Migos Couldn’t Do It For The Culture

Migos Couldnt Do It For The Culture

On January 26th, 2018, the Atlanta based trio released their 24 track album, Culture II. The album features Drake, Travis Scott, 21 Savage, Big Sean, Post Malone, and more. The album has allowed Migos to tie the Beatles for the most simultaneous Hot 100 entries, 14, despite much criticism surrounding the album.

This album is not close to as good as Migos last album, Culture.  The first hint of this album not being as successful as its predecessor was the singles released before the album. The two songs off the album initially delivered to the rap world were “Superstar” and “Stir Fry”. “Stir Fry” may have gained footing in some of the rap community, but most true rap fans agree; the song is just plain annoying. “Superstar”, on the other hand, is pure nothing. It hasn’t been talked about at all due to it not being a good song in any aspect. Before the release of Culture a year ago, the singles gifted to the music community were “T-Shirt” and “Bad and Boujee”, two of the arguably best trap songs of the entire year. Simply put, this shows the step down that the trio took in the past year.

One of the few listenable tracks on the album is “BBO”, featuring 21 Savage. 21 Savage comes into the song monotone and boring, as he usually does. But the thing that makes this song special has nothing to do with Migos. The beat, which bases itself off of a jubilant horn riff, is produced by famous producer and rapper Kanye West. Quavo, Offset, and Takeoff rap over the beat, however, the song is only special because of Kanye West.

Another highlight of the album is the 11th track in the album, “Gang Gang.” This song is unique in comparison to other Migos songs. The beat, produced by Murda Beatz, takes a tropical tone and allows the three members of Migos to showcase their own singing, something that Quavo, Takeoff, and Offset do not normally do.

In a day and age where streaming music dominates the industry, 24 track albums are becoming normal.  This album presents the bigger issue with hip hop and even the whole music industry today. Streaming is increasingly important in the music world, and musicians are making that their main priority when releasing music. More streams equals more money. That’s why artists and groups such as Migos release albums over 24 tracks, when they are fully aware that albums over 20 tracks are difficult to listen to. Migos showed this with their lack of effort on the songs, which was proven with the leaked fact about them only spending around 45 minutes per song. According to BBC, students and teenagers only have a ten minute attention span. How can a teenager, the target audience of Migos’ music, focus and completely enjoy an album that’s almost two hours long? If Culture II consisted of 12 of the best songs Migos could have produced and rapped, then the album would already be critically acclaimed. However, the group threw together 24 songs in order to make money, which according to several hip hop news sites, only took about 45 minutes each to fully make.

Migos missed out on the opportunity of their careers. After releasing the wildly successful album, Culture, in January 2017, they had the music world in their palms. They had been nominated for two Grammys, including best rap album and the opportunity to own the rest of the year with Culture II. However, they couldn’t do that, due to the lack of quality their songs held.. There aren’t any memorable songs such as “Bad and Boujee” and “Kelly Price were in Culture. Culture II has no songs that have the potential to be song of the year. Although they have 14 songs in the Hot 100, the music world will forget about Culture II, and even Migos, if they don’t do something to regain their footing in our culture.