The Kanye West album title that was snatched by 2 Chainz
Kanye West has so many ideas that he doesn’t get the chance to execute them all. His songs and albums often go through different names and sounds before settling on something final, and even that doesn’t stop him from making changes after the fact. This was the case for a proposed Ye album that 2 Chainz ended up snatching up.
Kanye released his seventh solo album, The Life of Pablo, in 2016, which was arguably one of the last projects he released before things took a turn for the worse. But the title was far from the first idea Ye had, going through multiple changes before landing on the Pablo Escobar, Pablo Picasso, and Paul the Apostle-inspired name.
So Help My God was actually the first title Ye had for the album, deriving from the oath people read when making a commitments. It comes from the full phrase, “So may God help me at the judgment day if I speak true, but if I speak false, then may He withdraw His help from me.” Q-Tip and Rick Rubin were set to produce the album, but like so often with Kanye, plans changed.
Yeezus II, Swish, and Waves were also named as potential titles before Kanye settled on The Life of Pablo. With So Help Me God becoming vacant, 2 Chainz pounced on the opportunity with his 2020 album. The Atlanta rapper released his sixth solo project on Def Jam Recordings, peaking at number 15 on the Billboard 200 chart with features from Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Chief Keef, NBA YoungBoy, Lil Uzi Vert, and others.
Not only that, but Kanye also featured on the song ‘Feel a Way’. Ye spit a verse on the track, proving he had no hard feelings about 2 Chainz using the album title for himself. While Chainz was never signed to Kanye, he was closely affiliated with G.O.O.D. Music, featuring on ‘Mercy’, ‘The Morning’, and ‘The One’ on the label’s Cruel Summer compilation in 2012.
Speaking on his and Ye’s collaboration on So Help Me God, Chainz told Hot 97, “I was playing my project for Ye because he was saying that he wanted to do my next project. I was just telling him basically that this is supposed to be my last project with Def Jam and I knew that he had a lot of stuff going on and I ain’t wanna just prolong it.
“So, I started playing my project, and when he heard [‘Feel a Way’], he told ‘em to load it up — like, soon as he heard it. He probably — I’m not even exaggerating — he probably did a legit seven-minute freestyle to it. So, it was a lot of stuff they had to cut.”
‘Feel a Way’ was 2 Chainz’s second collaboration with Kanye on his projects, teaming up on ‘Birthday Song’ from his debut album Based on a T.R.U. Story in 2012. The pair have a prolific history together, so it’s no wonder they ended up exchanging the title when it didn’t suit Ye.