In a mere two weeks, with backing from the likes of PartyNextDoor, Ty Dolla Sign, Kid Cudi, 070 Shake, and Mike Dean, he delivered a new work that served as a response to his critics.

His response was to unceremoniously scrap the album he had been working on. Following a year in which he had already been criticized for his support for Donald Trump, the statement placed Kanye at the center of a media storm and the biggest controversy of his career. Then came his infamous interview with TMZ, on May 1, 2018, in which he declared that slavery seemed like a choice. But to everyone else out there, a photographer can be a great asset.Recorded at a ranch in the remote town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, West had begun the process of putting an album together in 2016. The bottom line is that if you are Kanye West you can get away with using a snapshot for your album cover. It doesn’t show concept, it doesn’t show technique, it doesn’t tell a story. Lastly, and ultimately, as far as I’m concerned, the photo is a snapshot. So, taking the photo with an iPhone right before the record’s release doesn’t really say anything about the need for professionals for albums coming from everyone else (who aren’t Kanye).

But remember, however powerful today’s iPhone camera is - and it is! - this photo will almost never be displayed more than a few inches wide.Īlso, the argument can be made that an artist of Kanye’s stature and skill would be able to take an album platinum even without any cover photo (i.e. What does this mean for photographers? To me, this is a testament to the ubiquity of phone cameras we can take and “develop” a photo in an instant, with a device that is never more than a few feet away from us. But, get this - he took the photo with his iPhone! According to his wife, Kim Kardashian West, Kanye himself took the photo that ended up being the cover for the album on his way to the album listening party. That explains why artists and record labels tend to spend much thought and invest in high-powered professionals to define the concept of an album and to decide on the correct photo to grace the album cover.īut West - a genre-defying figure in many ways - has surprised us all by taking a different path for his newest album, “ ye”. And the album art, or cover photo, is key to giving the sound a visual identity consonant with its music and its message - who else remembers the infamous plain “Yeezus” album cover from 2013? In fact, it can be argued, that today’s streaming services make the cover art even more important, as that’s the visual that plays alongside each stream of every track on the album. Having released eight studio albums - all of which have debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 - and started his own fashion line, West’s accomplishments rack up by the year.īut every artist needs to sell albums.

Ye album cover