Listen, we’re tired of this. You’re probably tired of this. The only person who is probably not tired of this is Kanye West. And yet, it is our sworn duty as chroniclers of popular culture to report on important popular culture news, even when it is exhausting. So, without further ado, here’s the latest update on Kanye West’s new album Jesus Is King: Almost a month from the original release date that he gave over the summer and then quietly ignored, West is given it a new release date that he may or may not stick to. As reported by CNN (at least we’re not alone in this), a post appeared on West’s semi-dormant Twitter account this morning that said, simply, “JESUS IS KING OCT 25th” with a photo of a blue Jesus Is King record—the implication of which seems extremely clear, and yet, we have no idea what’s going to happen on October 25.
Actually, we do know one thing that’s happening on October 25, and it actually lends some credence to the existence of reality. As we reported a few days ago, that happens to be the premiere date for West’s big Jesus Is King IMAX movie, which was filmed at the bizarre Rodan Crater art installation in Nevada (a still in-development location that is not open to the public but stole West’s heart late last year). If the movie is coming out on Friday, and the tweet implies that the album is coming out on Friday, does it mean that the album will actually come out on Friday? Common sense says “yes,” but nothing happened after the last supposed release date for Jesus Is King came and went, so we don’t want to sound too overconfident about anything—at least until after Friday.
If the album does come out, then we’ll confidently say that the album did come out, but this could still go either way. Then again, West has a history of going back and altering or updating albums even after they’ve come out, so maybe the final version of Jesus Is King will never be released and we can keep talking about this forever. Hey, has anyone asked West about Donald Trump getting impeached? And how does he feel about legendary film directors disparaging superhero movies? For christ’s sake, somebody get him to comment on Taylor Swift’s new album!