Hip-Hop

12 Feb 2024

Swizz Beatz Appears to Brush Off Comments About Usher Hugging Up Wife Alicia Keys During Super Bowl Halftime Show

Swizz Beatz has seen all your concerned comments about Sunday’s (Feb. 11) explosive Super Bowl LVIII halftime show and the hip-hop producer/rapper thinks you might need to calm down. “Y’all talking about the wrong damn thing !!! y’all don’t see that amazing dress covering the entire stadium ⚡️????‍??‍??‍??‍?,” he wrote of wife Alicia Keys‘ eye-popping, glittering red Dolce & Gabanna bejeweled catsuit and billowy organza cape.

In addition to a snap of Keys’ flowing train, Beatz also included a shot of headliner Usher hugging a smiling Keys from behind during their joint performance of their 2004 joint hit “My Boo.”

“Tonight’s performance was nothing but amazing with 2 amazing Giants!,” Beatz added. “Congrats @usher and my love @aliciakeys that song is a classic ? We don’t do negative vibes on this side we make history.”

Swizz’s post appeared to be in response to a number of tweets suggesting that the singers got a bit too cozy on stage during the performance in which Usher hugged Keys from behind and put his hand on her hip. “Usher knows he outta pocket for violating Alicia Keys at the superbowl last night,” wrote one X user, with another saying, “It’s wrong to hold someone’s wife like this. I don’t care if Swiss Beatz is okay with it.”

Beatz (born Kasseem Dean), 45 and Keys, 43, first met as teenagers in the 1990s and then reconnected in 2008 and married in 2010; they share two sons, Egypt and Genesis.

The special on-stage moment between the old friends came amidst a glitzy career-spanning halftime extravaganza from Usher — whose recently concluded My Way Las Vegas residency had the singer getting up-close-and-personal with fans and famous friends on a nightly basis — which also featured cameos from H.E.R., Jermaine Dupri, Will.i.am and Lil Jon and Ludacris, the latter on the show-closing, crowd-pleasing run through their 2004 hit “Yeah!”

Check out Beatz’ post below.

11 Feb 2024

NYX Professional Makeup Commercial Starring Cardi B Shortened for 2024 Super Bowl Broadcast

Cardi B has a 2024 Super Bowl commercial airing on CBS, but you’ll have to look on YouTube or social media for the payoff of the NYX Professional Makeup “Lips Only” ad’s second half.

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A 30-second spot was approved by league representatives for broadcast during the Super Bowl, the cosmetics brand says, but the second half of the commercial was not. Billboard reached out to CBS, which is showing the game, for comment.

The 30-second Cardi B x NYX commercial airing during the Kansas City Chiefs vs. San Francisco 49ers game has the rapper advertising the brand’s “Duck Face” lip product, which she says will deliver “bigger” and “plumper” results. Its last 15 seconds is a blackout that will show “a QR code directing viewers to watch the unedited, 60-second version that is currently being shared across NYX Professional Makeup’s YouTube and social channels,” reps for NYX wrote in a press release.

An uncut version of the NYX commercial starring Cardi was released on the internet ahead of the big game, accumulating more than two million views on YouTube at press time.

The 60-second version, which is not being shown on TV during the Super Bowl, shows the immediate male reaction to the product after they’ve apparently confused the word “duck” with another four-letter word that begins with a “d” and ends with a “ck” — and have regrettably made some bad decisions about how to use the plumping product. Chaos ensues.

“They put it where?” Cardi asks as the hashtag #ForLipsOnly comes up on the screen.

“As a female-led brand with female creators behind the work, we’re proud of our creative idea, which flips the script on male stereotypes with lighthearted humor,” says Yasmin Dastmalchi, NYX Professional Makeup general manager, USA. “As a bold brand rooted in entertainment, and as a first-time advertiser on Super Bowl Sunday, our intention was to make everyone laugh during the big game. We hope you love it as much as we do!”

Cardi shared a preview of the commercial on her Instagram account on Saturday. “For Lips Only,” she captioned the clip, adding a kiss-and-wink emoji to her message.

In a chat with The Hollywood Reporter, who was on set when the rapper filmed the ad, Cardi said she loved that the idea behind the commercial poked fun at men.

Watch the uncut Cardi B x NYX Cosmetics commercial below.


https://youtube.com/watch?v=5Z3vPLTpa30&version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

10 Feb 2024

Drake’s Got His Money on a Chiefs Super Bowl Win: ‘Can’t Bet Against the Swifties’

Drake‘s on Taylor Swift‘s team for the 2024 Super Bowl. He appears to have bet more than a million in cryptocurrency that the Kansas City Chiefs will defeat the San Francisco 49ers on Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 11).

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“I can’t bet against the swifties,” Drake wrote Saturday on Instagram, where he posted a screenshot of a $1,150,000 bet on Stake. Should the Chiefs win, his estimated payout is $2,346,000.

Drake has an endorsement deal with Stake, an online crypto casino where users bet on sports games and play traditional casino games.

Swift (and many of her fans) will be cheering on the singer’s boyfriend, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, at the big game on Sunday. She’s wrapped her fourth Eras show in Tokyo and is expected to make it to Las Vegas to support Kelce while she’s on break from her tour until Friday, when she plays Melbourne, Australia.

The Embassy of Japan assured Swifties that the pop icon will have time to attend the Super Bowl after her Eras Tour concerts in Tokyo.

“Despite the 12-hour flight and 17-hour time difference, the Embassy can confidently Speak Now to say that if she departs Tokyo in the evening after her concert, she should comfortably arrive in Las Vegas before the Super Bowl begins,” read a statement released last week. “We know that many people in Japan are excited to experience Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, so we wanted to confirm that anyone concerned can be Fearless in knowing that this talented performer can wow Japanese audiences and still make it to Las Vegas to support the Chiefs when they take the field for the Super Bowl wearing Red.”

Swift rushed from the Tokyo Dome to a private jet at Haneda Airport right after her Feb. 10 show, the Associated Press reports, likely embarking on the long journey to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl. At her Tokyo concerts, Travis Kelce jerseys and hats were spotted among the crowd’s Swift-inspired looks.

During a press conference on Monday, Kelce gushed over his girlfriend’s exciting night at the Grammys, where she announced her next album, The Tortured Poets Department, and became the first artist to win album of the year four times.

“She’s unbelievable,” said the NFL player. “She’s re-writing the history books herself, and I told her I’d have to hold up my end of the bargain and come home with some hardware too.”

10 Feb 2024

Donna Summer Estate Says Kanye West Used ‘I Feel Love’ Without Permission on ‘Vultures 1’ Track

Kanye West‘s Vultures 1 uses an unauthorized interpolation of Donna Summer‘s 1977 hit “I Feel Love,” the late Summer’s estate claims.

The alleged copyright infringement is found on the pensive electro-pop track “Good (Don’t Die) on Ye’s new joint album with Ty Dolla $ign, which arrived Saturday morning.

On the Vultures track, the lyric “Oh, I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive” is seemingly set to the melody of Summer’s “I Feel Love.”

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“Kanye West… asked permission to use Donna Summer’s song I Feel Love, he was denied… he changed the words, had someone re sing it or used AI but it’s I Feel Love… copyright infringement!!!” said a statement posted in an Instagram Story on the official Donna Summer account Saturday (Feb. 10).

“I Feel Love” peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1977 and spent 23 weeks total on the chart. The song, which was produced and co-written with Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte for the late Queen of Disco’s fifth studio album, I Remember Yesterday, was one of 14 songs to reach the top 10 on the Hot 100 in Summer’s lifetime.

On Friday, former Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne also called out Kanye West on social media, saying that Ye had asked to sample a song but was “refused permission because he is an antisemite.” Osbourne said he used the sample anyway at a Vultures 1 listening event at Chicago’s United Center this week. “I want no association with this man!” the rocker wrote. Although Osbourne said online that West asked to sample “War Pigs,” the song he seems to have used at the event is “Iron Man.”

“We get so many requests for these songs,” Sharon Osbourne told Billboard on Friday, “and when we saw that request, we just said no way.” She added, “We’ve been in touch with his team … And it’s also an issue of having respect for another artist.”

On Saturday, she tweeted: “The Osbourne family have never wanted any association with Kanye West. He is an anti-Semitic fool who spews his rhetoric out into the world, Kanye you f—ed with the wrong dude this time. Sincerely, Sharon Osbourne.”

Vultures 1 marks the Ye’s first album since the release of his 2021 album, Donda, and his first project to be released since his string of hate speech and antisemitic remarks, which resulted in companies such as Adidas and Def Jam distancing themselves from the 46-year-old rapper.

10 Feb 2024

Kanye West & Ty Dolla $ign’s ‘Vultures’ NYC Listening Experience Is a Promising Start For the New Duo

Kanye West‘s album listening parties have become one of the more interesting music events in the last eight years. As a Kanye fan, given the mystique surrounding the iconic rapper, we always flirt with the idea of attending these events. However, we know to always expect the unexpected from him.

Back in 2016, Ye threw the first of his big listening parties at the world-famous Madison Square Garden in New York for The Life of Pablo, and it was one that I’m still upset I missed. Kanye has been a part of my life since he debuted as an artist with The College Dropout in 2003 when I was 12 years old. As hard as it is to say these days, I’m an OG fan of the Chicago rap legend and will make every attempt to attend a show or listening event.

The Pablo listening had Kanye smiling from ear to ear while partying with other rappers such as Pusha T and Kid Cudi, letting Young Thug get some shine on the auxiliary cord, and more. It was a moment all Kanye fans cherished. Little did we know it would be the last such event we’d get from the troublesome multihyphenate. The listenings for his non-gospel albums, Ye and Donda, were marred by several issues, including late start times and incomplete albums.

Being an older fan of Kanye, the desire to attend or even check for his events has slowly dwindled, especially as he’s become known more for his controversial actions than his music lately. When the 46-year-old announced he would host a pair of listening parties in Chicago and New York for Vultures, his collaborative project with Ty Dolla $ign as the group ¥$, I wasn’t clamoring to go. There was a good chance it wouldn’t even happen. Before he and Ty performed the album in Miami during Art Basel, he attempted to host a big listening event in Italy. It never happened. Still, a sense of intrigue pushed me to see where Ye was going in this new chapter of his career.

I went into the Vultures New York listening on Saturday (Feb. 10) wondering what to expect. Was the album finished? Would Ye go on a wild rant? Will the listening start on time? How would people react to Kanye this time after all the antisemitic comments and odd behavior? There were no true answers to those questions until I began my trip to the grounds of the UBS Arena.

Like a regular New Yorker, I took public transportation. Droves of fans bolted through Grand Central Station in Midtown Manhattan to catch the iron horse that brought guests directly to the arena. People were hyped over what they could hear from Kanye and Ty Dolla, but there was also a universal feeling that something could make this whole experience go haywire.

“We don’t even know what’s going to happen! Is he even done with the album? This IS Kanye,” someone a few rows over told their group of friends on the train. Another person didn’t even know why they were making the trip but said, “F— it, it’s Kanye.” Others were shameless and admitted they passed on sex to see Mr. West.

Postponing romantic dates for a Kanye event is insane, but knowing I wasn’t the only one unsure of this listening was a good feeling. Little did we know, though, that Ye was about to flip the switch on us again.

Various chants of “We want Yeezy” and “Kanye” filled the air inside UBS Arena as people made their way to their seats and a DJ spun various tunes. Doors had been open since 8 p.m., and people grew restless as minutes turned into hours with no sign of ¥$ in sight.

In my mind, I already felt things were going south. I saw people yawning in their seats while others scrolled through their phones with barely a flair of excitement on their faces. Some were reminiscing about the “old Kanye” and his most legendary tours, including 2008’s Glow in the Dark tour and 2013’s Yeezus tour, possibly to reassure them that Ye is indeed capable of putting on a memorable show. The event in Chicago Thursday night (Feb. 8) had fans upset as it started late and lasted all of 45 minutes before ending abruptly.

People seemed to be over Ye’s antics and the whole experience before it even started. However, all those initial thoughts were squashed once the clock hit 11 p.m. and “Carnival” rang out through the UBS Arena speaker system. As the bass rattled the venue, Kanye and Ty Dolla showed up on the hazy stage to a roaring crowd with guests like Rich That Kid in tow.

From there, Ye and Ty took the crowd on a journey filled with hard-hitting anthems and head-bopping tunes. At one point, I forgot I was at a listening and thought this was a full-fledged concert with people screaming at the top of their lungs while bopping in their seats, a far cry from the tired and bored faces that walked through the doors of UBS at 8 p.m.

Kanye is known for teaming up with other artists on his albums and Vultures is no different. Although North West wasn’t in attendance, the crowd burst into cheers at her feature on “Talking.” Quavo’s appearance on “Paperwork” got a warm response, as did YG’s verse on “Do It” and Freddie Gibbs’ lyrical assault on “Back to Me.” However, no one got a more fiery response than the enigmatic Playboi Carti, who actually joined ¥$ on stage, rapping on “F-k Sumn” and “Carnival.”

Initially, I was shocked to hear how good the album sounded, and I wondered if Kanye had actually finished an album before playing it for the public rather than continuing to work on it until the deadline as he has in the past. The production was on point, and although his bars were incoherent and juvenile at times, Ye’s verses felt complete and Ty’s vocals sounded immaculate.

Ye isn’t the most lyrically gifted rapper on the planet, but we know he can put more effort into his rhymes. Bars such as “She fell in love with the sword, I sliced, I diced, I hit it from the back/ Whore, whore” on “Hoodrat” or “Wish somebody woulda warned us/ When I was 15, my soulmate wasn’t born yet” and “We got multiple wives too, just at different times/ Picture this, if every room got a different b—-/ Do that make me a porn-gga-mist?” on “Problematic” are just plain bad.

Kanye clearly can’t help himself and his controversial rhetoric with various mentions of being antisemitic and committing acts against Jewish women on tracks such as “Vultures” and “King.” He also didn’t stray away from comparing himself to controversial figures accused and/or found guilty of sexual assault on “Carnival,” where he raps, “Now I’m Ye Kelly, b—-/ Now I’m Bill Cosby, b—-/ Now I’m Puff Daddy rich/ That’s Me Too rich.”

We’ve heard Ye and Ty Dolla’s collaborative brilliance on tracks such as “Real Friends” and “Fade,” but Vultures has these guys showing more of their raw chemistry. The two are giving a convincing argument that they’re a formidable one-two punch with their new joint effort.

After about an hour, the listening was over, and fans were left satisfied. “Kanye is the GOAT, are you f—ing kidding me?” one person was heard yelling on their way out of the arena. Others shouted they needed the Chicago native to drop the album and that “he’s done it again,” proving people approved of his and Ty Dolla’s efforts.

Being a Kanye fan who’s seen it all, this listening was a welcomed surprise as Ye seems as if he has a clear vision for the music for the first time in years. He appeared to be so focused that Vultures 1 was released early Saturday morning, a day after the listening, which is a shocker given he’s delayed this album and other projects several times in the past.

Despite his best efforts to destroy it with controversial and offensive statements, Kanye’s musical legacy is already cemented. Vultures isn’t a make-or-break moment for the enigmatic rapper. But it is a bright spot in what has been a dark and gloomy few years. With Vultures reportedly being a trilogy and the first sounding as good as it does, I’m hoping Kanye can keep this momentum going into the next two parts. When he’s on, he can create something worthwhile.

As a follow-up to his last official release, Donda, which won two Grammys, Vultures has the potential to see the same success with heat-seeking tracks such as “Hoodrat,” “Do It,” “F-k Sumn,” “Carnival, “Burn,” and more propelling it. Do we need another album from Kanye West? No, not really. But with the ever-evolving hip-hop landscape and his ability to connect with different generations, Ye won’t be leaving the culture anytime soon. He just needs to stay focused on the music and drop on time.

10 Feb 2024

Kanye West & Ty Dolla $ign Team Up for New Album ‘Vultures 1’: Stream It Now

Kanye West has finally delivered his elusive album Vultures 1 alongside Ty Dolla $ign.

The much-delayed joint project arrived early Saturday morning (Feb. 10) follows the pair’s listening party at New York’s UBS Arena. It includes features by Future, Lil Baby, Playboi Carti, Freddie Gibbs, North West and more. The set appears to be released under Ye’s Yzy brand, marking the rapper’s first without the backing of Universal Music Group or Def Jam.

The double-digit effort boasts previously released single “Vultures” with Bump J and Durk. Ye and Ty recently released another video where they twinned with their daughters and tugged on the heartstrings of fans for the “Talking/Once Again” clip.

Vultures 1 marks the first project for West since his string of hate speech and antisemitic remarks, which resulted in companies such as Adidas and Def Jam distancing themselves from the 46-year-old rapper.

In late January, Ye dropped a trailer revealing that Vultures will be released in three different volumes, with the first originally scheduled to arrive on Feb. 9, and the others following suit on March 8 and April 5. He later confirmed the dates and various album covers in a post to his Instagram Story. The first volume was originally supposed to be released in October, but continued to get pushed back, first to December, and later into the new year.

Vultures 1 is Ye’s first album since the release of his 2021 album Donda, which won a pair of Grammys the following year, most notably best rap song for “Jail.” As for Ye and Ty, their collaborations date back to Ty’s “Ego Death” (2020), Ye’s “Everything We Need” (2019), “Real Friends” (2016), and “Only One” (2014). 

Listen to Vultures 1 below. 

10 Feb 2024

Kanye West & Ty Dolla $ign’s ‘Vultures 1’ Album: All 16 Songs Ranked

Ye returns with help from Playboi Carti, Travis Scott, Quavo and more.

Ye

Ye “Vultures”

Blake/Walker

This wasn’t always promised for Kanye West. Following a string of antisemitic remarks and controversy in 2022, plenty of brands and artists distanced themselves from the polarizing rap dignitary.

Yeezy laid low for much of the year and fled the States to discover a creative safe haven in Italy’s Tuscany hills for much of the summer with his wife Bianca Censori, where he linked up with Ty Dolla $ign and the idea of a joint album began to take form.

Diehard Ye fans may recall that West previously teased possibly doing a collab LP with Ty dating back to 2018.

A November trip to Abu Dhabi and Dubai saw Ye and Ty Dolla $ign reconnect along with the release of their debut single “Vultures,” featuring Chicago natives Lil Durk and Bump J, which sent a flare into the sky signaling an album was on the horizon.

West and Ty returned stateside to preview an early edition of Vultures at Art Basel with a Miami listening party where the embattled Chicago mogul assembled the rap Avengers and reunited with Kid Cudi among the star-studded guest appearances. Even Ye’s daughter North West made a cameo and stars on the album.

Most people would call Vultures 1 a comeback album for Kanye — his first without the backing of Universal Music Group or Def Jam — but nearly all of his projects are fueled by some form of plight he’s fighting against. Just think back to 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy following the Taylor Swift-MTV VMAs fiasco a year prior.

But it wouldn’t be a proper Yeezy release without some chaos as fans remained in the dark wondering if the project would arrive after several delays and listening parties inside Chicago’s United Center and Long Island’s UBS Arena in the Big Apple.

However, Yeezy season persevered as the first volume of Vultures 1 finally began to hit streaming services early Saturday morning (Feb. 10), which also marks the 20th anniversary of Kanye’s The College Dropout debut album.

Find all 16 tracks from Vultures 1 ranked below.

09 Feb 2024

André 3000 Says Ludacris ‘Took’ His Role in the ‘Fast & Furious’ Movies during ‘Colbert Questionert’

André 3000 is an enigma. The reclusive former OutKast MC has kept a low profile for much of the past 20 years, popping up for an occasional guest verse or movie role when he’s not wandering the Earth playing one of his arsenal of flutes.

But on The Late Show on Thursday night (Feb. 8), the rapper-turned-jazzer hung around to take the “Colbert Questionert,” the random series of queries from host Stephen Colbert meant to delve into the unexplored recesses of the enigmatic flautist’s soul.

As always, Colbert opened with the easiest question: what is the best sandwich? In the perfect response, 3000 offered up “a friend bologna sandwich,” adding some crucial cooking tips, including cutting slits into the lunch meat so it doesn’t bubble up in the pan.

As for his first concert, of course André — currently on tour promoting his first new solo album in more than two decades, the rap-less, all-instrumental flute jazz collection New Blue Sun — had the coolest answer: a Fresh Fest hip-hip jam in his hometown of Atlanta featuring Public Enemy, LL Cool J and Whodini. “My mama took me,” Dre bragged, as Colbert tried to earn cool points by revealing that his mother had also taken him to his first show, the slightly less hip Captain & Tennille.

Colbert quickly corrected himself, though, a remembered that it was actually 1970s/1980s fluglehorn/trumpet giant Chuck Mangione. That selection that clearly appealed to the host’s woodwind-loving guest, who then scatted along with Colbert on a duet of Mangione’s signature 1978 jazz-pop classic “Feels So Good.”

3000 ran through a series of other provocative answers to questions such as “What is the scariest animal?”(humans), the requisite “Apples or Oranges?” (oranges) and “What do you think happens when we die,” which was more complicated. “We just kind of transfer to another body… the energy doesn’t go anywhere,” André said. “These are just kind of space suits, or Earth suits we walk around in… I think that energy goes into something else or to another we can’t even imagine.”

As for why he has never appeared in any of the Fast & Furious movies, veteran actor 3000 joked he would have “but I think Ludacris took the role!” Turns out he wasn’t joking. He said he did audition for a spot in the long-running, rubber-burning franchise, but was aced out by his fellow A-town MC Luda. He’d still come back for a later chapter, perhaps for the as-yet-unwritten one Colbert suggested: Too Fast, Too Flute.

The sire of Stankonia then proclaimed that his favorite smell is a baby’s breath, “when they’re new and it don’t stink yet,” while dubbing cigarette smoke his least favorite odor. Also, for the record, André is not a cat or dog person, but that’s just because he’s hardly ever home. Plus, if you heard how badly he screwed up the ant farm he got when he was a kid you’d understand why that is.

And finally, asked to name the one song he’d want to listen to on an endless loop, Three Stacks thought long and hard and said “something by [John] Coltrane.” He kind of punted on summing up the rest of his life in five words, though, grinning as he rambled, “somewhere doing something with my hands, building something, drawing something, sculpting something, chiseling something… in a workshop somewhere… making physical things that will last 1,000 years.”

Watch André answer the Questionert below.

09 Feb 2024

Post Malone ‘Very Nervous’ About Super Bowl LVIII Performance: ‘I’m Just Gonna Do My Best’

Post Malone has seen a million faces and he’s rocked them all. But 115 million faces? “Nerve-wracking, I’m very nervous,” Posty told Apple Music’s Nadeska Alexis during an interview on Thursday (Feb. 8) when she asked how he felt about singing “America the Beautiful” before Sunday’s (Feb. 11) Super Bowl LVIII.

“But excited. I’m excited. It’s just fun and super-epic to be able to go out and sing a song so many beautiful artists have sang before,” Malone, 28, said as he shared the stage with his fellow pre-gamer performers, Reba McEntire and Andra Day. As always, Posty — who noted that while he’s a well-known presence at the gaming tables in Las Vegas this will be his first Super Bowl — said he’s just going to give it his all and try to please the audience in Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas and the many millions watching at home.

“I’m just gonna do my best, just do my best, and give it what I got,” he said. “My dad told me, ‘You’ll never make everybody happy. So just be yourself and do your best at everything you do.’ Do it your way and do it with love,” Malone added in answering a question a youth correspondent in the audience about the best advice he’s ever gotten.

While Malone will tackle “America the Beautiful,” McEntire is on tap to sing the National Anthem and Day will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”

Veteran Anthem singer McEntire said she’s been getting ready by singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in the shower and just making sure she’s totally prepared and knows all the words. “Just to be prepared and know that everybody’s going to be singing it with me,” she said. Malone said he does the same, singing his part all the time around the house. So much so, he joked, that his family “just tries to get me to shut up.”

Usher will perform the halftime show at the game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Super Bowl LVIII will take place on Feb. 11 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas and air on CBS and stream on Paramount+, Sling TV, Hulu+Live TV and FuboTV.

Watch Malone’s interview below (begins at 10:00 mark).

09 Feb 2024

5 Takeaways From Ye & Ty Dolla $ign’s ‘Vultures Listening Experience’ in Chicago

On Monday night (Feb. 5), Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign shared a vague post on social media that hinted at a listening event in Chicago for Vultures, the artists’ first joint project as hip-hop duo ¥$. “Vultures United Center Chicago 02 08 24,” the post read without any additional details.

It was at first met with skepticism, given that the United Center did not have the event listed on their schedule and the multiple times the album’s release date has shifted. But once it was listed on the venue’s website first thing the following day — with tickets going on sale at 3 p.m. local time — fans were eager to get their hands on a golden ticket. Before 6 p.m., the album release party, dubbed Vultures Listening Experience, had officially sold out.  

Anticipation was high among fans, excited for an early listen of the long-awaited album, which was initially supposed to be released Dec. 15 and was then moved to Dec. 31, then Jan. 12. While it was expected to drop midnight Friday (Feb. 2), as of press time, the album has yet to drop.  

Around 7 p.m., fans — mainly young teens who opted for oversized, dark-hued hoodies or a puffer, cargo pants and their favorite sneakers — crowded around the United Center just as rain and thunderstorms cleared. Before doors opened, Billboard spoke to a trio of friends who drove to Chicago from Virginia. Mauricio, the group’s de facto spokesperson, had a one-word response when asked what his expectations were for this event. “Visuals,” he said categorically. “This guy (Kanye) is really about portraying an image and aesthetic and vibe. The music is just kinda the background.”

Next to Mauricio and his buddies was Sterling from New Hampshire. “As soon as the event went on sale on Tuesday, I was able to buy a $235 ticket but it was a battle with Ticketmaster because the site would go down,” he explained. “My jaw would hit the floor but I eventually got in. Then, I bought a Greyhound ticket, took the bus, booked a hotel and spent almost $1,000. I’ve been waiting to see Kanye for 10 years. I’m just happy to be in the same building as him.”

A little past 8 p.m. gates finally opened and people were allowed inside the venue where official merchandise — black tees and white sweatpants and shorts stamped with a Vultures logo — was sold. Once you made your way inside, you were hit with a foggy view of the barely visible stage erected from an open space surrounded by white flags with the Vultures logo.

Chance the Rapper was in attendance and made a grand entry with an entourage in tow waving at the fans who recognized the hometown hero. Once settled in, he, like everyone else there, patiently waited for the listening session to begin. And it did around 10:10p.m., an hour after it was scheduled to start.

The crowd roared at the sight of Ye and Ty who walked up on the stage. Some of the songs that played throughout the night included “Burn,” “Paperwork,” “Everybody,” “Carnival,” “Vultures,” “Hoodrat,” “Paid” and “Talking/Once Again,” which featured a special performance by North West. Undoubtedly, the 10-year-old’s appearance onstage was one of the best moments of the night with the entire venue cheering her on as she rapped alongside her superstar father.

While the 12 songs that were played throughout the listening session were met with rave and approval by fans who nodded along to every beat, they were in disbelief when the music ended and lights at the venue went on signaling that the show had ended. As if on cue, the confused crowd checked their phones once the event was over. To their surprise (or perhaps not), the album hadn’t been released.

Ye and Ty are expected to host another listening event today in New York’s UBS Arena. Below, a list of the takeaways from Chicago’s Vultures Listening Experience event: