A week ago, former GOOD Music signee and Kanye-affiliate CyHi The Prynce took to Instagram to show an unreleased verse he did for “Father Stretch My Hands”, a track off Kanye’s recent The Life of Pablo album. Since TLOP was dropped, unreleased leaks and snippets like this have been turning up like bad pennies, so I decided to delve into the parts of Pablo that didn’t make the album.

In many ways, everything that has happened since TLOP was released in February has had a greater impact than the album release itself, and has put the album into the kind of context necessary to count it among the year’s best releases. While the original version of the album, released on Jay Z’s flailing streaming service Tidal, felt rushed and unfinished, a host of changes made over the proceeding months greatly improved the project. Vic Mensa and Sia’s contributions to “Wolves”, mixing synths into the production of “Freestyle 4”, and adding the incredible, Sampha-assisted finale track “Saint Pablo” all vastly improved the album.

Even before its release, TLOP was characterized by revision. The initial tracklists previewed on Kanye’s Twitter showed early song titles, a three-act division of the tacklist that didn’t translate to the final project, and collage of signatures pointing to features that never appeared. 2 Chainz, A$AP Rocky, Puff Daddy, and Earl Sweatshirt are only a few of the names found on the TLOP tracklist that didn’t appear on the finished product; Drake and Bjork were also rumoured features that never worked out. Even the premiere of the album, broadcasted in Madison Square Gardens during Kanye’s “Yeezy Season 3” show to promote his fashion line, was different from the finished product.

Since the release of TLOP, there’s been a ton of leaks showcasing early demo versions of songs from the album, or songs that didn’t make the final product; the biggest leak, of seven tracks, appeared on reddit mere days after Pablo was dropped. Early versions of “Highlights”, “Waves”, and “Wolves”; appearances by Travis Scott (on “FML) and Young Thug (on “Famous”); and unused tracks like “Fall Out of Heaven” (with Bon Iver), “The Mind is Powerful” (with Swizz Beatz), and “New Angels” have all somehow seen the light of day over the past year. There are entire subreddits devoted to these kinds of leaks, and while every Kanye album has had its share of unused tracks that managed to surface, TLOP‘s loose structure and the staggering number of people involved on the record means that there’s bound to be a treasure trove of material that’s going to trickle out over time, or even might never be heard at all. Just look at the claims Kanye has made that he has forty songs each with Young Thug and Kendrick Lamar: Thug and Kendrick are two of the biggest artists in the industry, and any collaborations Kanye has with them (other than “Highlights” and “No More Parties In LA”) haven’t even come close to a release.

Chance the Rapper was one of the most welcome additions to TLOP (he might have the best verse on the entire album), and his contributions extended far beyond a solitary feature. He has writing credits on five songs, was involved on many more, and was even directly responsible for one of the album’s many delays by insisting that the album wouldn’t be complete without “Waves”. In an interview with Zane Lowe in May, Chance discussed his contributions to the project and played snippets of two tracks he originally had features on: “Waves” and “Famous” both originally featured Chance, providing vocals and working directly with instrumentation and, at one point, a full choir (check out the snippets in the video below, beginning at 20:45). Chance would’ve been a welcome addition to the songs (and a better feature choice than Chris Brown), and fans will undoubtedly be clamoring for these unreleased versions until somebody in the GOOD Music camp decides to leak them. Maybe parts of them will end up Good Ass Job, the joint album between Chance and ‘Ye that somehow seems to be more and more of a possibility.

Finally, as mentioned earlier, CyHi the Prynce recently took to Instagram to show his TLOP contribution that landed him a signature on the tracklist but no appearance on the album: a verse on “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1” that seems like it would’ve been the best verse of his career.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLPCua3AxrZ/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLPESk3gvTr/

CyHi signed to GOOD Music back in 2010, and appeared on “So Appalled” off Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, as well as several tracks off both GOOD Music’s Cruel Winter album and Kanye’s criminally underrated GOOD Fridays series; he’s released six mixtapes under the label, was a 2011 XXL Freshman, but failed to see any real success. His verse wouldn’t just have vastly improved the original song, it could have had the potential to bring CyHi’s career to unprecedented heights. Now, he might not even be a part of the label anymore, according to GOOD Music’s twitter.

The Life of Pablo has had a fascinating life in the past eight months, as its constantly changing nature and tendency to produce leaks have kept it constantly in the media. It’s spawned a media war with Taylor Swift, a change to the entire definition of an album as a finished product, and led to what many are describing as the best live show in history. Even if it had one of the worst album rollouts of all time, and whether or not it lives up to the standards of the rest of Kanye’s discography, the amount of work and volume of contributions that led to TLOP have made it one of the most interesting music projects ever. It’s a gift that keeps on giving, and hopefully full, high-quality versions of some of the project’s most fascinating throwaways make their way into the hands of Kanye’s fans.