How Kanye’s Future is Linked to Saudi Arabia

It’s a dry New Music Friday tomorrow, and it looks like Kanye won’t release his album before 2024 because Apple Music changed the Vultures date to January 12th 😔 In other news today:

• Song streams & revenue 💰️ 

• How Kanye’s future is linked to Saudi Arabia 👀 

• This is why Playboi Carti disappeared from music 👻 

• Industry Insights 📈 

Song Streams & Revenue

It’s a new Thursday and a new song revenue chart. As reported by Hits Daily Double, which tracks streaming revenue week over week, the above chart reflects the streaming period from December 1 to 7.

Nicki Minaj’s #1 album, Pink Friday 2, made $320K from 68M first-week streams of six songs on the album. The most popular song was “Everybody” ft. Lil Uzi Vert which earned $69K from 15M streams.

How Kanye’s Future is Linked to Saudi Arabia

Kanye’s taken a break from his Vultures rollout and pivoted to real estate. He’s selling his gutted Malibu mansion for $53M and in phase 1 of building his own city—YZY DROAM.

But it’s not going to be in the US or North America. It’s in the Middle East, which builds on the theory that Kanye allied with Saudia Arabia. Here’s why…

We covered Kanye’s connection to Saudi a few weeks ago because he was recording his album in Riyadh (read the full recap here). The TLDR version is that Saudi’s sovereign wealth fund wants to invest in live entertainment to improve its cultural reputation. Kanye’s currently ostracized from the music industry in the US, but his star power shines a spotlight on anything he does in Saudi.

The conceptualized YZY DROAM is reportedly 100,000 acres, making it four times the size of Paris and over half the size of New York.

The news was revealed because YZY DROAM is looking for project managers, engineers, and more to start planning the city, insinuating Kanye has the green light from the Middle East.

Kanye was also supposed to perform at Saudi’s Soundstorm music festival, which took place Dec 14th-16th. The festival is the country’s most successful investment in music to date, attracting a crowd of over 600,000. David Guetta replaced Kanye at the last minute, but his scheduled appearance is further proof of a relationship with Saudi.

Gutted $57M Malibu Mansion & Abandoned $1.5M Church

Out with the old and in with the new—Kanye’s selling off his properties in the US, including a $57M mansion in Malibu. Similar to the self-sufficient ethos of YZY DROAM, Kanye tried turning the mansion into a retro bomb shelter and failed.

The once beautiful Tadao Ando-designed home is gutted with no windows, electricity, or plumbing and was put on the market for $53M. The listing agent is Jason Oppenheim of Selling Sunset, and the $4M decrease from the original price allegedly reflects the cost of installing new finishings.

Similarly, Kanye bought a $1.5M church earlier this year in LA and planned to move his Donda Academy there but abandoned the project, leaving the property in a state of deterioration. It will also likely be put on the market as Kanye continues to sell off his assets.

This Is Why Playboi Carti Disappeared From Music Until Now

Playboi Carti’s ending 2023 by beating the liar and absent father allegations. He’s released three new songs and hard-launched Dad Carti in a matter of weeks. His latest release, “H00DBYAIR,” reveals he recently had a daughter and shared a video montage of moments with his son Onyx.

Fans are speculating that his personal life and two children are to blame for the delays in his releases and tour. In the outro of “H00DBYAIR,” Carti says, “I was 24 when I had lil’ Onyx / (Then I had a daughter, I had a daughter too) / 27 when I had Yves / Now I can finally sleep.” He turned 27 in September, but the timeline isn’t adding up if you go into the archives of Carti news.

Carti’s New Daughter Yves

In December 2022, Playboi Carti was arrested for a physical dispute with his then-pregnant girlfriend. Her identity wasn’t revealed in the reports, but the argument allegedly started over a paternity test, and she was 14 weeks pregnant at the time.

If correct, the child would have been born sometime in June 2023 (full-term pregnancy is 40 weeks) before Carti’s 27th birthday.

Iggy Azalea, the mother of Carti’s first child, blasted him on social media in 2020 when he didn’t spend Christmas with his son. She accused him of cheating on her with a girl named Brandi. The internet quickly found Brandi Marion, who denied the allegations and said she got together with Carti after he broke up with Iggy.

It’s rumored that Brandi is the mother of Carti’s newborn daughter, Yves. She was absent from social media for 10 months, starting in January 2023, soon after the reports broke of Carti’s dispute with a pregnant girlfriend. She recently posted the “YVES” graphic that Carti shared. All of this has led to speculation from his fans that this is the true reason for his absence from music.

• 21 Savage teases new music with stars & stripes billboard in Atlanta. The American Flag graphic has 21 stars instead of 50 and an updated colorway.

• Kodak Black’s lawyers ask judge to put him in a drug treatment program instead of jail. The rapper will remain incarcerated in Miami until a judge hears his case.

• Drake goes to dinner with Morgan Wallen in “You Broke My Heart” music video. The unexpected link-up stars in a dynamic video the the “f*ck my ex” anthem.

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