The 2020s File Feature
Do It
Do It — ¥$'s Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign Make Their Chart EntryThe Collision Course That Was VulturesFew album rollouts in recent memory generated as much a…
01 The Story
Do It — ¥$'s Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign Make Their Chart Entry
The Collision Course That Was Vultures
Few album rollouts in recent memory generated as much anticipatory friction as the one surrounding Vultures 1, the collaborative project from Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign operating under the joint moniker ¥$. By early 2024, both artists carried considerable cultural baggage: Kanye's public controversies had made him a genuinely polarizing figure, while Ty Dolla $ign remained one of the most consistently respected behind-the-scenes collaborators in contemporary pop and R&B. Their partnership promised something combustible, and when the record finally arrived, it moved with the momentum of an event the industry had been holding its breath over for months.
A Top 100 Entry on Debut
Do It appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 on February 24, 2024, entering at number 52. That's a strong debut position, reflecting the accumulated streaming and attention that came with the album's release weekend. The song spent two weeks on the chart, sliding to number 94 the following week before departing. The brief run was characteristic of how album tracks from high-profile releases behave in the streaming era: a concentrated burst of activity tied to release momentum, then a gradual fade as the audience's attention redistributes across the full project.
West and Ty Dolla $ign as a Creative Unit
The pairing of Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign made a certain kind of creative logic. West, whatever controversies surrounded him personally, retained a reputation as a producer-artist willing to push pop music into uncomfortable formal territory. Ty Dolla $ign's gifts run in a different direction: a melodic intelligence and vocal versatility that can soften or intensify any track he touches. On the songs that worked best across Vultures 1, the two men's instincts complemented each other in ways that confirmed why the collaboration was worth making. Their combined profile ensured that every track received immediate mass attention, regardless of whether it was a single.
The Context of a Complicated Release
The release of Vultures 1 came at a moment when Kanye West's relationship to the mainstream music industry was genuinely uncertain. Distribution deals had fallen through, streaming placement was complicated, and the album ultimately arrived through independent channels. That context shaped how the music was received: for some listeners, the album represented creative resilience; for others, the controversy surrounding its creator made engagement uncomfortable. Do It existed within that charged atmosphere, reaching number 52 on the Hot 100 despite the headwinds, which speaks to the enduring drawing power of both artists even under difficult circumstances.
A Moment in a Larger Story
The ¥$ project was never going to be a conventional chart narrative. Both West and Ty Dolla $ign have long operated at a scale where individual chart positions are less meaningful than the broader cultural conversation a release generates. Do It contributed to that conversation while achieving a genuine commercial presence. Peaking at number 52 on February 24, 2024, the track confirmed that the collaborative project could find a substantial audience even in a fraught moment, and that the ¥$ chemistry translated to something listeners wanted to hear.
Pull it up and hear what two of contemporary music's most distinctive voices built together.
“Do It” — ¥$'s singular moment on the 2020s charts.
02 Song Meaning
Do It — Drive, Desire, and the Energy of the ¥$ Collaboration
Command as Energy
The title Do It functions as imperative, as invitation, as pure kinetic instruction. In the vocabulary of contemporary hip-hop and R&B, two words can carry enormous freight: they establish a mood, position the narrator, and tell the listener what kind of energy to bring to the room. The ¥$ collaboration between Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign operates in that tradition of maximalist compression, where brevity and ambition coexist without contradiction. Do It announces its intentions in the title alone.
The Double Signature
Any song from this project carries the unmistakable double signature of its creators. Kanye West's sensibility has always gravitated toward tracks that feel monumental even at their most stripped-down, arrangements that leave space for grandiosity even when they don't fill it. Ty Dolla $ign brings a melodic warmth and rhythmic suppleness that tends to humanize whatever production surrounds him. Together, those instincts push toward music that is simultaneously bombastic and vulnerable, commanding and seductive. Do It lives in that productive tension.
The Mood of 2024 Rap
Early 2024 hip-hop was navigating a crowded and competitive landscape, one defined by drill's continued dominance, the persistence of melodic trap, and an ongoing conversation about where the genre's forward motion was coming from. The ¥$ project positioned itself outside those specific conversations, drawing on both artists' histories to construct something that referenced the recent past while refusing to be constrained by current trends. West and Ty Dolla $ign have each been making music long enough that their collaborations carry an implicit argument: this is what experience sounds like when it refuses to settle into formula.
Desire and Agency
Thematically, the Vultures 1 material circled ideas of desire, self-assertion, and the psychology of confidence. Do It fits comfortably in that framework, treating the act of wanting something and pursuing it as inherently worthy of musical celebration. There's no apologizing for ambition here, no ironic distancing from the emotions on display. The lyrics project a world where decisive action is the natural response to desire, and where hesitation reads as the only real failure. That posture connects to a long tradition in Black music of celebrating self-determination as a value in itself.
Brief Chart Life, Lasting Energy
Two weeks on the Hot 100 captures only a fraction of what Do It represented within the larger ¥$ narrative. The track's meaning is inseparable from the project that surrounded it: a release that arrived amid controversy, found its audience anyway, and contributed to a collaborative statement that its creators believed in regardless of the external noise. That combination of artistic conviction and real commercial presence, however briefly registered, gives the song a significance that outlasts its chart statistics.
→ More from the 2020s File
View all 2020s hits →
Keep digging