Well, it appears as though we spoke too soon when we said “The Life Of Pablo is finally free of Kanye West’s endless tinkering” over the weekend, because in the last couple of days West has returned to his lab for even more tinkering. Originally, he had simply—and mysteriously—pulled The Life Of Pablo from his official website, replacing it with a recorded message from Yasiin Bey. The album was still streaming on Tidal, but the story going around was that Kanye was still polishing up one of the tracks and would re-release it later.
Today, though, West suggested that The Life Of Pablo is going to remain a Tidal exclusive forever, tweeting that it “will never never never be on Apple,” that “it will never be for sale,” and that “you can only get it on Tidal.” Then, he offered a passionate plea for all of his fans to sign up for Tidal, because otherwise people like he and Jay Z might have to stop doing ridiculous stuff like releasing an album, then pulling it, then releasing it exclusively on an unpopular streaming service all in the span of a few days.
My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale… You can only get it on Tidal.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016
Please to all my friends fans and music lovers. Sign up to Tidal now.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016
West also expressed his frustration with music reviewers today, first with a pretty funny tweet about Pitchfork scoring Pablo too low and then transitioning into an actual passionate plea for “white publications” to stop commenting on “black music.”
Pitchfork, the album is a 30 out of 10