After First Week Sales Don’t Meet His Standards, Kanye Decides to Release Single for ‘Yeezus’

By: Amanda Anderson-Niles

Kanye’s new album “Yeezus” topped the charts and sold 328,000 copies in its first week, however, industry insiders are claiming the numbers don’t look good enough for an artist of Kanye’s caliber. In fact, “Yeezus” has the lowest first week sales of any album Kanye has released so far. And many seem to think the album didn’t reach the 500k mark because it didn’t have an official single, plus the music seems to be taking a lot longer to connect with consumers this time around. Interestingly enough, although Kanye took pride in not releasing an official single for the album before its release, it now appears the rapper has quickly decided he needs to release a single to help the album be better received. Billboard reports:

Kanye West’s “Yeezus” will get some promotion after all.

After a fiercely guarded release with no singles or videos, West’s latest album will service an official radio single: “Black Skinhead,” a clean version of which is being released to DJs.

A video for the track is also in the works, Def Jam confirmed to Billboard. The video release and the track’s radio impact date will coincide, likely in time for the 4th of July holiday.

“Black Skinhead” is actually one of the few songs Kanye previewed several weeks ago. Most notably, the first time the world heard the song was during his recent performance on “Saturday Night Live.” While it’s unclear if the song is commercial enough on the first glance depends on who you talk to, but Kanye’s fan base could make it commercially accepted by requesting it in large numbers to radio DJs.

Check out “Black Skinhead” below: