Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign are gearing up to release their highly anticipated joint album Vultures, but they’re doing some last-minute tweaking, including trying to clear a Nicki Minaj verse in the eleventh hour.
While previewing the album in Miami this week, Ye announced the project would arrive Friday (December 15). However, like the previously expected release dates, midnight came and went with no album.
Hours before the duo was set to host another listening event, Ye took to social media to publicly request clearance for a long-awaited verse.
Tagging Nicki Minaj, Kanye West shared a screenshot of a DM to the NYC icon. “May I call you about clearing new body on the album,” West asked in the text.
Ty Dolla $ign teased the track in September at the Le Baroque Club in Geneva, Switzerland. The unofficial “New Body,” track featuring the trio leaked online after Ye scrapped the song from his 2019 album, Yandhi.
YE, NICKI MINAJ, TY DOLLA SIGN
— Donda Times (@dondatimes) December 12, 2023
NEW BODY pic.twitter.com/7496ihIzUC
“The public adored ‘New Body.’ Like, ‘New Body’ is the biggest hit record that never came out,” Minaj said during a 2022 interview. “Kanye made me write my ‘New Body’ verse four times over in order to fit into where he was creatively and spiritually in his life, right, only to then, I go on the internet a few months later to see him on Drink Champs.”
She added, ”Everybody knows that’s the hit that got away … I think the ship has sailed for ‘New Body,’ everybody has come to love the original way they heard it.”
Meanwhile, Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign have announced another Vultures rave, this time in Vegas. As for the album, fans are hoping for a release to coincide with the listening event.