Another day, another messy Kanye West album release. Does this feel like deja vu to you? Because it definitely does to me. Once again, Kanye West has heavily teased a new project that is slated to drop, only to not have it drop late with no communication with fans. 

Background

Last year around this time, the hip hop world was excited for West’s new album Yandhi. It was supposed to follow-up his eighth studio album Ye, which released only three months earlier in June 2018. He hyped us all up on Yandhi’s release, even posting a song teaser with the cover art on his then-active Instagram. The snippet of the song on the post sounded really good, making the fan anticipation hit a peak. 

The release date for Yandhi was originally set for September 29th, 2018. That date came and went without the album, to the frustration of many. A few days later, the album was postponed to be released on Black Friday 2018. Yet again, “release day” came and went with no Yandhi in sight. The album was pushed back once more, this time with no new release date announced. 

Jesus Is King

Early in 2019, after the final November 2018 delay, an unfinished Yandhi leaked onto the internet. This showed fans that the original project had most likely been scrapped and we wouldn’t get it in its first form. Some were undoubtedly happy that it came out at all, but many were disappointed with the leak.

Neither Kanye nor his wife Kim Kardashian acknowledged the leak and stayed pretty quiet. But after being relatively quiet on the music front in 2019, Ye announced that he had a new album releasing soon. The album is titled Jesus Is King and was set to release September 27th, presumably at midnight like most albums. That did not happen, as you can clearly see by reading this post.    

Why does Kanye keep doing this?

Now you’re all caught up on most of the drama surrounding the pointlessly mysterious Yandhi/Jesus Is King. Even if you aren’t a big Kanye fan, I’m sure you can understand why this situation has been very frustrating to fans over the past year. This actually isn’t even the first time that West has done this for one of his albums. He played with fans during the February 2016 release of The Life Of Pablo, causing more frustration for no reason. He even performed on SNL in February 2016 and ended his performance by saying the album was out, even though it wasn’t until quite a bit later. One would think that he would learn from that mistake, but apparently not. 

To be honest, I’m not sure why Kanye keeps doing this and putting us and himself in this position. It only comes as an annoyance to fans that have supported him for a long time and can leave a bad taste in the mouth of potential new listeners. Watching one of the best artists of all time play with their emotions like this is not a good look. I hope Mr. West thinks about it long and hard before announcing the release date for his next new project.

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