Kanye West: New Album Out ‘Sometime in November’

From Billboard.com:

Kanye West is taking full advantage of all that technology has to offer. The rapper, who recently joined Twitter, hosted his first Ustream chat today (Aug. 6) from Korea and revealed that his new album will be out “sometime in November.” West also said that his next single — the follow-up to “Power” — will drop in about 20 days, and it’s a toss-up between a track called “Lost in The World” and “All of The Lights.” He played a short snippet of the latter, which features big horns and double-speed drums.

Sporting a white button-up and a black tie — “I actually got the same outfit from the ‘Flashing Lights’ video today,” he pointed out — West sat in front of a balcony as the sun came up. “It’s dusk right now, it’s 5:20 and I’m about to head to the airport in about 20 minutes,” he said before answering fans’ questions.

When asked about the concept behind the “Power” video, which premiered last night, Kanye said he reached out to director Marco Brambilla because “I liked the ‘Civilization’ piece he did,” adding that the initial video was supposed to be more of a mini-film at about 30 or 40 minutes long. “But ‘Power’ got leaked and we needed to create a visual for it,” West explained. “We vibed out in my house and I had all these references of Renaissance paintings. I always wanted to recreate the Sistine Chapel. This is not the full recreation — I still might want to do that.

“Emotionally and image-wise, it really was easy on set to create these characters, because it just feels like the things I dream, the things I see and the things I’ve felt since I was a child, reading comic books, being in love with paintings and going to art school,” West added.

When he embarks on a new project, West said, his goal is not necessarily to tap into something completely new or left-field, but to expand on what he’s already done. “I don’t want to jump styles so much, but dive into what I like most and make it better than it was with every album.”

But that wasn’t always the case. West said he was actually “scared” of the “Power” single because of its similarities to some of his previous tracks. “I thought it was reminiscent of ‘Jesus Walks’ and ‘Amazing.’ But I realized I had to embrace the work I did in the past,” he said. “So, if you look at it, the art piece is similar to ‘Can’t Tell Me Nothing’ with the fabric, to ‘Diamonds’ with the architecture, and the chain is from ‘Can’t Tell Me Nothing.’ It’s a progression.”

The last comment Kanye clarified was in response to a post that simply read, “Kanye, you are a racist.” “I actually don’t know a rapper before me that likes white people as much as me,” he said with a chuckle, exposing the gold grill on his bottom teeth. “I don’t know a rapper that wore tight jeans before me, that collaborated with more white people as much as me.

“I know what made people put me in a box like that, but it didn’t come from a place of racism,” he continued, presumably referencing the controversy between him and Taylor Swift at last year’s MTV VMAs. “I won’t delve into that, but, I’m in no way am I a racist.”

As he wrapped up and thanked his fans for tuning in, Kanye admitted to getting frustrated by people’s attacks towards him, “like I’m not a human being,” he said. But he isn’t focused in proving people wrong as much as he is on becoming a better person and continuing to put out great music.

“No more time to be a rude asshole celebrity — none of that. It’s about the art,” he said. “I’m not allowing my attitude to get in the way of my creation anymore. I had to change my attitude completely, and now my statement is only amazing work. That’s all I want to do, is give you all the most amazing work possible.”