For those of you keeping track, it's been quite awhile since Kanye West released an album. While he has new music on the way (and possibly/hopefully a collaboration with Taylor Swift), there's been a slight change of plans. On Sunday, Kanye announced he changed his upcoming album's name to SWISH . Its original title was So Help Me God , but in a series of tweets, he shared the new name. Still, he warned everybody to not get too attached—it may change again.
Oh, Kanye! At least he's honest about his indecisiveness. Personally, I have a hard time making up my mind about what to order at Chipotle, so I imagine it's even more difficult to decide on something far more serious, like you know, the name of an album. It's a pretty big decision!
While this change may seem random or unexpected, HuffPost Entertainment points out that "swish" is a phrase Kanye has been throwing around for quite awhile. In fact, it was what he captioned a series of photos he posted of Kim Kardashian. When West shared his wife's NSFW photo shoot, he simply wrote "SWISH!!!" as the caption and let the photos speak for themselves.
Here's Kanye's announcement about the new album title:
But the real question here: What does "swish" mean exactly? When he coined the phrase "Yeezus," it was pretty self explanatory. This time, you may be scratching your head. Luckily, I've decided to do some analysis.
First, let's look at some definitions:
Thanks, Google! Now let's hypothesize about what it all means. Here are a few possible explanations for Kanye's new album title.
It's a basketball metaphor
If Kanye's music career was a basketball game, this would be the winning shot. By creating this album, it's like he scored the perfect basket... Get it? (That's the extent of my sports knowledge, you guys.)
It's a tribute to Kim
As previously mentioned, he first used the phrase when promoting one of Kim's photo shoots. He posted multiple tweets just with the word "SWISH!!!" This could be a way of bragging and saying he scored himself the perfect wife. It's romantic, I guess?
It's British slang
According to good old Google, "swish" can also be British slang for "impressively attractive and fashionable." We all know Kanye thinks pretty highly of himself, so if this was the meaning he was going for, I wouldn't be too surprised. It's basically a humblebrag.
It's a nonsense word
Maybe Kanye loves onomatopoeia. It could just be a sound he likes making. "Swishhhh" is pretty fun to say. Or maybe it was North's first word?
As for the actual meaning, only time and Twitter rants written in ALL CAPS will tell. Until then, we'll just have to wait and see!
Images: Google screenshot; Giphy (2); Kanye West/Twitter; Getty Images
