If there’s one defining feature of seemingly every Kanye West album rollout, it’s gotta be chaos. In the past, it was usually good chaos — oh, how we yearn for the days of first-week sales competitions, Good Friday drops, and music videos projected on buildings. But these days, it’s often grim chaos, and the rollout for Vultures 1, West’s new collaborative album with Ty Dolla $ign, has been another exhibition in the form: Delays upon delays, sample issues, diatribes of various kinds, and an alternate album cover based around a painting by one of Hitler’s favorite artists.
Vultures 1 did finally see release on Feb. 10, but it’s unlikely things will calm down anytime soon. More issues around sample clearances have cropped up, and the company that distributed the LP to streaming services is trying to take it down. Much more is likely in store, but enough has happened to warrant a look back at all all the hurdles West barely cleared and all the rakes he stepped on to get to this point.
The Pre-rollout
West and Ty Dolla $ign spent much of 2023 making Vultures. The sessions largely kept West out of the public eye after one of the most damming and damaging years of his career, during which he did things like spew a whole bunch of antisemitic comments, praise Nazis and Hitler in an interview with Alex Jones, and hang out more with denizens of the extreme far-right like Nick Fuentes and Milo Yiannaopolous. It all cost West some of its most important and lucrative partnerships with companies Adidas, Balenciaga, and the talent agency CAA.
But it apparently wasn’t bad enough to isolate West as an artist. During the Vultures sessions, reports and videos emerged suggesting the album would feature artists like Lil Baby, James Blake, Kodak Black, and Freddie Gibbs.
First False Starts
Ty Dolla $ign first announced the album on Oct. 23 with a pretty vague Instagram post that contained no official album title or release date but did promise a “multi stadium listening event November 3rd.” Those never happened.
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Instead, a few weeks later, on Nov. 17, West and Ty released their first single, “Vultures,” featuring Bump J and Lil Durk, to radio. The track arrived on streaming the following week, sans Lil Durk’s verse, which was ultimately added back after fan uproar.
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In early December, a snippet of a new song called “Everybody” — which interpolated the Backstreet Boys’ “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” — started circulating on social media. The full song was played at a Vultures listening party soon after during Art Basel Miami. While the Backstreet Boys reportedly did not approve the use, West technically only needed the permission of the songwriters because it was an interpolation, not a sample. (It doesn’t seem like songwriter Max Martin gave his permission though, as “Everybody” did not make the final Vultures 1 track list.)
Also, during Art Basel Miami, West announced the first Vultures 1 release date would be Dec. 15. Pre-save links even dropped on streaming platforms, though quickly disappeared. West also shared an album cover featuring art from the German Romantic landscape painter Caspard David Friedrich, whose work was widely beloved by the Nazis, including Hitler. Additionally, the cover art’s typography seemed to nod towards Burzum, the Norwegian black metal band fronted by Varg Vikernes, a Nazi sympathizer and convicted murderer. (While the artwork was later changed to a photo of West and his partner, Bianca Censori, merch with the Friedrich-inspired cover is still for sale on West’s website.)
The Nicki Minaj Incident and a Bit More Antisemitism
Quickly following the “Everybody” dust-up, West found himself embroiled in a more contentious clearance confrontation with Nicki Minaj. As the first Vultures release date approached, West logged onto social media to make a public plea to Minaj so he could clear a verse she reportedly recorded years ago for a song called “New Body.” Minaj responded on Instagram Live and declined, saying, “That train has left the station. No disrespect in any way, I just put out a brand new album. Why would I put out a song that’s been out for three years? Come on guys.”
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At another album listening party, this one in Las Vegas, West fired back, “I made that girl rewrite her verse three times for ‘Monster’. I supported her career. So I don’t know what it is. But we going to get this or we just ain’t going to push it.”
But that was probably the least notable quote from the Las Vegas listening party, doing which West delivered another classic brain dump (which was captured on Instagram Live and shared widely on social media). West took aim at an array f perceived foes and former friends (Drake, Jay-Z, Adidas), spouted a few antisemitic conspiracy theories, put himself alongside Jesus Christ and Hitler, and proclaimed he was on his “Farrakhan Don shit.”
A Second Attempt and an Apology
Just before Christmas, a rep for West and Ty Dolla $ign told Revolt the album would now be released Jan. 12. Just after New Year’s, a rep for the two artists told Forbes that the album would not, in fact, be coming out Jan. 12.
Around the same time, clearly caught up in the Christmas spirit, West took the opportunity to issue an apology to “the Jewish community.” He shared a note on Instagram, written in Hebrew, that read (via Google Translate): “I sincerely apologize to the Jewish community for any ‘unintended outburst’ caused by my words or actions. It was not my intention to hurt or demean, and I deeply regret any pain I may have caused.”
Third Time’s the Charm
After a few weeks of relative radio silence in January — except for Jpegmafia, who pissed off his fans after sharing a photo of him and West on Instagram — things actually started to look like they were coming together. On Jan. 23, West and Ty Dolla $ign shared an official trailer for Vultures (directed by Jon Rafman) and a new release date, Feb. 9, which they actually stuck to this time.
Ozzy Gets Angry
Ahead of its release, West and Ty Dolla $ign hosted another round of Vultures listening parties at arenas in Chicago and New York. It was during one of these that Ozzy Osbourne learned West had apparently disregarded his wishes and sampled a 1983 live performance of “Iron Man” on the song “Carnival” without permission.
In a note shared on social media, Osbourne said West “asked permission to sample a section” of the performance “and was refused permission because he is an antisemite and has caused untold heartache to many. He went ahead and used the sample anyway at his album listening party last night. I want no association with this man!”
When the album and song hit DSPs, the “Iron Man” sample on “Carnival” had been replaced by a fuzzy synth bass riff that was not Black Sabbath, but pretty reminiscent.
Feeling No Love
Following in the Osbournes’ footsteps, the Donna Summer estate came out and accused West of using “I Feel Love” without permission on “Good (Don’t Die).” West’s song features the lyric, “Oh, I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive, oh,” with a melody and cadence that appeared similar to “I Feel Love.”
In a statement shared on Instagram, Summer’s estate said West had “asked permission” to use “I Feel Love” but “was denied.” They then claimed: “He changed the words, had someone re-sing it or used AI but it’s ‘I Feel Love’… copyright infringement!”
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Already Gone?
The fact that Vultures 1 was actually released seems like a miracle, but it’s unclear if it’ll actually stay widely available. On Feb. 15, the album’s distributor FUGA (owned by Downtown Music Holdings) said it was in the process of removing the LP from streaming services. The company said they’d previously declined to work with West on the rollout last year, but a “long-standing FUGA client” had managed to upload the album anyway.
As a result, Vultures 1 was removed from Apple Music but returned a few hours later with a new distributor, Label Engine, owned by Create Music Group. Label Engine had distributed Vulture 1’s first two singles before a client on music distributor FUGA uploaded the album.