In a new series for our blog, I’ll be taking a look back at albums that released within the last few years. The focus of the first installment of this series is a review of Migos’ 2018 album Culture II. Revisiting Culture II has been something that I’ve looked forward to for a while. Most of the words from this post were written the day of the album’s release on January 26th, 2018.

Revisiting Culture II

Ah Migos, back with another album already. Culture II is the follow-up to their 2017 sophomore release, the Grammy-nominated Culture. This new album comes nearly one year after the first Culture. The original came out on January 27th, 2017, with its sequel coming out on January 26th 2018.

The album is preceded in release by the singles “MotorSport” ft. Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, “Stir Fry” (which is the official song of the 2018 NBA All Star Game), and “Supastars”, which was released just a few days before the full album came out. This album has been heavily hyped since the first Culture went platinum. The pre-release singles lead that hype to a boiling point for many hip hop listeners and Migos fans. 

On the surface, Culture II is just another overstuffed Migos project. It has 24 tracks, spanning 1hr 45min. It is definitely not a quick and easy listen by any means. But being a quick and easy listen is definitely not a universal album requirement. Sometimes people would rather have a long album filled with tracks that they can shuffle through and not worry about an underlying story, instead of an album with a deep concept that they have to dig harder to understand. Let’s get into the album. 

First impressions

• The Good: On my first listen through this album, I noticed a bit of diversity in terms of production and general tone this time around from Migos. Songs such as “Stir Fry”, “Narcos”, and “Notice Me” are styles that Migos doesn’t explore nearly as often as some of the others styles that they continued to revisit on this effort.
• The Bad: The album is so long, sometimes painfully so. I can’t lie that it felt like a bit of a chore to sit for 1hr 45min and listen to one album with the same artists on each song. Things get a bit samey here and there, with songs such as “BBO”, “Walk It Talk It”, and “Too Much Jewelry” becoming quite boring after listening to previous Migos projects. 

Lyrics

• The Good: The lyrics in many of the songs are clever and contain some new topics that haven’t been previously discussed in a Migos track. The punchlines and pop culture references are also top notch and very entertaining throughout. 
• The Bad: Bragging about how much jewelry you have, how many women you have, and the types of cars you drive is only interesting for a little while. That little while has passed and it is time for Migos to try and cover different topics in their songs. They made an effort in songs such as “Higher We Go” and “Culture National Anthem”, but those are only 2 out of 24 songs on the album. 
• Score: 5/10

Beats

• The Good: Top notch production from Metro Boomin, Murda Beatz, Kanye West, Pharrell, DJ Durel, and even Quavo make up parts of this project. In terms of a trap album, it doesn’t get much better than this. Additional points here for trying something new and getting Kanye and Pharrell in on some production.
• The Bad: Again, repetitivity runs rampant throughout more than half of the beats on this project. We’ve already heard many beats similar to those on “Flooded”, “Crown the Kings”, and “CC”. It is a bit disappointing hearing the group go from a fresh and interesting beat on “Stir Fry” to an eerily similar beat such as “BBO”.
• Score: 6/10

Replayability

• The Good: This album has a lot of good songs on it. Even if some of the lyrics and topics are similar to what we’ve heard in the past from Migos, the songs are still enjoyable for the most part. This is a great album to put on shuffle while you’re cleaning, working on homework, or partying. 
• The Bad: There are simply too many songs to create an enjoyable experience by playing this album all the way through. An ideal album length for Migos should be no more than 15-16 songs. The inclusion of 24 songs feels like they just used every song they recorded and forgot about what made the first Culture so great, which was that it had 13 memorable songs instead of 24 mostly just okay songs.  
• Score: 7/10

Standouts

• As I said before, this album has a lot of good songs on it, and some that aren’t so good. Standout tracks based on numerous listens would be “MotorSport”, “White Sand”, “Emoji A Chain”,  and “Work Hard”. These aren’t the only good songs, but they are the ones that made me want to continue listening and go back and add them to my playlist.

Final thoughts 

I’ll be honest, I was pretty hyped for this album. “MotorSport” raised my hype to a new level, and frankly recaptured the magic that filled Culture. Release day came and went, and my excitement faded a bit after seeing the 24 tracks. Regardless, I dove right in at 10pm and began to listen. As I was about half way through the project, I realized that it can’t be compared to its predecessor. It’s simply too long and seems a bit rushed. I think if Migos pushed this project back to the middle of 2018, cut 8-9 tracks, and reevaluated what they were really going for with this one, the fans would have received a much better product in the end. I’ll continue listening in the future, but please Migos, take your time on your next project and try some more new styles. Everyone will appreciate it in the end.

Final Score: 6/10 

Impression of the album in 2020

After reading through my album review from 2018 again, I agree with a lot of the points. This piece was based on early first impressions so it seems a bit dated here and there, but the points still stand. Culture II was very bloated at 24 songs, but a lot of them stayed in my rotation to this day. I don’t agree with the standouts that I picked in 2018 even though I still like those songs. 

Overall, I would say that Culture II didn’t age super well but it is still listenable. I have yet to revisit the entire album in order but I plan on it soon. With the first single from Culture III already out in “Give No Fxk”, I’ll definitely be listening to more Migos as I prepare for that project.  

K-UTE Radio/University of Utah does not own any images in this piece.