Kanye West's "Donda"

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About

Donda is the tenth studio album by American rapper Kanye West that was released on August 29th, 2021. The album is named after and dedicated to West's mother, Donda West. The release of the album was preceded by a month-long pre-release event during which Kanye West lived at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, holding three listening events for the album until it was finally released.

History

On May 25th, 2020, cinematographer Arthur Jafa revealed^[1] that he was working on video material for a single from an upcoming album by Kanye West named "God's Country." On June 29th, West announced his next album, called "God's Country," in a tweet.^[2]

On July 18th, 2020, American rapper Kanye West announced^[3] that a new album, named DONDA, was planned to be released on July 24th that year. On the same day, West deleted the tweet. In the deleted tweet (shown below, left), a tracklist for the album was attached. On July 21st, 2020, West tweeted^[4] that DONDA would be released on July 24th, attaching a 12-song tracklist (tweet shown below, right). The deadline was eventually missed.

On July 19th, 2021, rapper Pusha T revealed^[5] that West would be holding a listening event for the album on July 22nd, 2021. On July 20th, Beats released a commercial featuring "No Child Left Behind" by Kanye West as the soundtrack,^[6] with the ad containing a confirmation that the album would be released during the listening event.

Kanye West's "Donda" Release

Between July 22nd and August 26th, 2021, Kanye West held a month-long pre-release event for Donda, during which he lived at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta where he kept working on the album. During that period, West pulled a number of publicity stunts, including live-streaming his routines, texting an image of Joker to a group chat with Pusha T and Drake in it and pretending to dox Drake. On July 22nd, August 5th and August 26th, listening events for the album were held (first and third event recordings shown below).

[This video has been removed]

On August 25th, Kanye West announced the Donda Stem Player,^[7] a $200 music player that allows users to customize any song by controlling vocals and instruments, isolating parts and adding effects.

On August 29th, 2021, "Donda" was officially released featuring 27 tracks in contrast to the original 2020 playlist, with a combined length of 108 minutes.

Alleged Unapproved Release

Late on August 29th, 2021, Kanye West made a text post on Instagram^[12] in which he claimed that Universal Music released the album without his permission, also blocking the song "Jail Pt. 2," which featured DaBaby and Marylin Manson, from appearing on the album (post shown below). Later on the same day, "Jail Pt. 2" was made available on streaming services.^[13]

The news was met with jokes and memes on social media, often poking fun at the alleged unapproved release of Donda (examples shown below).

"Remote" Globglogabgalab Sample

During the August 26th, 2021, listening event, Kanye premiered "Remote," one of the tracks from the album. The track sampled a fragment from the internet meme Globglogabgalab. On August 27th, 2021, Twitter^[8] user @small_follower tweeted a clip from the event that received over 760 retweets and 3,900 likes in three days (shown below).

Reception

Donda became the second-biggest Spotify debut of all time with nearly 100 million streams within 24 hours, second only to Drake's 2018 album Scorpion.^[14]

The album received mixed reviews from critics and audiences. NME^[9] rated the album three out of five, writing that Donda had "some gems among lots and lots of filler." The Guardian^[10] gave the album two out of five stars, writing that the album "had sustained brilliance […] from the guest stars" and that the 108-minute album needed an edit.

On Metacritic,^[11] the album maintained a 5.8 user score with over 670 reviews as of August 30th, 2021.

Fandom

The release of the album was followed by a significant number of memes on social media, with the alleged unapproved release by Universal, the quality and length of the album and the opening track "Donda Chant" becoming popular topics for jokes. On August 29th, "Donda" achieved the number one trending rank on Twitter^[15] in the United States and worldwide with over 680,000 tweets.