Album Review: Tyga - Legendary

Tyga has arguably had one of the best comebacks in recent times. As recent as early 2018, Tyga’s career had deemed to have “fallen off” and his music was no where near his best.

His collaborative album with Chris Brown in 2015 was a success and so was his feature on Chris Brown’s “Loyal”, the year before. Now signed to Kanye West’s G.O.O.D Music since a dispute with former label, Young Money Entertainment/Cash Money Records in 2015, Tyga’s last project was “Kyoto” in early 2018. The album was slated by the media and the album even failed to chart.

The same year was when things began to change. The release of “Taste”, featuring Offset in May 2018 changed everything. The single was a huge hit and has since gone five times platinum in the United States. The success of “Taste” was followed up with a number of other singles such as “Swish”, “Swap Meet” and “Dip” featuring Nicki Minaj. This success and resurgence continued into 2019 with the release of “Girls Have Fun” a few months ago. This success has pathed the way for Tyga to release his seventh studio album “Legendary”.

The album starts off with “Too Many” which is clearly a message to anyone that felt that Tyga had “fallen off”. The start of the song stars with a distorted deep voice (presumably Tyga’s) saying “back on you bitches”, again presumably sending a message and making the point that late 2018 and 2019 has been his come period.

The track that is actually produced by Mustard and not D.A. Doman. The Californian born rapper has clearly struck up a good working formula with the producer, D.A. The whole album has five tracks that are produced by D.A. and another four are produced by Mustard. That is over half the album with the two same producer, Tyga is clearly faithful to the producers that he feels can make him a good beat.

This might of come at a cost though as the whole album does feel a little bit samey and does lack some diversity. Take Drake’s 2018 album “Scorpion” for example, the album has well over 20 different producers on the album. It is clear that it’s what works for Tyga and he has clearly found a winning formula.

Before even listening to the album it was surprising when looking at the track list that there was no “Swish”, “Swap Meet”, “Dip” featuring Nicki Minaj or “Girls Have Fun” featuring G-Eazy and Rich The Kid. Then again, with the statement of lack of diversity and samey sound it makes sense why these tracks were not included. Including these tracks would have been a huge mistake, the album would have sounded even less diverse and could have just been a very poor mix with all these tracks following a very similar vibe.

The project clearly has strong features, with already being aware of Chris Brown and Offset, the album also features Gunna, Swae Lee, Lil Wayne, Babyface, Bazzi and A Boogie Wit da Hoodie. That is not to discredit what Tyga offers on his own because “Werkkkk” and “Shit I Like” are alright songs but the likes of “Legendary” featuring Gunna and “Vibrate” featuring Swae Lee do offer somewhat another dimension to the track. Outside of “Taste”, “February Love” is probably the strongest track on the album. The perfect mix of R&B and Tyga that works perfectly well on (shock) a beat produced by D.A.

“Haute” adds some diversity with the beat sounding like its slightly sampled/influenced by the (many times previously sampled) Dance/House classic Maya Jane Coles “What They Say”. It works with the vocals from Chris Brown and the Spanish twist from J Balvin and it is not a surprise it was released as a single a couple days before the album release. “Made Me” featuring Bazzi also takes a slightly different vibe with the chorus from Bazzi taking a very Pop-sound in contrast to the Rap/R&B club type sounding hooks that are prominent throughout Tyga’s catalog and within this this album as well.

The track “Maykherkhum” (Make Her Cum – if case you had not worked it out) is quite possibly the worst track on the album. A slow paced beat with Tyga essentially telling the listener how he can make a girl cum and ab lids of “Yeaaaah” from Tyga himself. Sounds like the track was made to add something slightly different to the album. Very strange and arguably should not have made it anywhere near the album at all.

Overall, it has been a very successful year for Tyga and he has truly put himself back among the American Rap scenes elite. He has clearly got a good working formula with producer D.A. but this is not a bad thing. Let us not forget that through the history of music there has also been those artists who have producers they work well with. The likes of Justin Timberlake and the Neptunes/Timbaland had a similar stint in the early 2000’s.

The album is an easy listen but some songs do need skipping. Tracks such as “February Love”, “Vibrate”, “Haute” and “Werkkkk” will be well liked. “Taste” will be remembered for many years and will most likely become a throwback song. Other than that, the album does not hold that much diversity in terms of beats and sounds and many tracks, at the best, feeling quite average. Nevertheless, Tyga is still producing club bangers and some of these tracks will go down well during this summer and potentially next if they have the longevity of “Taste”.