Kanye West is nothing without controversy. So it’s no wonder his upcoming project Yandhi, is already full of it.
Yandhi is supposed to be a sequel to his 2013 album, Yeezus. This would be West’s third album this year. The release date for his album was originally Sept. 29, 2018. He had billboards and photos on Instagram and Twitter trumpeting the album release date. However, West was silent on social media the day of release. The next day, he said on Twitter that the album would be pushed back to Nov. 30, otherwise known as Black Friday. On Nov. 12, West tweeted again: “After performing again [at Camp Flog Gnaw], I realize the new album I’ve been working on isn’t ready yet. I’ll release the date once it’s done. Thank you for understanding.”
For the people who had not heard of West’s past pre-album controversies, this would have been shocking news. But from his first album to his most previous partnership with rapper Kid Cudi, West has used controversy as a marketing tool. In 2005, before the release of Late Registration, West, helping raise money through a telethon for Hurricane Katrina donations, turned the conversation upside down, changing the topic, and then ending with the phrase, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” On top of this, at a concert about a month before the telethon, West made the outlandish claim that AIDs was a “man-made disease.” But the controversies managed to keep coming. Even before the release of his last solo album, Ye, West struck up a friendship with President Donald Trump – not a popular person with the African-American community – even going as far as to meet with him on multiple occasions.
Even without Yandhi’s release date, here is what we do know about the album. The artwork for it is a clear CD case, with a silver, plain CD inside. On the right side of the CD case is a thick purple stripe stretching to the center of the case. Based on the fact that Yeezus was a combination of Jesus and Yeezy (Kanye’s brand), we know that this project is a combination of Yeezy and Gandhi. The tracklist for the disc has yet to be released, but we do know some of the features on the record. Two of the rappers on this record are XXXTentacion, and 6ix9ine. XXXTentacion was killed on June 18, 2018, in a robbery outside of a motorcycle dealership in Deerfield Beach, Florida. XXXTentacion was to face Domestic Battery charges in court but died before the hearing. The other rapper known to be featured is 6ix9ine. 6ix9ine recently went to court to face a slew of charges, including racketeering and breaking and entering. The minimum sentence the rapper would face, if convicted, is 32 years.
As for when this album will be released, or if it will be released at all, we can only guess. West’s last two albums were only dropped one week apart, but the one before that, The Life of Pablo, dropped in early 2017.
