Kanye West Changes Album Title From ‘Swish’ To ‘Waves’ – Is Nike Behind The Switch?


Kanye West is still working on his upcoming album, which he has already proclaimed to be the best album of all time. It seems that West had a change of heart about what to name his newest masterpiece, though, because the rapper took to Twitter on Tuesday evening and announced the new name for his album will be Waves instead of the highly publicized Swish. Is Nike behind the name switch up for Kanye West’s highly-anticipated album release?

Kanye has been working hard to make sure everyone knows he has an album coming up. The release date for Kanye’s album, formerly called Swish, is February 11. That means the sudden name change for the now-titled Waves is certain to cause a huge scramble, especially with the marketing of West’s newest offering.

Of course, Kanye West probably doesn’t care about causing a few people to work a bit harder because divine inspiration hit and the name of his album had to be changed. In reality, Kanye hasn’t explained yet why he decided to rename the new album, due out in just over two weeks. Entertainment Weekly reported that this isn’t even the first time Kanye changed his mind about the name. For those who lost count, the work was initially dubbed So Help Me God and Kanye only decided to switch it up and call it Swish last May.

Swish seemed to stick and even Kim Kardashian was helping to publicize the upcoming release by tweeted out about Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Fridays. The rapper brought back the famous music Fridays when he used to promote artists on his G.O.O.D. Music label by releasing some of his own music every Friday. The new twist to the music promotion was that Kim Kardashian took charge and was making announcements about her husband’s newest tracks.

First Kanye released “FACTS” first, a catchy diss track that was obviously aimed at Nike. Kanye West recently defected from the Nike brand and took his popular Yeezy designs over to competitor Adidas. It seems there may be some bad blood between Kanye West and Nike because the rapper had a lot to say about his former shoe endorser. Weezy’s shoe deal with Adidas is only worth $10 million so it’s safe to guess that Nike’s offer was much less and Kanye is still salty about it.

Considering the animosity between Kanye and Nike and now a sudden album name change just before the release date, Swish some fans are wondering if the shoe giant had something to do with the sudden switch. Swish sure does sound a lot like Swoosh, the name of the Nike symbol and one of the most recognizable brands in the world. Whether Nike took action to block the album name or Kanye just didn’t want to raise questions about the possible relationship between the name of his album and the name of the company, the theory behind the Nike switch is interesting and totally plausible.

The switch from Swish to Waves comes just one day after Kanye released the tracklist for the upcoming album. The new album title shares it’s name with one of the songs from West’s new album. It’s safe to assume the title track will be released soon and if that song was so good that Kanye West decided to change the name of his album for it, then it’s a must-hear as soon as possible.

Kanye has been busy on social media as the release date gets closer. Every day he is releasing new details about what Kanye describes as the “greatest album of all time.” Just before telling everyone via Twitter that the new album will be called Waves, Kanye proclaimed, “This is not album of the year. This is album of the life.” Kanye then followed up his not-so-humble claim with the new name change.

[Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images]

Share this article: Kanye West Changes Album Title From ‘Swish’ To ‘Waves’ – Is Nike Behind The Switch?
More from Inquisitr