Kanye West pulled yet another pump fake at midnight last night after announcing the release of his long-awaited album, Donda, which failed to arrive. ’Ye even went as far as holding a 71,00-capacity listening event, streamed via Apple Music, for the project in Atlanta, further insinuating that his LP would drop. However, although there's no album from Kanye just yet, the conversation has shifted a bit after Yeezy previewed a new track he has with Jay-Z, in which Hov teased a potential follow-up to their 2011 LP, Watch the Throne.
On Thursday evening (July 24), Kanye packed ATL's Mercedes-Benz Stadium to the brim last night to give a public preview of his album. Among the songs ’Ye played was an unexpected joint featuring Jigga, Kanye's longtime friend, whom the Chicago rapper hasn't been on the best of terms with as of late. Nonetheless, an olive branch of some sort must have been extended at some point because on the song, Hov gave hope of a forthcoming project between the two rappers.
"Told him to stop all that red cap, we going home/Cannot be with all of these sins casting stones/This might be the return of The Throne, Throne/Hova and Yeezus like Moses and Jesus/You’re not in control of my thesis," Jay raps on the track, which doesn't appear to have a confirmed title yet.
Engineer Young Guru revealed on Thursday (July 22) that Jay wrote his verse yesterday at 4 p.m. "HOV did the verse today!!!! At 4pm," Guru tweeted.
Last August, Yeezy tweeted that he misses his big brother, referring to Hov. In the social media post, Kanye included an old image of himself and Jigga performing onstage together.
Three years prior, in 2017, Jay-Z spoke on his apparently strained relationship with Kanye West during Jay's interview with The New York Times' Dean Baquet.
"I [talked to] Kanye the other day, just to tell him, like, he's my brother," Hov said at the time. "I love Kanye. I do. It's a complicated relationship with us."
The Roc Nation head continued: "’Cause, you know, Kanye came into this business on my label. So, I've always been like his big brother. And we're both entertainers. It's always been like a little underlying competition with your big brother. And we both love and respect each other's art, too. So it's like, we both—everyone wants to be the greatest in the world, you know what I'm saying? And then there's like a lot of other factors that play in it. But it's gonna, we gonna always be good."
The moment when Kanye and Jay-Z's tight-knit friendship began to unravel is uncertain, but many speculate that it could've taken place back in 2014, when the Brooklyn rap veteran and his wife, Beyoncé, skipped out on the G.O.O.D Music founder and his now ex-wife, Kim Kardashian's, wedding.
’Ye called out Jigga for missing his nuptials during his Saint Pablo Tour stop in Sacramento, Calif.
Then, in 2019, Hov and Yeezy reunited for the first time in three years at Diddy's 50th birthday party.
In any event, although blood is thicker than water, some friendships are just as important and worth being salvaged. Looks like the dynamic duo that is Jay-Z and Kanye West have buried the hatchet and hopefully, at some point—before or after the arrival of Donda—fans can get the second coming to their Grammy Award-nominated album, Watch the Throne.