The Life (and death) of Pablo

After two name changes, a massive Twitter brawl, a premiere at Madison Garden as part of the Yeezy Season 3 collection and a Saturday Night Live performance that spawned more conflict than concord, “The Life of Pablo,” the seventh album from rapper/singer Kanye West has arrived. The new album, previously dubbed “Swish” and then “Waves,” has 18 tracks, including the already released “Real Friends” and “No Parties in LA.” A number of other artists, including Rihanna, Chance the Rapper, the Weeknd and Kid Cudi all make appearances on the record. Basically, the album was set to smash records and blow minds.

Fans hopes were slightly dashed though when West announced the music-streaming platform Tidal would be the sole outlet the album was available on.

West originally planned to release the album on Thursday, Feb. 11, after the premiere of his Yeezy Season 3 show at Madison Square Garden. The show included a listening party of the album, but when the album was nowhere to be heard the next day, West took to his favorite outlet: Twitter.

“It’s Chance’s fault the album not out yet… he really wanted Waves on that B****… we in the lab now…”

Two days later, West was slated to perform on Saturday Night Live. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for the Internet, one of his famous tantrums did too.

In one of his new songs “Famous,” West takes a jab at Taylor Swift, who in 2009 he infamously interrupted during the MTV Music Video Awards. The two had since made up and even hinted at collaborating. Apparently, West lost interest.

“I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex, Why? I made that b**** famous,” he raps during the song’s first verse. He then proceeded to call Swift a “fake a**” backstage at SNL to someone else behind the scenes. Shortly after though, the moment had finally arrived.

The album dropped on Tidal, the application owned by West’s friend and fellow rapper Jay-Z, on Sunday morning around 2 a.m. after his SNL performance. West encouraged fans to download the app and it soon shot to the number one spot on the Apple App Store chart.

It was speculated that the album would be released through all major outlets the following week. However, West denied these claims on Twitter on Feb. 15.

“My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale… You can only get it on Tidal.”

There is no doubt that West has been nonstop promoting this album. His Twitter has been blowing up nonstop the past two months, including a feud with Wiz Khalifa and little-known facts about his personal life and finances. Unfortunately all his posts couldn’t muster up enough wallets to actually subscribe to Tidal.

While West probably intended for this album to break records, setting illegal download records was not part of Yeezy’s plan. According to TorrentFreak, a “publication dedicated to bringing the latest news about copyright, privacy, and everything related to filesharing,” the album has been illegally downloaded over 500,000 times, equating to over $10 million in lost revenues.

With profits for the album much lower than expected, West’s personal financial debt is growing. On Feb. 13, he tweeted that he was $53 million in personal debt and then begged Mark Zuckerberg, self-made billionaire and co-founder of Facebook, to invest $1 billion in his “ideas.”

West stated he needed “access to more money in order to bring more beautiful ideas to the world,” now every college student’s reason for asking for more money from parents.

Rolling Stone has since reported that “The Life of Pablo” will be released through other music retailers in one week. For West’s wallet’s sake, let’s hope this is true.

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