Pyramids

Three days after what would become known in music journalism circles as 'The Pyramid Incident,' the first teaser dropped on Ye's Instagram. It was just thirty seconds of darkness with a single triangle slowly rotating until it transformed into a circle. Pre-orders hit two million in the first hour.
 
Three days previously
The room was an expensive kind of industrial. High ceilings, exposed beams, soft lighting that looked effortless but was undoubtedly the work of a top-tier design firm. The walls were lined with platinum records, each reflecting a distorted version of reality. Everything smelled faintly of expensive leather and ego.

A long table stood at the front, covered in matte black, because glossy was too pedestrian. In front of it sat a dozen journalists, each clutching their notepads, recorders, and the quiet resignation that comes with knowing they were about to endure something both exhausting and historic.

Then, he arrived.
Not walked in—arrived, as though materializing from a different plane of existence. The door swung open with the slow-motion drama of a prestige film, and in stepped Kanye—no, Ye.
He was wearing what could only be described as post-apocalyptic messiah couture: a massive, oversized trench coat made from a material that looked like it could double as a heat shield during atmospheric re-entry. His pants—if they were pants—billowed with an almost sentient level of confidence, and his shoes were the kind of bulbous, foot-swallowing creations that suggested either the future of fashion or the beginning of a footwear-based dystopia. On his face, a pair of sunglasses so opaque they could have been solid onyx. Or just an exaggerated metaphor for his worldview.

He took his seat at the table, dramatically removing the glasses—not to make eye contact, but to let the room appreciate the act of removing them.

The moderator, a weary-looking man who had clearly lost several years of his life wrangling Kanye press events, stepped forward.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. We are here today to discuss Ye’s forthcoming project.”
Ye leaned into the microphone. “Not just a project. A cultural inflection point.” He paused, letting the weight of his words settle in.
“You ever think about silence? Like…. really think about it?”
A journalist, Sarah pressed her pen against her notepad, the familiar anxious ritual she'd performed at twenty-seven Kanye press events over eleven years. She had started as an idealistic music journalist with dreams of uncovering the next Kurt Cobain. Now she was here, preparing to translate incoherence into clickbait, already mentally drafting headlines that would walk the knife-edge between ridicule and reverence. Her editor's voice echoed in her head: 'Make it weird enough that people share it, but not so weird they think we're mocking him.'" “So, the album—”
Ye waved a dismissive hand. “We don’t say ‘album’ no more. That’s outdated thinking. This is a sonic experience”
He let that hang.
“Except without sound.”
Another journalist frowned. “So… silence?”
Ye grinned. “Nah, not silence. It’s me…. narrating my dreams. Dreams where I time-travel. Where I redesign the pyramids. Where I tell Beethoven to step his game up.”
A murmur passed through the room. The journalists exchanged nervous glances, mentally calculating how to spin this into something their editors would approve.
Someone braved a question. “Uh, when’s the release date?”
Ye leaned back, drumming his fingers on the table.
“Time is a construct, fam.”
A beat of silence.
The journalists scribbled that down, because what else could they do?
The moderator sighed, already composing an apology email to various media outlets.
Meanwhile, Ye smirked, knowing full well he had them exactly where he wanted them—confused, intrigued, and unwilling to look away.
A journalist in the second row, wearing an expression of reluctant curiosity, raised his hand. “So, this… sonic experience. It’s just you talking about your dreams?”
Ye nodded solemnly. “But not just talking. Experiencing. Y’all ever lucid dream? It’s like directing a movie but God is your cinematographer.”

He spread his arms.
 I’m the Spielberg of subconscious cinema. I’m the Da Vinci of REM cycles.”

Another journalist leaned forward. “Are there any featured artists?”
Ye scoffed. “Feature? Nah. I am the feature.

Beat.

 “But also, - Morgan Freeman reading footnotes. And Elon Musk beatboxing, but only in Morse code. You ever hear a Tesla beep in C-sharp minor? That’s the frequency of genius.”
The room absorbed that, processing it like a computer forced to run software it was never designed for.
A voice from the back dared to ask, “Is there a tour?”
Ye clapped his hands together.
 “Now we talking.”
He leaned forward.
 “But I’m flipping the concept. Y’all come to me. You get a ticket, you get a GPS coordinate. You gotta find me in the desert. No cameras. No tweets. Just vibes. That’s the show.”
The journalists, collectively teetering on the edge of understanding and exhaustion, exchanged another glance. The moderator rubbed his temples.
“Any final questions?” he asked, voice barely concealing his plea for mercy.
A reporter hesitated, then asked, “Why the pyramids?”
Ye’s eyes gleamed.
“Because they messed up the first time.”

Beat.

“You ever see a blueprint from 4,000 years ago?”

Silence

“Exactly.”

Journalists looking at each other. Processing. Failing.

“That’s why I gotta fix it.” Ye continued  “I’m the Picasso of soundwaves. I’m redesigning geometry itself.”

His voice dropped to a whisper.

 “Triangles are cancelled”

Beat.

“Circles are the future.”

“I’m the orb of truth.”

A journalist sighed. “ So, How do you make pyramids better?”
Ye grinned. “First, we add WiFi. Second, we make ‘em float. Third, we put my face on ‘em. I want a sphinx but with my head.”“It’s time.”

Silence.

Then a slow, resigned clatter of keyboards as the journalists accepted their fate. This wasn’t an album rollout. This was performance art..
The moderator stood up, threw his clipboard onto the table, and walked out without a word.

Ye smirked.
He put his sunglasses back on.
And just before he stepped out of the room, he turned.
“You ever hear a pyramid whisper?”
Then, he was gone.
The door closed behind him.
A long pause.
Then, one journalist, staring at his notes, nodded to himself.
“Circles are the future, man.”
And just like that, they were all part of it now.
 
One month later
Sarah found herself in the Nevada desert, following GPS coordinates like everyone else. She told herself she was there as a journalist. By midnight, when Ye emerged from behind a handcrafted pyramid made of LED screens, all professional distance had evaporated. She was no longer covering the story. She was the story.

FSF