Hopes and Anxieties: Ye’s New Album
Rumblings of a new Ye album have been met with excitement and scepticism - AF pick apart the reasons why.
Yandhi; So Help Me God; Turbo Grafx 16 - and the list goes on pretty much indefinitely. Ye fans will be hoping that reportedly imminent release ¥$ (Yen-Dollar, YenDolla, Ye N Dolla?), a collaborative tape with cult legend Ty Dolla Sign, doesn’t join the extensive list of abruptly-cancelled Kanye projects that never came to fruition.
Ye has remained impressively mute on social media since his ban on Twitter for rampant anti-Semitism amongst other suspicious activity, including that infamous ‘White Lives Matter’ fashion show and an explosive rant at Adidas, Gap, and probably most uncomfortably, his then wife. Ye sends out the odd message “to the people” via third parties - he told Ian Connor to announce his theory of accident-induced autism to the world a few weeks ago - but otherwise has been unable to tease album details in the tantalising fashion he normally does. Nevertheless, Ty took it upon himself to announce a “multi-stadium listening event” on Oct 23, with rumours following of a performance of the album to take place at the RCF Arena in the small town of Reggio Emilia, Italy. However, Billboard confirmed on Nov 3 that this had fallen through, with the pair reported to be searching for a distributor for the LP. Joe Budden affirmed that Ye and Ty would certainly be in the driver’s seat for any negotiations, though it’s hard to imagine any labels leaping at the chance with the same enthusiasm they might have even four or five years ago.
It was in the same milieu of chaos that unfinished album Donda 2 came to be in early 2022 - after announcing a release date, Kanye launched a tirade against modern-day distribution mechanisms, and then announced that he would retain as much profit as possible by only making the album available to stream on his $200 YZY Stem Player product, generating widespread backlash from fans and commentators. When the album was finally uploaded to the Stem Player Website days after the given release date, it was a collection of consistently rough and jagged demos throughout which Ye would often be heard neglecting the use of a single lyric for verses at a time.
On the positive side, we do know that complete-sounding tracks exist. DJ Fred Again has been teasing a collaboration between the trio at his recent shows, where Ye can be heard with a choppy flow over grandiose 808s. A video clip snippet, unofficially named “The Morning”, depicts a bewitching harmony from the imperious-sounding Ty, before a reverb-laden kick drum akin to those routinely experimented with on Donda takes over and Ye euphorically proclaims “DO YOU HEAR THIS SHIT!!!” to the grainy camera. If Ye returns to the minimalist philosophy he adopted in the curation of KIDS SEE GHOST or the self-titled Ye, a project that primarily espouses sonic excellency over lyrical declarations would give him the best shot at clawing back a semblance of respect from the mainstream - the ambiguity of the latter would inevitably make for a nervous listen.
Ty Dolla Sign is another enigmatic component of the project. Previous collaborations between the two have yielded fan favourites “Real Friends”, “Ghost Town”, “Everything We Need” and “Ego Death”, and the two complement each other seamlessly on most of their shared work. ??? of the Joe Budden Podcast has argued, however, that there are “two sides” of Ty - while he’s plainly capable of producing accomplished music, his name is in some eyes cheapened by the proportion of his “classics” that are actually just features he does on for other artists - Indeed, the majority of his 10 ‘popular’ songs on Spotify are cameos he appears on for his contemporaries. ¥$ presents an important opportunity for Ty to change his image, although association with one of the most divisive figures of the past few years may be a risky way to do so.
The most uncertain aspect of this whole story is the likelihood of it actually happening. ‘Delay’ in Kanye West terms is an equivocal concept - fans have experienced week-long postponements and year-long blue-ballsing over the course of multiple releases, most notably for The Life of Pablo and Yeezus. I would imagine, in traditional fashion, we’ll be seeing a lot more Ye on the news before that day arrives.