Chance The Rapper Preps Albums With Kanye West & Childish Gambino
We have finally, after six weeks, reached a Friday where there’s no new Kanye West-produced album out in the world. West’s ridiculously productive run of five seven-song albums, all produced in Wyoming and all seemingly finished up moments before their listening parties, has ended. Or maybe not.
There have been many rumors that West is working on more seven-song albums, with more artists. During a recent podcast, the New York Times critic Jon Caramanica, who wrote the latest profile on West, says that West wants to release 52 albums in 52 weeks. The long-incarcerated Chicago street rapper Bump J has said that West is producing an album for him and fellow Chicago rapper Shy Polaroid. And there have also been rumblings about West producing a new album for Chance The Rapper. Apparently, those rumblings are real.
In a long, free-roaming video interview with Peter Rosenberg for Complex, Chance talks about all the different projects he’s got in the work. One is a new seven-song album with Kanye West that Chance says he’ll be recording in July. And Chance also says he’s working on a full collaborative album with Childish Gambino, which might be even more significant. Here’s what he says about it:
What’s cool is Ye’s got me in a mode of understanding — just your ability to multitask and work on different things. And he’s always been on that. So because of his ability to work on multiple projects, I’ve been actively working on a project with Childish. I’m going to do a seven-track with Ye…
Kanye’s my favorite rapper that I followed without knowing for a long time. And Donald Glover’s the first rapper that ever was like, “Come on tour with me. I like your shit that no one’s ever heard of.” My 10 Day shit. “I want you to come out on the road with me.” Those dudes are like, “I want to do everything. I want to work on as many things as possible.” I would say I’m 30% on everything that I’m working on. At least 30%…
I’m supposed to be working on [the Kanye album] in July. So I don’t know… [Childish Gambino and I] got six songs that are fire, but I think the album’s going to be more than 14 songs. I think it’s going to be a full thing. I wish I had music out right now. I got hella music. I got so many songs.
And here’s the video. As Pitchfork points out, the talk about these projects begins around the 12:30 mark.
West’s Wyoming albums haven’t exactly been consistent, but a whole album that sounds like “Ultralight Beam” would be very, very welcome.