Early this month, Kanye West and Ty Dolla Sign canceled several listening events for their upcoming album Vultures 2 without warning or explanation. The canceled listening sessions were just part of an uneven rollout for the project, which they announced in January. After several setbacks, though, it appears that the album has a new tentative release date: May 3. Kanye revealed the release date during an appearance on influencer Justin LaBoy’s podcast.
Some skepticism about the release date is probably warranted. When Kanye and Ty first announced that Vultures would be released in three parts, they initially gave the second installment a March 8 release, with the third part billed for April 5. They’ve now blown past not only the second release date, but the release date for the third part as well. After missing the date for the first Vultures, they released the album in mid-February, only to run into problems with the distributor — namely, that FUGA, the company listed as distributor, had previously refused to work with Kanye over his antisemitic comments. The album was pulled from Apple Music, but still debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 because we crossed through the looking glass sometime in 2015.
Meanwhile, on March 8, Kanye delayed Vultures 2, attributing the delay to an internal debate about adopting a direct-to-consumer distribution method.
Vultures 2 is (supposedly) out on 5/3.