Here’s Everything You Need To Know About Kanye West’s Album Premiere & Yeezy Season 3 Drop
Live updating as it’s happening.
On Thursday afternoon, Kanye West is set to premiere his new album, The Life Of Pablo, alongside the drop of season 3 of his Yeezy collection. It's all happening live at Madison Square Garden at 4 p.m. and in movie theaters around the world. Luckily you can check out the livestream of the event on Tidal (which we will be embedding when it goes online). We will continually updating this post with highlights from the event, so stay tuned.
Virgil Abloh shared an image of the merchandise stand at MSG with designs by Cali Dewitt:
Ian Connor, who has modeled for Kanye West before, is sharing behind the scenes moments on Snapchat today:
Here's a preview of some of the items in the collection:
(3:10 p.m.) Here's the cover of the album with artwork by Peter De Potter:
(3:54 p.m.) The Tidal livestream is now live:
She also overheard artist Vanessa Beecroft telling the models "if you get tired, you can sit down and rest."
(4:05) Artist Jeanette Hayes shared some cool footage of the stage/tent with people running under it.
(4:26 p.m.) The Kardashian-West family and assorted guests are on their way.
(5:18 p.m.) After "Wolves" was over, Kanye took the mic and started talking to the crowd. The speech apparently included a "fuck Nike" chant.
(5:24 p.m.) Tidal acknowledges widespread streaming troubles in a statement to The FADER.
In full: "Just wanted to update you with over 20 million people logging in at once to stream the show there were tech issues from AMV, the provider with service from Akamai. Any viewers still having issues can refresh their browsers or set it to a lower streaming level."
(5:27 p.m.) Young Thug and Vic Mensa grabbed the aux chord from Kanye and played new music as well.
(5:34 p.m.) Some media outlets reported that Future was a guest on one of the album's earlier tracks, but it was actually Brooklyn rapper Desiigner.
After playing his verse again, Kanye told the crowd that Desiigner had just signed to G.O.O.D. Music.
(5:36 p.m.) Kanye is showing footage of a video game to the crowd.
(5:39 p.m.) Kanye tells the crowd that he has "pressed" adidas on putting more shoes out to market and lowering prices, too.
He added shortly after, "I told Anna [Wintour] this backstage that a dream of mine would to be the creative director of Hermes."
(5:47 p.m.) Kanye ends show by giving his thanks to the crowd for supporting him, his family, and adidas.
He also said that Young Thug will appear on SNL with him this weekend to perform their song "Highlights."
(6:32 p.m.) According to a tweet from Vulture, Tidal has no info about the album's actual release date.
(6:38 p.m.) You can rewatch a replay of today's event—likely interruption free—here: