Here's my take.

Ye peaked lyrically and message wise during the Trilogy era.

He peaked creatively and sonically in 08-13.

He showed signs of brilliance in TLOP but the album as a whole was a bit incohesive and messy albeit still decent.

18-19 Ye was at his lowest point on his solo projects while giving his all to Cudi and Push.

Donda was a good return to form from his lowest point but still feels messy and it's become clear that Ye is becoming the new Dre and Diddy in terms of being more of a curator and executive producer making songs with a "super team" rather than a solo innovator.

I don't mind Kanye getting on his Dre/Diddy s*** as long as the music is great. But just the fact that he named his next project Donda 2 seems unlike Kanye. Kanye never ride the coattails of an album before(excluding the plan for WTT2).

And Donda 2 is all over the place musically with many half assed/demo efforts.

Ignoring the antics, I just hope the Donda series at least tries to push the envelope instead riding the coattails of Donda 1 and being half assed.

Donda 1 is the best thing hes put out in nearly a decade. Its the only thing that gives me hope he hasnt completely lost it

TLOP - classic
ye - pretty good
KSG - great
JIK - not terrible but way below par
Donda - really damn good, could have been one of his best with proper editing and sequencing
Donda 2, if it counts - total mess, somehow even worse than JIK

It's got enough great tracks to make one of his best albums and it's easily his most compelling work since TLOP. Of course fans are into it.

but he remains as much of a narcissistic, fame-hungry egotist as ever. if his lyrics didn't reflect that, that would mean he's less self-aware about it than he used to be.

for the record, i don't think that though-- what kanye's appeal always has been is how he balances his manic and self-destructive attributes with his self-awareness/accompanying moments of spitting knowledge, which he does in various ways on every album, including this one

i'm not even saying he isn't spitting on here... but like, do you even like kanye like that, characterizing grad and 808s and MBDTF as "ego driven celeb narcissism?"

His real life actions aside, I'm really just talking about the lyrics on the donda album compared to his other lyrics

You're attaching a moral value to those terms i didnt ascribe. I love all his music but I also realize that most of his music from Grad thru TLOP is a lot more self centered and immature in its lyrical content. Ego driven narcissism is the default mode of most rap anyway why would that be a bad thing?

Given his focus in so many things now it's honestly better than I expected. We still get gems from every era and the side stuff he dedicate to like tours, SS shows, listening parties all those adds to the music experience

it's not a bad thing at all, that's why kanye is a GOAT and it's ludicrous to say that all three are not as well written as donda

you're the one who said that it comprised the bulk of his discography and implicitly contrasted that discography with being "mature" and "meaningful" in defense of your contention that Donda is his best songwriting in 16 years and seven albums

it's not about drawing a contrast with his "real-life actions," but it does matter that kanye is the one spitting on a kanye album, because being a rap MC -- kanye more than almost anyone -- is to continuously engage in the mythic construction of your own legend. obviously the album is about his life, so when kanye puts on the persona of the matured elder statesman possessed of hard-earned wisdom, clearly the album draws resonance from the fact that we know what has happened in his life. that's what's meaningful about the album that's literally called Donda. that's why the lyrics on here are good in the way that they are, because just as he always has been, he's in constant tension between balancing the trappings of fame and fortune, his bipolar tendencies, and his desire to be a good and godly man.

so yeah i have to say that it's not a convincing argument to me to say that part of the reason this album is better written than some of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time is because of the relative absence of ego-driven celeb narcissism

Everything great except JIK thats simply good

Most of his albums aren’t really interesting.

Everything from CD-TLOP is historically phenomenal with the exception of CS which still had a good 4-5 classic songs

Been a bumpy ride since then tho

Ye was sonically better than a lot of people gave it credit for but it lacked vision and some of the verses are weak and awkward

KSG was great but it’s a bit overhyped imo, Solid EP

I think the music on JIK is really good for the most part but it’s hard to take Ye seriously on a lot of the verses. I enjoyed it more than most tho. I don’t identify as a Christian btw, just a believer in God

Sunday Service Choir was phenomenal (even tho that technically isn’t a Kanye album it’s Kanye’s choir so yeah)

Donda had a lot of potential and had a lot of great moments but overall it’s length and sloppy sequencing make it a chore to get through. I also think his attempt to merge gospel music and secular hip-hop was a bit clumsy at times.

Donda 2 is just plain ass. City of Gods is good but I look at that as Fivi’s song. Everything is disrespectfully rough and unfinished. I really think he believes he was on to something putting out a rough draft project like some kind of artistic statement but it just doesn’t work. Music is no where near good enough to carry the album in that condition. I still believe there is a decent album in there somewhere if finished and mixed properly but at this point I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. Easily the worst project attached to his name. Unlistenable really.

Dines was fantastic and d2 was great just unfinished

Impossible Yeezus is top 3 Kanye, those other two aren’t even in his top 5

Kanye west is my favorite artists of all times including these times . this morning i was listening to too easy , what a great song I thought it might be one of my fav ye songs

TLOP was Kanye’s last truly amazing album and a borderline classic IMO

Ye. Production was there but so many trash lyrics. All Mine is def Kanye’s low point musically

JIK was a bunch of interludes and called it an album

KSG was boring

Donda could of been a f***in classic if it was trimmed to under 15 tracks and those 15 tracks were fleshed out more

Donda 2 would have been Kanye’s worst album if he released it. So many trash and uninspired songs. You could literally count on 1 hand the good songs and those songs sounded like demos as it is

I know ktt2 and ktt 1 aren't the same website because there's no way this thread would've gone one whole page without OP's avy getting posted

Come on now I know this nigga ain’t s*** rn but we don’t gotta start cappin about his back catalog

CD-TLOP will forever be the best album run of all time, I don’t care what he do

the way liking anything is "dickriding" these days is insane

my honest thoughts as a die hard kanye fan defending him on the internet since 09

donda was great

i still believe his heart is good

but i f***ing hate how it seems like he hit a bill and doesn't give a f*** about anyone anymore

I listened to donda on shrooms and it was beautiful.

Nah I’m not capping for no other reason then the fact that to me he isn’t that interesting

Donda is only good relative to 2021 rap music. The standards are lower across the board. It’s good music to zoomers but hard to believe anyone who was following ye before tlop finds it in any way comparable to his other albums

Donda and kids see ghosts were the diamonds In the rough dude been trash for a whole now

Donda is amazing

Ye started musically declining from TLOP onwards, when his albums went from being instant classics to just "pretty good"

My issues with his music is that he can't really rap as well anymore, he doesn't care about that as much as he used to, and it really affects the quality of his music