ANDY ZABINSKI, Staff Writer — This isn’t the first time that this has happened, Kanye, and we’re not happy with you. Along with “Good Ass Job”, “Turbografx 16”, and “Yandhi”, “Jesus is King” now joins the list of albums that rapper Kanye West has either pushed back or scrapped altogether.
On August 29, Kim Kardashian posted a picture to Twitter of a notepad that was titled “Jesus is King” along with the list of 12 song titles and the date “September 27” written at the bottom.
Obvious hype ensued, and given West’s recent “Sunday Service” performances where a gospel choir performs renditions of Kanye songs, rumors of the album being a gospel-inspired arose.
After the announcement, things got quiet. Neither West nor anyone connected to him mentioned the new album, and fears of the album not dropping came. However, on Friday, September 27, a listening party and film screening were announced to be held in Detroit that night, and fans expected the album to drop after that.
According to reports from fans that attended the event and leaked audio, the album drew elements from much of West’s past work, including “808s and Heartbreak”, “The College Dropout”, “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”, and even “The Life of Pablo”. In addition, according to the album Rolling Stone, features from the album include Pusha T, Ty Dolla $ign, and even Lauryn Hill and Kenny G.
Despite the listening party and seemingly positive response from fans, Kanye didn’t drop the album. However, late on Friday night, Kim Kardashian posted on her Instagram story that “Kanye’s doing a listening session in Chicago tomorrow, then NYC Sunday. He’s dropping the album Sunday. Just a few final tweaks to the mixes.”
Two days of listening parties came and went with no album drop. And with no release date announced, the album seems to be thrown in the pile of other unreleased Kanye West projects.
There does seem to be a glimmer of hope, however. After one of the listening parties, a poster was released for a “Jesus is King” IMAX film which is set to be released on October 25.
Even if the album does not release with the film on October 25, its fate is not sealed. The album could be continued to be worked on and eventually renamed which happened to “Good Ass Job” and “TurboGrafx 16” which became “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” and “ye”, respectively. Or a majority of the album could be leaked, which happened to tracks off of “Yandhi”.
Either way, if the album does eventually drop, all signs point to it being great.