Cudi Montage
[1] West released his eighth studio album Ye on June 1, 2018, with vocals from Kid Cudi included on the tracks "No Mistakes" and "Ghost Town".
The producer was studying at college when he first met Kid Cudi in 2007, recalling in a 2018 interview that he was getting into production at the time and the rapper "came by my studio setup in my parents' living room".
[4] Though Dot da Genius said their "immediate vibe" continued from the meeting onwards, he admitted West "was a very big unifier in our interests as musicians" while viewing him as "on another level and we both took notice".
Speaking of recording with Kids See Ghosts in Wyoming, Dot da Genius explained that he "just tried to make everything as epic sounding as possible" and lauded the duo as "two of the best".
The member confesses to being unsure if the idea would work until he presented it to Dot da Genius in a way, following this by telling him how he wanted to chop up the Cobain sample, before his engineer William J. Sullivan deployed the technique.
[15] She explained this is because Cobain died from suicide, adding that "it's also an especially fitting pairing for Kid Cudi, who [...] has embraced his inner angsty rock star since long before such influences were de rigueur in rap".
[18] Lyrically, the track is a pledge from Kids See Ghosts to avoid repeating past mistakes, with both of the members looking towards faith for overcoming life's struggles.
[23] West uses his verse to rap about cycles of violence in black communities and the pain of loss as he comes to realization with the effects of police brutality, incarceration, and mass shootings on the black community, concluding with a reference to Alice Johnson, an African-American woman jailed for life over a non-violent drug offence and whose sentence was ended in 2018 after 21 years by US president Donald Trump at the suggestion of the rapper's wife Kim Kardashian.
[18] During the outro of the song, a call and response sees West sing "Lord shine your light on me, save me please", with Kid Cudi and a backing vocalist responding by imploring to "stay strong" as the latter of the two rappers hums.
Israel Daramola of Spin considered the song a "melancholy finale" to Kids See Ghosts, highlighting the "quavering vulnerability" of the duo's vocal performances while also complimenting the sample of Cobain's "Burn the Rain" for being among what "makes the album work as brilliantly as it does".
[33] Pitchfork editor Jayson Greene wrote that with its empathy, the song "relocates a precious, nearly vanished quantity of Kanye's music" and called West's verse one of his "most sustained efforts to imagine someone else's life" since his performance on the single "All of the Lights" (2010).
[13] In a review of the album for Billboard, Eric Diep picked the song as one of the highlights and specifically praised Kid Cudi's "soaring" hook as well as West's lyrical style, commending the latter's reflectiveness.
[24] Jack Hamilton from Slate decided the song is Kids See Ghosts' "prettiest and most affecting moment", analyzing that the "Burn the Rain" sample "gradually recedes as Cudi moves from his opening verse to the chorus", which he said features "cavernous, incantatory repetition".
[18] Hamilton further wrote that West's verse is "a murky but heartfelt rumination on violence" and called the remainder of the song after his performance "gorgeous, a soaring mass of voices and textures and chord changes that seem to move within their own incontestable logic".
[18] NME's Jordan Bassett glorified the call-and-response between the line "Lord shine your light on me" and the "Stay strong" vocals as the "stand-out moment" on the album, alongside directing praise towards the song's "calming wash of synth".
