Kanye West’s ‘Jesus’ Doesn’t Come, Again, and Sleepy Fans Have a Field Day on Twitter

By Chris Willman

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Everyone has a bête noire in life, that one nemesis that will forever dog them, and Kanye West’s is “release dates.” Despite a much heavier advance publicity buildup that had fans thinking surely he must mean it this time, his “Jesus Is King” gospel album failed to descend from the clouds, or The Cloud, in the wee hours of Friday morning as advertised.

As Mark 13:32 tried to warn us about planning for rapture: “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven.”

If fans think they’re frustrated, imagine the collaborators working on the album — not just because of the hours or pressure involved in getting it right, but because the increasingly devout West revealed in an interview Thursday that he’d asked everyone toiling on it to refrain from premarital sex until it was completed. One tongue-in-cheek tweeter blamed the delay on fornicating fans: “Y’all need stop having sex so Kanye can drop this f—ing album.”

While they were missing sleep, many found ways to express their dismay or told-you-so amusement over the delay: