Earlier this year, back in February, Kanye West infamously shrieked that his new album, The Life of Pablo, had been released towards the end of a Saturday Night Live performance. Of course, the album actually hadn’t been released, and wouldn’t be available until the wee hours of the next morning on TIDAL, the streaming service West co-owns with Nicki Minaj, J. Cole, Madonna and several other superstars. (Of course, Jay Z is the majority owner of the company.)
Since then, the general public has reveled in Pablo, and two months after it made its debut on TIDAL, it was released to the other major streaming platforms, which allowed it to debut atop the Billboard 200. It’s the only album in chart history to top the Billboard 200 solely off streaming. Needless to say Yeezy season was well underway.
This morning’s announcement of Kanye’s first tour in 3 years, the Saint Pablo tour, was supposed to make this week a great one for Yeezy fans, but it’s been marred by a bizarre occurrence on Pablo’s home streaming service, TIDAL.
Pablo has vanished.
Per the screenshot above, all of Kanye’s solo albums, his album with Jay Z and the G.O.O.D. Music compilation album are all available for streaming. The Life of Pablo however, is no longer there. West’s reps are chalking this up to technical difficulties, which means somebody at the TIDAL or the G.O.O.D. Music offices is receiving a new a**hole as we speak. (The idea of Pusha T really ripping into someone is quite gratifying.) For what it’s worth, it’s certainly a good reason to get frantic. Pablo was streamed 250 million times in just 10 days on TIDAL, and is largely responsible for the service’s 2016 growth, alongside of course exclusive Beyonce and Rihanna releases.