On Thursday night, September 27, two days before the release of his new album YANDHI, Kanye West Instagrammed and Tweeted a screenshot of a text message conversation with someone named Solomon.
https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/1045445320027435013
In the screenshot, which we’ve saved below in case it gets deleted, Solomon texts Kanye, “solomon___tbeile” and “3 underscores” in what we assume is a reference to his Instagram handle. He has 573 followers and 1 post. (Alma’s Editorial Fellow Arielle Kaplan is now one of the 573 followers. He has yet to respond to our DMs for comment.)
Solomon then sent Kanye a picture of a Hebrew to English pocket dictionary, which Kanye “likes” in iMessage. Three hours later, Solomon texts again: “we’ll play the game tomorrow. I’ll teach you some Hebrew things lol.”
Kanye, finally, responds, “I need to learn.”
We have SO MANY questions. Here we go:
1. Who is Solomon?
2. How does Kanye know Solomon?
3. Who initiated the texting?
4. Is Solomon the same @SolomonTbeile on Twitter, who follows five people (including @theyeezymafia), and whose picture looks like that of a bar mitzvah-aged Jewish teen?
5. Why is Kanye texting a Jewish teen?
6. Where are Solomon’s parents?
7. What game are they going to play?
8. Why does it now sound creepy that Kanye West is playing a game with a Jewish teen?
9. Is the game Fortnite?
10. Why does Kanye want to learn Hebrew?
11. Why does Kanye NEED to learn Hebrew?
12. Will Kanye learn Hebrew?
13. Will Kanye go to Hebrew school?
14. Is Kanye gonna celebrate Shemini Atzeret?
15. Has Kanye heard of Duolingo?
16. Did he order the dictionary on Amazon (you can too) or is he planning on borrowing Solomon’s copy?
17. Why is it large print?
18. Why does a teen need easy-to-read large print?
19. Why is there a heart on the cover of the pocket dictionary?
20. More importantly, why is there a name that looks kinda like Rachel Tbeile on the cover?
21. Who is RACHEL!? (Is this Rachel?)
22. Why did Solomon steal her dictionary?
23. Are they related? (They’re probably related.)
24. Does Kanye text with Rachel, too?
25. Why is Solomon’s Instagram post from today screenshots of him FACETIMING Kanye?
26. Are you just as confused as we are?
27. Is this just album promotion for Kanye?
28. Why did Kanye include sexual predator 6ix9ine and abuser XXXtenacion on the album?
29. Why does Kanye wear a MAGA hat?
30. Wait we’re getting off track. Back to Solomon and the texts.
31. Why are the comments on the posts so anti-Semitic? (Ex. “I don’t speak mass murderer” “(((Kanye West)))”) (Oh wait: we know what happens every time a celebrity posts about Israel.)
32. What does Kim think?
33. More importantly, what does Kris Jenner think?
34. Will Solomon be on SNL along with Kanye tomorrow night?
35. Can we just remember the best interaction between a rapper and a Jewish teen, a.k.a. the time Nicki Minaj crashed a bar mitzvah, resulting in this Grantland piece that should go down in history?
If anyone has any answers, please let us know.
