Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign's collaborative album Vultures has been delayed until Jan. 12, Billboard has reported. The album was previously scheduled for release on Dec. 31, having missed its initial release date of Dec. 15.
Multiple album release delays are nothing new for West, although the circumstances surrounding Vultures are anything but typical. A collaborative album with Ty under the new moniker ¥$, the album is West's first attempt to release new music since his series of outlandish antisemitic comments in 2022 saw him become persona non grata in the realms of music, fashion and business.
'Vultures' is West's first album since his infamous 2022 antisemitic remarks lost him several multimillion-dollar deals.
West first previewed new tracks at a listening party for Vultures on Dec. 12 at Miami’s Wynwood Marketplace. Joined onstage by Ty, Offset, Chris Brown and Freddie Gibbs, West played several cuts from the album, though most of the coverage from the event concerned the black Klan-style hood he donned during the playback of the album's title-track, which contains a particularly vulgar line addressing his recent status as a social pariah.
West, of course, lost his multimillion-dollar deals with Adidas and the Gap, as well as his talent agency and the use of his social media accounts, after he unleashed a flurry of outrageous antisemitic remarks across a wide variety of platforms in 2022. Always a magnet for controversy and a purveyor of outlandish comments, his descent into open, unambiguous bigotry seemed like it might be the last straw for many of his fans, and it remains to be seen if his top-tier music career can still be salvaged.
West made headlines for the black Klan-style hood he wore during a listening party for 'Vultures' on Dec. 12.
In addition to guest appearances from Gibbs and Brown, the album's initial tracklisting also included "New Body," West's collaboration with Nicki Minaj that was originally supposed to be released on West's scrapped 2018 album Yandhi, and which has since resurfaced multiple times over the years. Minaj, however, seemed to throw cold water on the idea in an appearance on Instagram Live, and it remains unclear whether the track will make the final cut.
“Regarding Kanye," Minaj said, "that train has left the station. No disrespect in any way, [but] I just put out a brand new album. Why would I put out a song that has been out for years? Come on, guys.”
Nicki Minaj seemed unenthused by the potential revival of her years-old West collaboration, 'New Body.'
West's career has bounced back from several major controversies over the years, though arguably none as big as his most recent ones. His stage-invasion of Taylor Swift's MTV VMA acceptance speech in 2009 was followed by the release of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which landed on the top of multiple publications' year-end albums of the year lists. In 2016, his support of Donald Trump and infamous “slavery was a choice” quote also caused a number of fans to jump ship, yet the albums he released afterward -- 2018's Ye, 2019's Jesus Is King, and 2021's Donda -- all debuted at the top of the U.S. album chart, with Donda even earning an Album of the Year Grammy nomination.
