Kanye West Announces Album Listening Events in Brooklyn, Chicago, Miami

By Jem Aswad

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Kanye West made headlines last week by holding a listening session at the Diamond Cross Ranch near Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for his new seven-track album, “Ye,” and flying in several hundred media and radio types, DJs and celebrities for the event. The star-studded event was enough to make many people forget that he’s got another album coming — this one a collaboration with longtime associate Kid Cudi called “Kids See Ghosts” — on Friday. And on his website early Wednesday morning, West announced events in Miami and Chicago taking place tonight, with another in Brooklyn tomorrow. Few other details were included other than a link to RSVP.

While West posted a tracklist for the album last Friday (with the titles “Feel the Love,” “Kids See Ghosts,” “4th Dimension,” “Cudi Montage,” “Devils Watching,” “Reborn” and one blank spot), anyone who’s followed the progress of West’s albums in recent years knows that the entire album could be re-recorded in the hours leading up to its release; even after last week’s listening event, coproducer Mike Dean took the album back into the studio and was tweaking it until early Friday morning.

Cudi’s manager Dennis Cummings announced Tuesday on Twitter that there will be a listening party in Los Angeles, although a date wasn’t included. On Wednesday morning he tweeted out the cover art.

While you can read all about last week’s event here , it’s a safe bet that there won’t be any hip-hop listening parties at the Diamond Cross Ranch: In an interview with The Blast , owner Jane Goliher said it was the “most confusing” event they’ve ever held at the facility, and said that its late start time — it was scheduled to end by 10 p.m. but the album playback didn’t start until 9:30 — and loud volume violated local ordinances and upset the neighbors. Thus, she said, while the experience was generally positive, there will be “no more rappers” holding events at the ranch.