The History of Kanye's 'T.L.O.P.' Documented on Twitter
T.L.O.P. has arrived. But how did we get here?
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The Greatest Album of All Time? - At this point, it’s been two years and eight months since Kanye West released a full length album. Kanye’s time away from music was filled with two fashion collections, multiple shoe releases, a new child, and focusing on his creativity with design. Since the announcement of a new album, he's already pegged the currently titled T.L.O.P. (The Life of Pablo) to be one of the greatest albums of all time. We’ve only heard a few tracks out of 11, but have witnessed the hype on our Twitter timelines. Kanye has been going full force on Twitter with rants, random thoughts, updates and having his media mogul wife, Kim Kardashian West, get in on the T.L.O.P. action. Since Twitter is the best way to get unfiltered Kanye (besides an interview), we’ve gone through his timeline to bring you the complete history of T.L.O.P. (which I’ve just been pronouncing...
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March 2015: Kanye Announces a New Album - It had been a year and eight months since the release of Yeezus. The public was clamoring for a new record. Kanye was ready to give the people what they wanted. (Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
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March 2015: First Album Title of Many - Ah yes, So Help Me God. I forgot this was the original album title. I’m sure you forgot too. As far as we know, the picture attached is the album cover. (Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
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March 2015: A Non-Album Single Is Released - Kanye was pretty much like, hey, if I can get a Beatle on a track that isn’t even going to make the album, just wait and see who I will get for the album.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
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March 2015: Kanye Tweets 'SWISH!!!' Four Times in a Row - The exclamation points ranged from three to six but they all had the same message, “SWISH.” They also all included nude pictures of Kim Kardashian West. The correlation between the pictures and “SWISH” has yet to be figured out, but in a few months, “SWISH” would be an important noun... or verb.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
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March 2015: Kanye Back in the Studio - The day after Kendrick Lamar released To Pimp a Butterfly, Kanye gave fashion a break and got back in the studio to work on the album he promised us.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
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April 2015: Will the Album Be Released on Tidal? - Kanye tweeted in support of his friend Jay Z’s music streaming service. When the time comes, will he be releasing it on Tidal? There were rumors that Apple Music was courting him to get dibs on the release. We shall see.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
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May 2015: Album Name Changes to SWISH - We should’ve seen it coming.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
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May 2015: 'I Might Change It Again Two More Times' - Obviously one of the above quotes are made up, but they are both true.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
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December 2015: Just a Quick Check-In - ‘Ye was busy promoting G.O.O.D. Music artists over the past few months via Twitter so he wanted to make sure you knew what the status on his album was.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
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December 2015: Don’t Bother Kanye - You know that cup of sugar you needed? Better find another neighbor in Calabasas to get it from until the album drops.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
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December 2015: Another Non-Single Track Drops - Kanye ends the year by jumping on Drake and Future’s “Jumpman” and dissing Nike. No mention from Kanye’s Twitter. Purely Kim’s.(Photo: Kim Kardashian West via Twitter)
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January 2016: G.O.O.D. Fridays Are Back - Kim continues her secondary gig as lead publicist for SWISH.(Photo: Kim Kardashian West via Twitter)
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January 2016: Kanye Releases 'Real Friends' - The Ty Dolla $ign-assisted track turns out to be the first track that was officially shared by Kanye that will be included on the album.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
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January 2016: Kendrick Lamar Feature Revealed - We knew Kanye was a fan. When he released “Real Friends,” he added a snippet of “No More Parties in LA” to the end of the track.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
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January 2016: Album Release Date Announced - The tweet pretty much says it all.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
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January 2016: 'Fade' Heard, But Not Released - One of the album tracks was premiered during Kanye’s Yeezy Season 2 runway show at New York Fashion Week in September. If you didn’t hear it when the event live streamed, then you could’ve caught the track when the runway show aired on Keeping Up With the Kardashians.(Photo: Kim Kardashian West via Twitter)
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January 2016: Not So G.O.O.D. A Friday After All - Friday passed and there was no sign of new music from Kanye. Kim did a little crisis PR and explained what happened.(Photo: Kim Kardashian West via Twitter)
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January 2016: G.O.O.D. Friday Dedication - Kim explains Kanye was so dedicated to fashion that he had to fly out for his collection, but he was so dedicated to music that he flew out his producer/engineer/mixer Noah Goldstein out with him. This track was getting to the people no matter what. (Photo: Kim Kardashian West via Twitter)
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January 2016: First Time for Everything - Thanks, Kim. We’re glad Kanye didn’t forget about us.(Photo: Kim Kardashian West via Twitter)
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January 2016: Two Days Late, But We’ll Take It - Kanye releases the entire version of a highly anticipated album cut, 'No More Parties in L.A.' This is the second and last G.O.O.D. Friday track fans will get.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
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January 2016: The First Tracklist - Ten songs and we see two that we’ve already heard.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
Photo By Photo: Kanye West via Twitter
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January 2016: 'Album of the Life' - Kanye continues to raise the bar infinitely above the level of hype the album already has.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
Photo By Photo: Kanye West via Twitter
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January 2016: From SWISH to WAVES - This is name change numero dos.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
Photo By Photo: Kanye West via Twitter
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January 2016: The Second Tracklist - The list has been updated with 11 songs and split in three acts. Also, there seems to be a lot of people in the studio visiting ‘Ye.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
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January 2016: The Name Change That Sparked a Twitter Rant - Kanye acknowledges Max B for coining the term “Wave,” but it still caused Wiz Khalifa to call out Kanye for using the name. It quickly resulted in a heavy Twitter rant against Wiz, which Kanye later deleted and apologized.(Photo: Wiz Khalifia via Twitter)
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January 2016: The Third (and Final) Tracklist - Kanye posts another photo of the infamous notepad with even more signatures and the final three-act tracklist.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
Photo By Photo: Kanye West via Twitter
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February 2016: Kim Hints at a Possible Album Name Change - With just 10 days until the album drops, Kim holds a poll of which album title is better. WAVES gets the least amount of votes.(Photo: Kim Kardashian West via Twitter)
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February 2016: Kanye Announces Album Listening Party - It’s not your average 30 people in a studio listening party. Kanye is holding his listening party and premiering his latest clothing collection at Madison Square Garden on the same day of his album release. Tickets sell out in 10 minutes.(Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)
Photo By Photo: Kanye West via Twitter
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February 2016: Final Album Title? - On February 8, with only three days until the album release date, Kanye changes his album title from WAVES to T.L.O.P. Nobody has any idea what T.L.O.P. stands for. According to ‘Ye, if you guess it, you get a free pair of Yeezys. In that case, The Land of Peacocks, To Love or Perish, Try Living Off Plums. You can send my pair to the BET headquarters. (Photo: Kanye West via Twitter)