Kanye West is not a stranger to court drama, but even so, Ye took us on a wild ride this weekend. Then, earlier this month, his unreleased album 'CUCK' leaked to the internet out of nowhere, sparking a firestorm of he-said-she-said and one very public clapback from the rapper himself.
The drama played out like a scene from a digital-age thriller. The entirety of 'CUCK,' which contained unreleased material including "Diddy Free," "Dirty Magazines," and "Free My Kids," leaked on Discord, and the music was subsequently available across the Web almost like wildfire. Within hours, YouTube was filled with uploads of it. Quick as a flash, those were taken down, but the damage was done.
Ye fumed onto X (formerly Twitter) in the early hours of Monday over the leak, but his words didn't pull any punches.
"Somebody got a drive and posted it on YouTube and said this is 'CUCK,'" West wrote. "What I love about getting blocked on DSPs and having songs leaked and shows cancelled is ……It proves everything I'm saying and why I'm saying."
The statement was vintage Ye, cryptic defiance tinged with bitterness, and was signed by him. However, the song "UNCLE" received the most scrutiny, mainly due to speculation that its content was related to West's wife. "'UNCLE' is not on CUCK and not about my wife," he clarified in a subsequent post.
The reports, which describe "UNCLE" as a troubling tale of a woman who becomes a sex worker after being molested as a child by a relative, was a grisly account that many fans erroneously linked to West's own life.
And the purported leaker, who has yet to be identified, made no secret that piracy wasn't the only reason the leak occurred. In a now-deleted post on Discord, they said that the leak was "political and moral" and that they would donate "all proceeds from this album group buy" to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. They didn't stop there, erupting into a personal and incendiary screed against Ye, in which they accused him of "glorifying fascism" and called him, among other things, a "spineless braindead deadbeat."
The Ye Korea Concert, which had been planned for May 31, was immediately canceled. Organizers said the "recent controversy surrounding singer Kanye West" was the reason. MD products in South Korea, also under the label Yeezy, were also affected; sales were closed the same day.
While Kanye had been teasing his latest chapter, affectionately dubbed "WW3," with cryptic live streams and invite-only previews, 'CUCK' had no official release date or formal tracklist. Rumors are Dave Blunts helps with some of the songwriting, but nothing is nailed down.
But in the wake of the album leak, family rumors, and a canceled concert, not to mention a current of self-seriousness that has turned his back on levity, West is back in familiar territory: getting heat from all corners and dishing it right back. Whether 'CUCK' will be released is not yet clear. But when Ye is in the headlines, it's never just about the music.
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