There was hardly a bigger event in music this year than Donda and its rollout. At its longest, the album clocks in at 131 minutes and 32 tracks long, while the rollout lasted over a month and had sold out stadium listening parties across the country. Because of the sheer size of this album and release cycle, the review is explicitly broken up into two separate parts, the release and spectacle behind the listening parties, and the music itself. There will be plenty of things to go over in each area, including being lucky enough to attend the final listening party in Chicago and Donda being Kanye’s best album in half a decade and easily one of his most emotional ever. So without further ado, let's dive in.
Release Parties
It’s impossible to talk about Donda without mentioning how the public got to see the album evolve in real time. Announced in mid-July, Donda first got publicly played on July 22 during a listening party inside Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Even with the initial snippet of “No Child Left Behind” being played during a Beats commercial, almost the entirety of Donda sounded unfinished. It’s not a surprise for Kanye to tease something unfinished, it’s basically how every album rollout starts for him in the past few years. There were only 15 songs at the time and it lasted under 50 minutes, but there were enough really interesting and great ideas to keep people interested for a couple weeks until the second listening party.
It’s also worth noting that Kanye decided to take up residence inside Mercedes Benz Stadium for the time being until the album was complete. This included never leaving the stadium for weeks in between these two listening parties, living in a room the size and look of a supply closet, and even doing a 24-hour livestream leading up to the second listening party. But when the album premiered again on August 5th for the second time, it was a completely different beast. There were additional features from The Weeknd, multiple Kid Cudi verses, Fivio Foreign, Young Thug, Jay Electronica, The Lox, and many more! The album also had 7 more songs and was more than 30 minutes longer than before. There was more hype around this version, as this version of Donda sounded like it was closer to the quality of albums expected from someone like Kanye. This was an album that sounded ready for release, so it was surprising when we heard nothing from Kanye and camp for weeks after this listening party, until August 18th when the third and final listening party was announced.
This listening party took place at Soldier Field in Chicago, which means I was lucky enough to be able to attend. Instead of the more open concept staging of his first two listening parties, the third one included building a recreation of his childhood home in the middle of Soldier Field. Throughout the listening party, famous people came in and out of the house just to be there, including people on the album like Travis Scott and Westside Gunn, and other people that seemed to be there for other reasons, like Marilyn Manson and DaBaby. There were also layers of vehicles circling the house and dancers dancing rhythmically around the house, as well as an unseen choir.
This event might have been the most kanye, Kanye event possible. As usual, there were moments of controversy, the main one being having Marilyn Manson and DaBaby on stage after their respective controversies and wrongdoings. The event also started just under two hours late, which is normal for Ye, but still frustrating. The music was sometimes changed for the worst, as a couple of the biggest and best features were removed, but there were still awe-striking moments. For example, Kanye premiered his verse on “Off The Grid”, which has his best technical rapping in a long time. But the show ended by premiering one of my favorite songs of the year for the very first time, “Come to Life”, while was visualized by setting himself on fire at the end of the track, as well as Kim Kardashian coming out in a wedding dress for the end of the show during “No Child Left Behind”. As usual, everything is left up to interpretation, but I interpret setting himself on fire as him being reborn while finally coming to terms with his mother’s death. Especially with the flames being projected onto the house as well, it seems like he wants to symbolically and mentally move on from the tragedy that defined his life for the past decade.
I could talk about this event and rollout for a long time because it really dominated everything this summer. There were so many details about the rollout and show itself that still feel so surreal, whether it be the merchandise not showing up at the venue until an hour after the show was supposed to start, the frustration of different Kanye associates claiming the album was coming when it never did, or the multiple album cover changes that looked much better than a plain black square. Everything about this rollout felt larger than life and was a highlight of this summer. But for as unique and maximal the rollout was, it wouldn’t have meant anything if the album itself was bad, but thankfully, it ended up being another amazing body of work!
Album Review
Now, the album has a few different ways it can be listened to. I’m mainly taking the album at its most scant, which is still 23 songs and 85 minutes, but there were also 4 bonus songs on the original album and a deluxe edition with 5 more tracks. As entertaining as some of those songs are, the bare album is what I’m looking at here, and even though it’s still almost an hour and a half, it makes good use of that runtime. As with every Kanye album, Donda is both sonically all over the place and cohesive. There are plenty of organs on the majority of these tracks that ties everything together, but this album does every genre from gospel to drill.
What this album does differently from Ye’s other albums is that it allows things to be minimal, which has never been Kanye’s strong suit. There are still maximalist elements, but the instrumentation can be bare at points. For example, look at the first full track “Jail” with Jay-Z. It goes on for nearly 5 minutes, but the main instrumental is just a couple reverberated guitar riffs and vocal layers with one drum breakdown as an outro. The same goes for the next track, “God Breathed”. This one has more going on with its drum layers and stabbing vocal sample, but it also goes on for the last 2 and a half minutes heavily focused around a haunting choir that sounds incredible! This isn’t only unique to the beginning of the album, as the final two tracks have similar minimalist elements when it comes to the production. This minimalism is something that he only did as successfully once before, which was on “Say You Will” from 808s and Heartbreak.
Donda is an emotionally draining listen. It could be because of the length, but the project itself is full of emotion from both Kanye himself and the features. A track like “Jonah” is a perfect example of both. Lil Durk gives a heart wrenching verse about losing his brother to gang violence and Kanye himself talks about those that have wronged him. Even Vory’s beautiful chorus about needing people there in his times of need cuts to the soul. Speaking of Vory, his contributions to “God Breathed” and “No Child Left Behind” are equally as gorgeous and he ends up being one of the most underappreciated voices on the album. Every line he says and how he says them just connects with the listener, and I definitely need to check out his solo music.
There are also the classic Kanye emotional moments that tug at the heartstrings. “Come To Life” is the prime example and provides the perfect climax to this emotional album. Everything in the album is emotionally leading up to this gorgeous and piano-layered, sung track about his divorce and mother’s passing. Vocally, it’s also one of his best performances ever. His singing has clearly improved throughout the years, and it helps make this song emotionally resonant. The instrumental follows the minimalist aspects mentioned above, with it just being layered guitars and pianos with barely anything else added. This track is easily one of the most emotional Kanye has ever made and is one of the main moments on here that prove Kanye can still make amazing music.
The other amazing moments on this album usually come from Kanye’s current day bangers. It shouldn’t be possible for someone in their mid-40s to fit on a sound that’s made by people young enough to be his son, but yet he was able to float on “Off The Grid”. “Off The Grid” is also a track that was affected by the rollout in the best way possible, as Fivio Foreign provides an incredible and massive feature that he says was recorded in Mercedes Benz Stadium the day before the 2nd listening party. Kanye’s verse was also not on the song until the final listening party either, which means he recorded it in the final couple weeks before the album came out. This song is one of the best bangers of the year, and arguably his whole career, and it would’ve been completely different if it weren’t for the bizarre rollout.
The same goes for the updated version of “Hurricane”, which has a feature from The Weeknd on the chorus. Three days after an interview The Weeknd gave where he said he wanted to work with Kanye again, he was on “Hurricane” singing the chorus. If it came out after the first listening party, he wouldn’t be there. The same goes for Kid Cudi on “Moon” and The Lox on “Jesus Lord Pt. 2”. They put it out into the atmosphere that they wanted to work with Kanye and be on the album, and that’s what ended up happening. That evolution of the album only came from this seemingly manic rollout, which is why as painful as it was at points, it was worth it for this body of work.
I should also touch on the deluxe edition with its three completely new songs, especially the Andre 3000 track “Life of the Party”. Andre 3000 delivers not only one of the best verses of the album, but one of the best verses of the year! He weaves a beautiful tribute to his deceased parents that’s above description. It’s one of the most poetic verses I’ve ever heard, especially considering the emotional impact it has on the listener. Kanye spits a solid verse, but it pales compared to what Andre did to start off the track. The two extra new tracks, “Never Abandon Your Family” and “Up From The Ashes” are both minimal, gorgeous ballads that would’ve fit in perfectly with the normal tracklist.
Trying to sum up Donda in a sentence, or even a paragraph, is a fool’s errand. Even though the album is a tribute to Ye’s mother, it’s about so much more than that. It’s about his divorce, attempting to maintain his family while going through the divorce, trying to move on from the past trauma in his life, and letting his guests give perspectives into their own lives. It’s a powerful, emotional, and diverse record that justifies its runtime. Many of the best moments in music last year came from this album. Heck, even just some of my best memories in general from last year came from this album and its rollout. For that reason, Donda will forever hold a special place in my heart.
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