‘I ain’t antisemitic’: Kanye West hosted a party in Miami to let us hear his new album

What happens when the artist formerly known as Kanye West announces a pop-up album listening party in the heart of Miami?

It draws Chris Brown, Timbaland and a freshly released Kodak Black.

Fresh from the pageantry that is Art Basel, hundreds of curious fans – many of whom dressed in the very oversized clothing that the Chicago rapper popularized – piled into Wynwood Marketplace early Tuesday morning to listen to West’s yet to be released collaborative album with Ty Dolla $ign entitled “Vultures.” It was a spectacle, a star-studded event just as bizarre as the very man whose antisemitic comments in 2022 have drawn ire from supporters and detractors alike.

And as the opening chords of the eponymous track “Vultures” blared from the speaks, Ye would take the time to address the controversy — albeit in the most Kanye way possible.

“I ain’t antisemitic,” West, who know goes by Ye, rapped to the crowd, donning a black hood similar to that of the Ku Klux Klan, “I just f***** a Jewish b****.”

This will be Ye’s first release since 2021’s “Donda,” which debuted roughly a year prior to his antisemitic rant on Fox News and praise of Adolf Hitler.

“I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” Ye wrote on Twitter on Oct. 2022. “The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”

The crowd most consisted of Gen Zers (a 21-year-old called DeRay Davis, the Chicago-born comedian who made a brief appearance on stage, the guy who “was in the movie with Lil Yachty”) with a sprinkle of older hip-hop heads. With tickets dropping about four hours before doors opened and beginning at $200 a pop, it’s not as if this was the most accessible event — especially for those who blew most of their check baseling.

Still, the most loyal Ye fans began to pack the venue the minute doors opened at 10 p.m. until the Chicago rapper appeared on stage until nearly 2 a.m. The mosh pits moshed to sounds of XXXTentacion, Playboi Carti and Kodak Black. And, because events announced less than 12 hours before starting always have hiccups, Ye ended up hooking up his phone to the speaker in order to play the album.

For anyone expecting the album to be a tell-all apology from the 24-time Grammy Award-winner, this wasn’t that. The songs dealt with a little bit of everything else: Ye’s sexual exploits and thoughts on the music industry while he seemingly danced around his antisemitic remarks, offering only subliminal bars like the aforementioned line and “Everybody waiting for me to say the wrong thing” over a Backstreet Boys sample seemingly entitled “Everybody.”

Rappers including Offset, Freddie Gibbs and Lil Durk grace the stage but so did Ye’s kids Saint and North West, the latter of whom made her music debut in one of the soon to be released tracks.

“Don’t try to test me,” the 10-year-old rapped over a thunderous applause from the crowd. “It’s going to get messy.”

The event brought an end to a weekend in which Ye made headlines in Miami. On Sunday evening, he was spotted at Dukunoo Jamaican Kitchen where he shocked fans by playing the new album. Ye would later perform a medley of songs – both hits and unreleased – at LIV on Sunday.