Kanye West’s “Jesus Is King” Album Art Mystery Has Been Solved

Third Man Records co-founder reveals where “AR 1331 A” came from.

Kanye West is just a week removed from his foray into gospel music. Jesus Is King marks a whole new direction for Kanye West, one where he embraces Christianity entirely and uses his project as a means to send across the message of God to the masses. The project is still very Kanye from the production to narcissistic bars but it hasn’t necessarily been embraced by everyone. Perhaps it was Donald Trump Jr.’s co-sign that scared them away.

Now, the cover art is essentially a blue vinyl with Jesus Is King written at the top, 33RPMLP on the right, and Kanye West at the bottom. On the left, though, it reads, “New Songs AR 1331 A.” No one has known what that means, and Kanye hasn’t really addressed it. Thankfully, Third Man Records co-founder and Detroit historian, Ben Blackwell revealed what the “AR 1331 A” stands for. It’s the Archer Records (AR) pressing plant code assigned to this 1970 Detroit gospel single,” it reads in a tweet.

The vinyl is a gospel single. The tweet shared a photo of the A-Side which included two songs from Rubye Shelton, “I Want The World To Know Jesus” and “God’s Going To Destroy This Nation.”

“I knew the past decade spent in the deepest, loneliest recesses of Archer Record Pressing nerd-dom would eventually lead me to the biggest recording artist in the world. But enough about Jack White…who is this Kanye guy?” Blackwell told Pitchfork on a statement about his findings.

https://twitter.com/thirdmanrecords/status/1190327582937567232?s=20

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