NEWS

Kanye West rumoured to drop new album played at Las Vegas listening event

Speculation is building that Kanye West will drop a new album in the near future, following rumours of an exclusive listening event for the record being held in Las Vegas.

Claims of West’s new album being close to release first came from internet personality Justin Laboy, who said that the rapper played the album for both him and professional basketball player Kevin Durant over the weekend.

“Kanye played his new album for me & @KDTrey5 last night in Vegas,” Laboy wrote.

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“The production is light years ahead of it’s time, and the bars sound like he’s broke & hungry trying to get signed again. Any artist who plan on dropping soon should just push it back”

Laboy then shared a photo of what is allegedly West playing music for him and Durant.

In two further individual tweets, Laboy claimed that West’s new album will be arriving at some point this week.

“Kanye West album is really done,” he wrote, “When it drops this week, we probably not going to listen to anything else for a while..”

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As Laboy’s tweets began to circulate, rumours of an exclusive album listening event in Las Vegas began to appear online.

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Pictures have been shared online of people allegedly queuing outside the venue where the supposed listening event took place on Sunday evening.

Producer Teddy Walton – who has worked with Travis Scott and Bryson Tiller, as well as Kendrick Lamar‘s Grammy-nominated song ‘LOVE.’ – has also tweeted about a new Kanye West album, which he appears to have contributed to.

“Honestly can’t wait till [Kanye West] drop,” he wrote. “& I’m glad to be apart [sic] of history… See y’all soon.”

Some artists have responded to the rumours, with Chicago rapper Lil Durk saying he “missed the jet” to appear on the album.

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Brockhampton‘s Kevin Abstract shared his excitement at the prospect of new music from West, tweeting, “kanye please give us the album”.

The hip-hop music festival Rolling Loud also responded to the speculation by flat-out asking West if he could confirm news of the album – and by inviting him to launch the record at its Miami event next weekend.

While no collaborators on West’s new album have been confirmed just yet, footage emerged over the weekend of Tyler, The Creator in the studio with West.

The footage sees both Tyler and Kanye in the studio in front of a whiteboard with what appears to be a tracklist written on it.

The Kanye album ‘Donda’, the follow up to 2019’s ‘Jesus Is King’, was initially set for release last year but never materialised. He had previously shared the album’s artwork, as well as a collaboration with Travis Scott, ‘Wash Us In the Blood’.

In March, CyHi The Prynce, West’s collaborator, revealed that West had resumed work on ‘Donda’ “late last year”.






West recently lent his vocals to ‘Faith’, the second posthumous album by late Brooklyn rapper Pop Smoke, alongside Pusha T on the track ‘Tell Me The Vision’.