Entertainment

Kanye West's Album Cover for 'Ye' Was Shot on an iPhone

Maybe he's a phone guy, after all.

by Catie Keck
Inverse

Kanye West has earned himself a reputation for his last-minute, sometimes seemingly erratic decisions about his creative endeavors. It perhaps comes as little surprise then that the album art for Ye, which debuted during a Thursday evening listening party in Wyoming, was decided by the rapper en route to that very event. He also shot it on his iPhone.

News of this unorthodox decision came by way of his wife Kim Kardashian West. Tweeting early Friday, she wrote: “Kanye shot the album cover on his iPhone on the way to the album listening party.” She accompanied the reveal with several emojis, including a heart, tears of joy, prayer hands, and flames.

The cover for the multi-hyphenate’s eighth studio album features a sprawling mountain range, perhaps not unlike the one seen by his guests during Thursday’s fireside listening party at a ranch in Jackson Hole. While the album’s title is officially Yefor now, at least — the title on the front of the album cover reads: “I hate being Bi-Polar it’s awesome.”

Kanye previously announced on Twitter via a screen grab of an iMessage conversation that his album cover would include a photo of Jan Adams, who the rapper identified as the plastic surgeon who performed his mother Donda West’s final operation. She died in 2007 from complications following the procedure.

The move feels extremely on-brand for the rapper while also being perhaps a bit paradoxical, given his general aversion to phones. He has said phones disrupt his creative process and claims he didn’t have one until 2011.

Turns out those iPhones can be pretty handy after all.

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