Turbo Grafx 16 was slated to be his next LP after The Life of Pablo, released sometime in 2016 or 2017. In early 2016, Kanye’s longtime associate Ibn Jasper posted a picture of Kid Cudi and one of their earliest collaborators, Plain Pat, working on the album. And on the opposite end of the spectrum, a host of newer artists were apparently invited to work on it, as Quavo posted a picture captioned “TURBO” that showed himself, Offset, Lil Yachty, and Vic Mensa in the studio with Big Sean and Kanye.
Legendary producer Pete Rock also posted footage of himself working on the album alongside West. The beats he played were creamy and soulful, harkening back to their work on “The Joy.” A few possible song names came out, too, including several inspired by non-Turbo Grafx games like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Pikmin 2. But 2016 was perhaps the most turbulent time in his life since becoming a public figure—there was the infamous Kim Kardashian robbery in Paris during his Saint Pablo tour, erratic speeches on said tour interviews on everything from support for Donald Trump to lashing out at Jay-Z and Beyoncé.Then the tour was cancelled and Kanye was admitted to UCLA for psychiatric evaluation. By the time he emerged almost a year later, his eighth album had morphed into Ye, which by all reports, doesn’t account for anything out of the Turbo sessions.
2018: The Yandhi/Yeezus 2 Album. Barely a few months passed after Kanye dropped his messy eighth album, Ye, before he was promising another. YANDHI was originally due out in late September 2018, and given the title, it was viewed as a kind of sequel to Yeezus, which West drove home thanks to cover art that was clearly inspired by the 2013 LP.
Just a few days before YANDHI was due out, West visited the New York office of The FADER and played songs for the staff, which featured controversial rappers like 6ix9ine and XXXtentacion. During that meeting, West made several eye-opening statements, including a comment about the number of slaves in the 19th century that was off by several million. He also critiqued the private prison industry, and said he wanted to design flying cars in his hometown of Chicago. Eventually, Kim Kardashian announced the album would instead come out on November 23, though that date came and went in silence.
A 2019 feature in The FADER posited that even though many of the tracks from YANDHI that leaked are unpolished, “these songs have more shape and direction that nearly anything on Ye.” The most famous of the leaks was “New Body,” which featured Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign. YANDHI was decidedly more hedonistic than what Kanye’s actual ninth LP, Jesus is King, although some of the selections did have a religious bent.
2018: The Watch the Throne 2 Album. In September 2018, Kanye made a big proclamation that raised plenty of eyebrows in the rap world. “Throne 2 coming soon,” he tweeted, hinting that a sequel to he and JAY-Z’s quintuple platinum 2011 collaborative album was on the way. And that’s about all the news we got for a while. The relationship between Kanye and his mentor had grown complicated, and he even said during a 2016 performance that JAY was the reason the album wasn’t going to happen.
After referencing Kanye on his 4:44 and EVERYTHING IS LOVE albums, JAY spoke about their relationship in a verse on Meek Mill’s “What’s Free,” saying “No red hat, don’t Michael and Prince me and Ye.” Some initially viewed this as a slight, and when Hov posted a message clarifying the bars were meant to be supportive, West quickly jumped online to share his hopes that they could make Watch the Throne 2 a reality.
No one really put much stock in the idea—the duo may have de-escalated tensions, but from the outside they seemed cordial at best, a far cry from the creative synergy that birthed Throne. That perception was changed last week, when the listening event for Kanye’s new album Donda closed with none other than a new verse (recorded a mere five hours prior, apparently) from big brother. Jay leaned right into the elephant in the room, addressing his distancing from Kanye during Trump’s presidency and going so far as to declare “This might be the return of the Throne.” Fingers crossed.
