The rollout of Kanye West’s 2016 album The Life of Pablo was pretty messy, to say the least, involving several false-starts, name-changes, controversies, and an elaborate Donda-esque launch at his Yeezy Season 3 show at Madison Square Garden.
With music aired through a few secret listening parties, many leaked tracks also made their way onto the internet — one being the unreleased song “Can U Be/Forever Mitus”, produced by Kanye’s then-collaborator Keyon Christ.
Now, the former G.O.O.D. Music producer has let the elusive and “highly-coveted” leak (which was previously available in unofficial, low-quality formats) see the light of day as an NFT.
Marking the first release in a collection of previously-lost tracks, titled “2044: The Lost Kanye Files”, the NFT of the track was minted on December 10. It was subsequently transferred to AOI (or Art on Internet, AKA the owner of Aphex Twin and Weirdcore’s “/afx\/weirdcore\<blockscanner>”, which sold for 72ETH, or more than $290,000, back in March).
Apparently, Christ also hopes that the official “Can U Be/Forever Mitus” leak will stand for something larger in the music industry. “Revolutionize music ownership in Web3 with this highly-coveted leak,” he writes in the description of the Foundation listing, where you can also listen to the track.
“Rules will be broken, risks will be taken.”
Listen below.