Rapper Kanye West has unveiled the official artwork for his upcoming and long-awaited new album Yeezus, debuting a snippet from a brand new song (presumed to feature on the album) and the official release date; June 18, on his website this week. Rather than the grandiose golden spectacle of some of his more recent albums (Watch the Throne, Cruel Summer), the rapper has this time gone for a extremely minimalist approach, with the album cover just a clear view of the blank album, with some red tape on the side that says 'Yeezus' in marker pen.

The rapper and soon-to-be-dad took to his also-sparsely-decorated Twitter page on Friday (May 31) to unveil the non-existant cover art and the rest of the treats, ending the speculation that Yeezy had already chosen the Jesus-inspired (with gold) album artwork debuted through Kim Kardashian's Instagram page before his Saturday Night Live performance last month. The red tape featured on the front of the album will stretch across the back, featuring the album track-list on it. The unnamed, 10-second snippet that appears on the website may or may not be from the album.

Kanye's occasional touring DJ and collaborator in the studio, DJ Semtex, furthered the news by posting the same image to his website, writing: "Forget everything else you have seen, this is the official artwork. No cover, booklet, just a sticker on the reverse of the package with the track list."

Kanye West 1OAK
Yeezus will be released June 18

Despite only coming two weeks before the release, this is really the first bit of coherent and informative news we've had from Kanye about his album. Bar the unveiling of 'Black Skinhead' and 'New Slaves' on SNL, projecting 'New Slaves' on to buildings across the globe and a few cryptic Tweets that have then been swiftly deleted from his page, the rapper has been mum on the album's progress pretty much until now. So, just to reiterate, the album will be out June 18, featuring next to no album artwork.

Watch Kanye perform 'New Slaves' on SNL

Kim and Kanye Kung Pao
The couple are believed to be expecting a daughter