Kanye West's "Carnival" Gets Intense Cover Art

Kanye West has unveiled the intense cover art for "Carnival", one of the standout tracks from the recently released Vultures 1. Designed by noted Canadian artist Jon Rafman, the cover art for "Carnival" depicts a close-up of a screaming and bloodied skinhead. Rafman also created the AI-generated music video for Vultures (Havoc Version) that was released alongside the album.

"Carnival" features Playboi Carti and Rich the Kid. As mentioned, it is widely considered one of the best tracks on Vultures 1. Many people have already called it the best song of 2024. However, the song proved controversial even before it was released. A version heard at a listening party in Chicago earned the ire of Ozzy Osbourne due to an uncleared sample of Black Sabbath. A later version at a Long Island listening party used a sample of Kanye's "Hell of a life", which interpolates the same Black Sabbath song.

Kanye West Drops New Vultures 1 Cover But Fans Still Have Issues

Meanwhile, late last Saturday, Kanye dropped a new version of the cover art for his album, Vultures 1. The Jason Vorhees-esque hockey mask won by a figure on the album cover has been changed from white to black. However, the change was not the one that more modest fans were hoping for. Many fans still had issues with the scantily clad Bianca Censori who also appears on the cover. "How am I supposed to play this in my car and my mom sees this album cover," one fan asked. "Wasn’t he complaining about his baby momma being too sexual to raise his kids," noted another. "Salam brother Kanye, can we please get a Halal version of the cover. Thank you," requested a third.

The week before the album dropped, Kanye posted an image to his Instagram story of himself and Censori showing off their respective phone backgrounds. West's was a picture of Censori wearing a leather bikini. Meanwhile, Censori's was a picture of someone dressed as Jason Vorhees. While Censori appears to be topless on the cover of Vultures 1, it is now relatively evident that the innocuous photo was a backdoor teaser for the cover art.

[via]