Ye, released back in June to divided reactions, already stands as arguably the weakest (by far) link in Kanye West's otherwise untouchable discography. Now, an apparent update to the seven-track album may have made it even weaker.
As astute listeners pointed out on Reddit and KanyeToThe, Wednesday, the most noticeable change can be found on album opener "I Thought About Killing You." As you'll recall, this summer brought news that West had reportedly repurposed Kareem Lotfy's "Fr3sh" in the track. In a statement surrounding Ye's release, Pan label boss Bill Kouligas called West the "ultimate narcissist."
Studio engineer Adam Wolpert has confirmed that a sample was removed and noted that the entire album has received a "cleaned up" new mix.
If you saved Ye to your Apple Music (or other streaming service) library, you'll need to re-download the album to hear the changes. In some cases, users have reported that they're now seeing three different versions of Ye on streaming services: a clean and two explicits, one with the new mix and altered "I Thought About Killing You."
For varying reasons, West has employed the post-release editing method before, most famously during the Pablo era.
At the time of this writing, West himself hadn't publicly commented on the Ye update.
