Kanye West is having a crazy year. While that can be said about many of the last few years of his life, this one is particularly remarkable not only for his role as the outspoken-and-often-controversial celebrity, but also in that he has cranked out work at a rate not seen by the Chicago rapper in years.
In addition to his own special project with Kid Cudi called KIDS SEE GHOSTS and a solo mini-album called Ye, he served as producer on what is now called the “Project Wyoming” — Pusha-T’s Daytona, Nas’ Nasir and Teyana Taylor’s K.T.S.E. These releases were referenced with that moniker because he invited the artists to join him in Jackson Hole, WY for recording sessions. He announced these albums just after he returned to Twitter, which he had deactivated previously.
After Taylor’s album was released, he announced yet another 2018 project, a new album to be titled Yandhi. That record was initially announced for a September 2018 release, then pushed back to November 2018. As that release date quickly approaches, it appears that West has had to bump the date even further.
In a Tweet, West states that while performing at last weekend’s Camp Flog Gnaw with Cudi as KIDS SEE GHOSTS, he realized his new album wasn’t quite ready for release. So stand by for another protracted wait for West’s newest album.
West has long been known to buck traditional hip-hop culture, especially since 2016 when he has come forward with full-throated support for the current president Donald Trump, calling him his brother and relating to his “dragon energy.” He’s received ton of backlash from it, including a Detroit radio station making the declaration that they’d no longer play his music (no word if that boycott’s still in effect), while the Crips put out gang threat that led to the rapper increasing his security detail. The reason for that boycott was because he called slavery a choice, something that he debated bit with rapper T.I. on the song “Ye vs. The People.”
In the biggest news story for West of the year was when he actually met with President Trump (not the pair’s first meeting since the election, but certainly highly-billed meeting). In it, the rapper went on a long and meandering soliloquy which left Trump of all people speechless. Then at the beginning of October West deleted his Twitter profile again, which is clearly back in action. Finally and most recently, he somewhat bizarrely tweeted that he had been used, seemingly a reaction to a disagreement he had with well-known conservative mouthpiece Candace Owens. There are still one and a half months left in 2018, so who knows what else West has in store for one of his most eventful years as a professional.
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