of the year, with the staff saying that Kids See Ghosts "alternate between haunted-house trappings and candidly confronting their respective demons". The album was voted 55th on Uproxx's music critics poll for 2018 albums, scoring 35 points. It came in at number 72 on The Village Voices Pazz & Jop poll that year, gathering 90 points and being tied with two other albums for the position. On The Musics list of the best cult albums of the 2010s decade, Kids See Ghosts was ranked at number nine. For the magazine, Cyclone described the album as where the duo "ventured into hip hop psychedelia, bonding over their mental health journeys", while noting "Reborn" as being the highlight. ==Commercial performance==

Unlike Ye, Kids See Ghosts failed to give West a chart topper on the US Billboard 200, debuting at number two on the chart behind Dave Matthews Band's ninth studio album Come Tomorrow (2018). On the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, Kids See Ghosts entered at number one. On the Canadian Albums Chart, Kids See Ghosts entered at number three, standing as the second highest debut of the week, one place behind Come Tomorrow at number two. This gave Cudi his highest-charting album in Canada since his third studio album Indicud attained the same position in 2013. The album debuted at number four on the ARIA Albums chart, becoming West's second top-10 album in 2018 and Cudi's first appearance on the chart since Indicud. This also led to Kids See Ghosts becoming the fourth major hip-hop act to have an album reach the top-10 of the ARIA Albums chart in 2018, joining West with Ye, J. Cole with his fifth studio album KOD, and ASAP Rocky with his third studio album Testing. A top-five position was also attained by Kids See Ghosts in the Netherlands, with it peaking at number five on Dutch Album Top 100. The debut made Kids See Ghosts the week's third highest entry, though was a position five places lower than Ye gave West when peaking at number two on the chart earlier in 2018. On April 2, 2021, the former was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for sales of 60,000 units in the UK. The song was later certified platinum by the RIAA for amassing 1,000,000 certified units in the US on June 11, 2020. All the tracks also entered the ARIA Singles Chart, Canadian Hot 100, and Irish Singles Chart, with "Reborn" charting the highest in Ireland too. ==Track listing==

Notes • signifies a co-producer • signifies an additional producer • signifies an additional programmer • Andrew Dawson is credited as an "adapter" in the track's official liner notes. Sample credits • "Fire" contains a sample of "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!", written and performed by Jerry "Napoleon XIV" Samuels. • "4th Dimension" contains samples of "What Will Santa Claus Say (When He Finds Everybody Swingin')", written and performed by Louis Prima; and an uncredited sample of "Someday", written and performed by Shirley Ann Lee. • "Freeee (Ghost Town, Pt. 2)" contains samples of "Stark", written and performed by Corin "Mr. Chop" Littler; an uncredited sample of a speech from Marcus Garvey; and portions of the previous "Ghost Town". • "Cudi Montage" contains samples of "Burn the Rain", written and performed by Kurt Cobain, from the deluxe edition of the 2015 soundtrack album Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings, and reuses lyrics from the demo version of "Skeletons", written by West, Jacques Webster II, Pharrell Williams, Kevin Parker, Abel Tesfaye, and Reine Fiske, as performed by the former and Travis Scott. ==Personnel==

Credits adapted from liner notes and Tidal. Production • Nico Aglietti – engineering (track 4) • Thomas Cullison – engineering (track 5) • Andrew Dawson – engineering (tracks 1, 4–6), mixing (tracks 1, 5) • Mike Dean – co-executive producer, mixing, mastering • Zack Djurich – engineering, acoustic guitar (track 4) • Noah Goldstein – co-executive producer, engineering (tracks 1–3, 5–7) • Jess Jackson – mixing • Tom Kahre – engineering (track 1) • Kid Cudi – executive producer • Mike Malchicoff – engineering • William J. Sullivan – engineering • Sean Solymar – mix assistance • Kanye West – executive producer Design • Katsushika Hokusai – background art (View of Mt. Fuji (1847)) • Horst Janssen – seal references • Jnthed – character design • Aki Kondo – character design • Takashi Murakami – creative direction, artwork, calligraphy • Chieri Nakano – original drawing direction • Soga Shōhaku – seal references ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts ==Certifications==