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Vultures 1 Trivia | 60 facts about the album

Let’s find out more about the album!

Vultures 1 is the debut studio album by American hip hop supergroup ¥$.
It was composed by Kanye West and singer Ty Dolla Sign.
It was released independently by West’s YZY brand on February 10, 2024, commemorating the 20th anniversary of West’s debut studio album, The College Dropout.
Guest appearances include India Love, North West, Freddie Gibbs, Mike Tyson, YG, Nipsey Hussle, Quavo, Playboi Carti, Travis Scott, Bump J, Lil Durk, Rich the Kid, and Chris Brown.
Production was primarily handled by West himself, alongside Digital Nas, the Legendary Traxster, 88-Keys, JPEGMafia, DJ Camper, Chrishan, Ojivolta, Anthony Kilhoffer, Timbaland, No I.D., Swizz Beatz, Wheezy, and others.
Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign began recording the album with collaborators in Italy in October 2023.
Then they relocated to Saudi Arabia for three months.
It sustained multiple delays and changes to the tracklist before release, following West’s struggle to secure a distributor.
The release was first teased throughout late 2023 under the placeholder title ¥$ and was set to be titled Vultures.
It was then retitled to Vultures 1 as the first volume in an album series. The tracks
“Everybody” and “New Body” were announced for the album, but were not able to be included due to clearance issues.
West and Ty Dolla Sign previewed tracks at the Vultures Rave listening party in December 2023, two months before holding numerous public events in Chicago, New York, and Milan.
The album was initially distributed using the FUGA distribution platform.
Allegedly in violation of FUGA’s service agreement, and a withdrawal was made from streaming services on February 15, 2024.
However, it was then re-distributed by Label Engine the same day.
In contrast to West’s previous two albums, Jesus Is King (2019) and Donda (2021), Vultures 1 finds him forgoing religious themes and addressing his preceding controversies, as well as themes of money, relationships, sex, and fame.
It also sees him returning to an explicit tracklist, with his previous two albums only featuring tracks with censored lyrics.
The cover art shows West dressed in all-black with his hockey mask, joined by his mostly-naked partner Bianca Censori.
The title track was issued as the album’s lead single in November 2023.
It was followed three months later by “Talking / Once Again” and “Carnival”, the latter of which topped the US Billboard Hot 100.
Music videos were produced for all of the singles, with a new version of “Vultures” produced by Havoc being used for the first of its visuals.
Released in the wake of West’s antisemitic comments, Vultures 1 received mixed reviews from music critics.
Many of them criticized its unoriginality and lyrics regarding the matter—as well as his other controversies.
However, some complimented the production and Ty Dolla Sign’s contributions.
The album marked West’s 11th consecutive number-one debut on the US Billboard 200, breaking his tie with Eminem.
It further topped the charts in 17 regions, including Australia, Canada, and Germany.
It’s West’s first number-one album in the latter country.
Each of the album’s songs entered the Billboard Hot 100, bringing West to 157 career entries.
A sequel album, Vultures 2 is scheduled for release in 2024, with Vultures 3 also slated for a release later in the year.
The performers are scheduled to embark on the Vultures world tour from Summer 2024 to early 2025, planned for cities including New York and London.
Vultures 1 is a hip hop album that encompasses house, R&B, and trap, incorporating elements of gospel and industrial music.
After West had promised that he would never make secular music again following his 2019 gospel record Jesus Is King and also did not curse at all on Donda in 2021, he broke with both of these traditions on the album.
Kanye West had considered for it to include no curses initially, but Ty Dolla Sign persuaded him otherwise.
Of his performances, Thompson believed he utilizes an “airy, endearing singing voice” and the rapping possesses technical precision.
Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign speak of women on Vultures 1, frequently making sexual references.
The rapper provides reminders of his controversies, including the antisemitism that he alludes to his previous apology for.
For the first few tracks, West demonstrates calmness as he tries to move past the controversies, before he moves the focus towards them
On February 9, 2024, Ozzy Osbourne posted on Instagram that West was refused permission to sample a 1983 Black Sabbath live performance of the song “Iron Man”, but that he had done so anyway on “Carnival”.
While a leaked version of the track used the sample, the version played at the Chicago listening event did not. West later removed the sample from the song, and was instead replaced by his own track “Hell of a Life”, which itself samples “Iron Man”.
The same day, DJ Roca, one of the artists responsible for “Montagem Faz Macete 3.0”, sampled in “Paperwork”, shared his appreciation for the usage of his song on Instagram.
On February 7, 2024, West posted to Instagram that a second listening event would be held at UBS Arena in New York’s Belmont Park, coinciding with the release date of the album on February 10.
The event offered “a high-fidelity audio and visual showcase”.
Tickets were sold online for $225, although an attendee for NPR reported they were sold on site for $180.
The show was supposed to start at 9 p.m., yet it began around two hours late.
Smog clouded the arena, which West and Ty Dolla Sign walked around for 45 minutes wearing their face coverings.
Playboi Carti, Roddy Ricch, and Rich the Kid made appearances.
On February 11, 2024, West and Ty Dolla Sign held a pop-up listening show from a tent at a temporary Wynn West venue in the Las Vegas Strip of Paradise, Nevada, where the rapper wore a black leather coat and a mask of the same color.
Six days later, the performers announced “a hi-fidelity audio experience” of listening parties for Vultures 1 in Italy.
The events took place in Milan and Bologna on February 22 and 24, respectively.
A floating cylindrical LED wall stood above the smoke-covered stage of the Mediolanum Forum in Milan, where West and Ty Dolla Sign danced with face coverings
The event included the unreleased album track “Everybody”, which Censori sang along to.
Two days after his previous announcement, West posted that a “listening experience” would be held at Paris’s Accor Arena on February 25, 2024.
Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign wore masks and danced throughout; the rapper removed his mask for “King” at the end.
The event included Kanye performing “Talking” with North, who wore a completely black outfit matching with him and a winter fur hat.
According to Billboard, the first five public listening events grossed $12 million in ticket sales.
On March 10, 2024, a listening event was held at the Footprint Center in Phoenix, during which North announced her album Elementary School Drop Out, named after The College Dropout by her father.
Two days later, another event took place at the Chase Center in San Francisco, where Kardashian and Censori were spotted together in attendance.
On March 30, 2024, West announced listening experiences of Vultures 1 and the sequel for April at locations such as Nashville, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C.
Following the release of Vultures 1, Donna Summer’s estate posted an Instagram story stating that they had not authorized the use of “I Feel Love” for “Good (Don’t Die)”. They alleged that “he changed the words, had someone re sing it or used AI” but that it still constituted “copyright infringement”.
The song was removed from Spotify on February 14, 2024, a day before it was retracted from Amazon Music, Apple Music, and the iTunes Store. On February 27, 2024, the estate filed a lawsuit against West for “blatant theft” of “I Feel Love”.