Kanye West is one artist that has managed to present varying genres of rap successfully and beautifully in a single album. While the rapper catches controversies like they are Pikachu nowadays, it is important to note that he also has 24 Grammy awards to his name. Moreover, his career is often regarded as exemplary owing to the rapper constantly being innovative with the music he releases. An album that is kept on the highest pedestal in his award-winning musical career is ‘Yeezus’ from 2013.

Yeezus became Kanye West’s trademark owing to the rapper’s highly successful sneaker brand having the same name. The success of both the album and his merchandise were synonymous, however, the album was almost not named ‘Yeezus.’

Kanye West almost chose the wrong name for his album

The album marked the rapper’s sixth studio album and featured his iconic track ‘I Am a God’ along with ‘Bound 2’ and ‘Guilt Trip’ among the other popular tracks. At this point, West had already established himself as a reputed rapper whose album was bound to break records. Therefore, the stakes were quite high as West was about to drop his sixth album. While Yeezus became a success as an album and even became a term synonymous with West, Genius pointed out that the album was almost named ‘Thank God for Drugs’ as evidenced by the art director, Joe Perez’s now deleted posts which featured the same artwork as the Yeezus poster but with a different title.

It is unclear when Yeezus jumped into the picture but it was almost final that the album was to be named ‘Thank God for Drugs’ or ‘Black American Psycho’ according to details revealed by many fan pages during the era. While West’s album would have become a success either way, ‘Thank God for Drugs’ is not a suitable name for a sneaker brand. The Grammy-winning rapper, despite his decades-long musical career, is defined by his fashion brand ‘Yeezus’.

Is Yeezus the most popular Ye album?

That Kanye West was aiming to rebrand himself with Yeezus is clear. The album features a variety of genres and does not confide itself to one. Therefore, it was no shock that the album sold 327,000 copies within the first week and became a Grammy nominee in 2014. It is to date cherished by music critics who deem it Kanye West’s magnum opus.

Much like many things that win the hearts of critics, Yeezus is also an underrated Kanye West album. While underrated in Ye’s discography still means being exceptionally popular, the album falls way back in ranking when weighed against ‘College Dropout’, ‘The Life of Pablo’, and ‘Donda’.

Which is your favorite Kanye West album? Let us know in the comments below.