As if Kanye West’s album releases weren’t already confusing enough, it now appears that contrary to a previous announcement, his next album, “Jesus Is King,” is not being released this Friday, a source close to the situation tells Variety. But according to West’s wife, Kim Kardashian, maybe it is?
Kardashian, who has been intermittently counting down toward the album’s release, earlier today retweeted a tweet from one “Colinags” that says “Two more days Jesus is King.” (Colinags’ identity is unclear, but the account is followed by West.)
The short answer is: Who knows? West’s attitude toward releasing music in recent years has been nothing if not irreverent, as he blasted out five albums in five weeks last year (two with him as a featured artist and three other he produced), and continued to remix and re-record his 2016 “Life of Pablo” album weeks after its official release, so anything is possible.
A meeting about the album between West and Def Jam executives recently took place in the rapper’s occasional home base of Wyoming, where he staged a massive event to launch his “Ye” album last year (news of the meeting and the album’s delay was first reported by Hits). West held one of his semi-weekly church-like “Sunday Services” in Wyoming last weekend, which was attended by super-producer Rick Rubin — who came in during the final stages two of West’s last three solo albums, “Yeezus” and “Life of Pablo,” and met with him the month before “Ye” dropped — so his presence suggests that an album is finished.
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The saga of “Jesus Is King” began late last month, when Kardashian sort-of announced its release on social media — via a photo of a tracklist filled with Christian-themed song titles (including “God Is,” “Baptized,” “Through the Valley,” “Sunday” and “Sweet Jesus”) and the date “September 27th” written at the bottom, a Bible opened to Psalm 57:6, a pair of notebooks, a flashlight (the light – get it?) and a jar of something or other. Also included in the tracklist is the song “Water,” which West performed at his Sunday Services earlier this year, including the one held during Coachella’s second weekend.
It seems that “Jesus Is King” is an entirely different album from one West planned to drop late last year, “Yandhi,” the release of which he delayed several times before postponing indefinitely, tweeting in November that it “isn’t ready yet.” Several different purported versions of that album have leaked online over the past few months, and there was been no update on it — official or otherwise — for quite some time.
And while Variety’s source declined to reveal what was discussed at the Wyoming meeting between West and Def Jam executives, Hits characterized it as a “Come to Yeezus” meeting — although it is unclear what that means, it seems possible that an album of Christian-themed songs is perhaps not what label executives had in mind as the latest release from arguably its biggest star.
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