The Gold Album: 18th Dynasty

Recording and production

On May 1, 2014, Tyga made a tweet, stating that the project would be executively produced by Kanye West. The production on the album would be provided by Mike Dean, alongside his frequent collaborator Jess Jackson.

Promotion

On October 22, 2013, Tyga released a track, called "Wait for a Minute", as the album's promotional single. The track features a duet between Tyga and a Canadian recording artist Justin Bieber, with the production that was handled by Maejor.

On April 9, 2014, Tyga released a track, called "Hookah", as the project's second promotional single. The song features guest vocals from a fellow American rapper Young Thug, with the production that was provided by London on da Track.

Release

On January 8, 2015, the project was availably made for the pre-order on iTunes, including two promotional singles: "Make It Work" and "40 Mill" (with the production handled by West and Mike Dean). As of June 2015, these pre-order tracks were removed, however, and were not included in the album's final track listing. The mixtape differs from other Tyga projects as it was not released physically by CD or vinyl pressings, which could've contributed to the mixtape's lackluster commercial performance. In addition to that, some songs that Tyga intended to have on this project had to be removed: "Hookah" featuring Young Thug, "Wait for a Minute" featuring Justin Bieber, "Erryday", "40 Mill", "Real Deal", "Make It Work", and some unreleased collaborations with Future, Drake and Chris Brown were all not present on the album. The reason being Tyga's previous label was not allowing him to release them as they had ownership of the songs. This is why the track list was short and concise in terms of amount of songs. To date, the project is only available on streaming formats.

Critical reception

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from music critics, the project has received an average score of 45 based on 4 reviews, signifying "mixed or average reviews". In a negative review, Meaghan Garvey of Pitchfork wrote "Tyga doesn't even sound like he's having fun here; the prevailing mood is one of vague bitterness, directed at everyone, but particularly women." Garvey further lamented that the songs "Hookah", "Wait for a Minute", "Make It Work" and "40 Mill" were not part of the album's final track listing. Writing for The News Hub, Samson Pharaoh stated "The latter parts of the record flicker with depth and the rapper often comes off well-roundedly", but still felt the production of the album was "sleepy" on tracks like "4 My Dawgs". Ultimately, he gave the album 5 out of 10 stars. In an average review, PopMatters said "the album is full of songs that falter either for a lack of a guiding beat or because of misguided lyrics that carry little purpose [...] On '4 My Dawgz', Lil Wayne delivers a painful-sounding few bars, describing his 'going crazy', which is an apt feeling after listening to the ten songs preceding it."

Commercial performance

Following nearly a full week of streaming and three days of sales via iTunes, The Gold Album: 18th Dynasty failed to reached on the Billboard 200; it sold 2,200 copies during the tracking week. Tyga defended the album's low sales on Twitter, explaining that streaming was the release's primary focus. Indeed, track streams from the mixtape during the tracking week numbered around 4 million. Nevertheless, even with consumption from streaming included, the album's total equivalent album units count for the week numbered less than 5,000.

Singles

On May 19, 2015, the first single was released, titled "Hollywood Niggaz". The second single "Pleazer" featuring guest appearance from American rapper Boosie Badazz, was released June 12, 2015, but neither of the singles from the album charted.