As always, Kanye West just doing his Kanye Best. Photo courtesy of Invision.
Like most Ye fans, I opened Apple Music on the night of July 24, 2020 with bated breath. Ye (formerly Kanye West) was set to release his 10th studio album,
Donda
, at midnight — or at least he tweeted as much. The leadup to this release had been eclectic to say the least, with Kanye announcing a slew of projects and his 2020 presidential campaign. In hindsight, it was overly optimistic to expect a release on July 24, especially after the dubious cancellation of
Yandhi
and countless delays of
Jesus Is King
. A
Donda
release wouldn’t come for another year, in a rollout full of false starts and dazzling spectacle. In July 2021, Ye returned to the public eye with a series of listening parties and live streams that preceding the release of
Donda
on Aug. 29, 2021. Regardless of how you feel about the Donda rollout, there is no denying the magnitude and grandeur of the multimedia art Ye has created. To truly understand the
Donda
rollout, one has to go back to the beginning, in 2020.
Hot off the heels of 2019’s
Jesus Is King
, Ye went right back into the studio and began work on his tenth studio album, then titled
God’s Country. God’s Country
was dark and gritty, with many comparing the sound to a blend between
Jesus Is King
and
Yeezus
. Ye never finished this album, but sought to release it in July of 2020, previewing “Wash Us In The Blood” as a single. “Wash Us In The Blood” contains many of the themes prominent in
God’s Country
: the prison industrial complex and black empowerment through the lens of Christianity. Almost immediately following “Wash Us In The Blood”’s release, however, Ye had a complete paradigm shift for his album. On July 13 2020, Ye released a song snippet on Twitter featuring a speech given by his late mother backed by smooth, chipmunk soul production. He followed this up with a tracklist and a tagline: “new album
DONDA
out 7/24.” It seemed like Ye was back in album mode. With each passing day, more figures became associated with the Donda: Justin Bieber, Mike Dean, Common, Lil Baby, and Pusha-T all appeared at West’s Wyoming recording studio. Only later could one see how manic the production of 2020 Donda truly was. A leaked documentary from former Roc-A-Fella giant Dame Dash shows Ye’s team frantically working to complete a number of different projects, all while trying to manage his presidential campaign. Despite negative PR after a controversial town hall held in South Carolina, Ye remained focused on the album, which now contained vibrant production reminiscent of
Graduation
.
Ye wears an unsettling mask during his trip to Italy. Photo courtesy of Backgrid.
When Ye (surprisingly) lost the 2020 presidential election, he ceased almost all public appearances outside of his work executive producing Playboi Carti’s
Whole Lotta Red
. Unbeknownst to the general public, Ye was recording a different interpretation of
Donda
songs, in what is now known to us as
Spirits Over The Horizon
. This marked a period of increased experimentation from Ye, as
Spirits
can be further divided into 4 “sub-eras.”
January
Spirits
saw many
God’s Country
songs revisited and polished, while March
Spirits
was a more freestyle oriented trap project. April
Spirits
was a dreamy and nostalgic album, while May
Spirits
was very similar to a version of
Donda
premiered in Las Vegas. As Ye returned to the public eye clad in enigmatic, opaque facemasks, the hype was back. Ye scheduled an album release party at the Atlanta Mercedes Benz stadium; the album was nowhere close to completion, although many interesting ideas were at play.
The listening parties provided a way for fans to see the progression of songs over time. For instance, “Remote” began as a desolate track with stuttering snares and heavy autotune, before the instrumental was fleshed out and features were added during the subsequent two listening parties. Ye spent all his time in MBS for the majority of 2021
Donda
’s production; this environment certainly influenced the sound of the album, which became much spacier and featured more organs. Ye’s second listening party in Atlanta was promising, bolstered by an impressive visual performance orchestrated by Nick Knight. Ye even ascended through the roof of the stadium at the conclusion of the show. West would finally finish the album and preview it at Soldier Field on Aug. 26, 2021 in one of his most grand projects to date. Ye surrounded a reconstruction of his southside Chicago home with hundreds of faceless extras, and a variety of black vehicles, before lighting himself on fire at the show’s conclusion.
Donda
would finally release three days later, on Aug. 29, 2021.
The
Donda
rollout was long and complex, with many different ideas bouncing off each other to produce the 27 track album we know today. Perhaps this is why release
Donda
feels so fresh and varied: because so much thought has been put into the precise sound Ye wanted to achieve. Love or hate the
Donda
rollout, but it was an unforgettable experience that it seems Ye will mirror with his follow up,
Donda II
, releasing Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2022.