“I wanna explain something about the title Yeezus, simply put West was my slave name and Yeezus is my god name.” – Kanye West

Now that Mac Miller and J. Cole have had their album leak online in advance of their June 18 release date, all eyes are now on Kanye West’s Yeezus and all the mystery it holds. Though “New Slaves” has been broadcasted worldwide in the last month, no additional material has been made available for fans outside of live performances. There were rumors Kanye held a listening party at the end of April, but very few could confirm that information. Last night a proper listening party was held, and this morning a slew of new Yeezus details are beginning to surface.

Surrounded by a small group of media, friends, and a select number of fans, Kanye West previewed his latest 10-track epic last night at Milk in NYC. The album was executively produced by the legendary Rick Rubin, and in typical Kanye fashion hosts a number of interesting collaborations. One cut specifically, “Hold My Liquor,” brings together West with Bon Iver mastermind Justin Vernon and Chicago rapper Chief Keef. Kanye also shared a track that flipped TNGHT’s “Higher Ground” with the Billie Holiday classic “Strange Fruit.”

We were unable to attend the event, but Miss Info was in the audience and was able to capture a bit of video when Kanye was discussing the album. You can view the video below, followed by a text version of the same rant for those unable to watch/hear the video.

Yeezus hits stores June 18.

“If you ever see somebody standing next to me, know that they’re better than me at something.

“We didn’t give a fuck about what nobody said from the outside looking in. We just wanted to make the best product possible and this is just the beginning of an entire new mentality about how to make music.

Creative directors: Matt Williams, Virgil Abloh, and the whole team, Don C, Ibn, all the Been Trill Family and RSVP family.

From Daft Punk working on like 3-4 joints on the album. The first joint, “Onsite,” “I Am a God,” “Black Skinhead.” Mike Dean, Travis Scott, working on the album. Hudson Mohawke, Arthur. Last, but not least that came and helped bring this whole shit together, that executive produced the album with me and the family, is Rick Rubin coming in and like finishing up the whole shit for us, which is legendary because everything we did on this project, everything I did, like when we released ‘Numbers on the Board,” from the video, to the no artwork, to the style of the song and everything, I was like ‘what would Rick Rubin do.’ What was his Def Jam shit that they would do because I remember Rick even saying, he said ‘when we did Def Jam we really wasn’t feeling like we was in competition with nobody body because our shit was so direct… ‘where we at right now?’ We in the middle of the city right now, open to the muthafuckin’ streets and nobody is shuttin’ down shit while we make real music.

So I had to go to the god Rick Rubin and play him my shit, ask him questions and allow him to take this project to an entirely new level. And he made a lot of great decisions at the end and pulled it to a new level.

I wanna explain something about the title Yeezus, simply put West was my slave name and Yeezus is my god name.”

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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