For months, the rapper has teased “Vultures,” his first album since he made a string of antisemitic comments last year. He said the LP will be released Friday.
Kanye West, the contentious artist and provocateur now known as Ye, appeared onstage in Miami after midnight on Tuesday wearing a pointed black hood that resembled a Ku Klux Klan robe — and the 10-year-old artwork for his song “Black Skinhead” — as the musician previewed his first new album since a string of incendiary and antisemitic comments threatened to tank his career in music and fashion last year.
The listening event, which was dubbed a “rave” and streamed online amid technical difficulties, teased “Vultures,” an album that Ye has been plugging intermittently for months alongside the R&B singer Ty Dolla Sign, a frequent collaborator.
In various appearances around the Miami area in the last week, Ye has played songs from the album and said that it would be released on Friday, Dec. 15, although false starts, delays and missed deadlines have long been a feature of Ye’s process and marketing prowess. Billboard reported in October that Ye and Ty Dolla Sign were considering label distribution partners for the release, since Ye’s longtime record company, Def Jam, distanced itself from him amid the controversies last fall.
The two musicians had previously attempted to stage a concert or listening event at an arena in Italy for up to 100,000 people, then pivoted to teasing a “multi stadium listening event” last month, similar to the events Ye used to promote his album “Donda” in 2021. Both plans fizzled.
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Source: Music - nytimes.com
