Cruel Summer, the collaborative album from Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music collective, has been so frequently postponed — from Spring 2012 to August 7 to now September 4 — that the LP should just be dubbed Cruel Indian Summer to better reflect the season it’s being released in. With little more than a month before Cruel Summer‘s comes out and still no track list to be seen, it appeared as though the disc would once again be delayed… until just minutes ago, when West dropped by Twitter for the first time in a month to unveil the sculpturesque cover for the Getting Out Our Dreams crew’s album. While the image of a nude female statue fondling herself isn’t as controversial as, say, a painting of Kanye fucking an armless angel monster, the Cruel Summer cover will still probably have a tough time getting displayed at prude Walmarts.
Once again, Kanye has produced an album cover that looks absolutely nothing like what you’d find in rest of the hip-hop’s jewel cases. Whereas West’s peers like Odd Future enjoy plastering gargoyle-faced weirdos on their covers, or Rick Ross keeps posing like deleted scenes from Scarface, Kanye continues to fashion his album with an art gallery motif by linking up with artists like Takashi Murakami (Graduation), George Condo (Twisted Fantasy) or Riccardo Tisci (Watch the Throne). The Cruel Summer cover is reminiscent of Spiritualized’s Let It Come Down, with a dash of that iconic Janet Jackson photo thrown in. In his tweet, Kanye also reiterated that the G.O.O.D. album is still arriving September 4, so watch for more Cruel details in the coming days. Until then, here are five things you can expect from West, Pusha, Common, and the rest of the G.O.O.D. crew’s debut.
