My Gut Reaction: Kanye West - Donda (August 29, 2021) (PART ONE)

I think we can all agree that the rollout for Kanye West’s Donda was less than ideal, correct? The phrase “utter shitshow” doesn't do a decent enough job describing the fuckery present during this project’s run-up.

Announced in 2019 shortly after the man successfully converted his Sunday Service Choir into the next phase of his career, Ye’s tenth solo album, Donda, named after his late mother Donda West in some sort of tribute to her, a memo that wasn’t given to most of the guest list nor read by Ye himself (you’ll see what I mean in a few), suffered from numerous name changes (including God’s Country and the terribly uncreative Jesus Is King Part II), multiple tracklistings, many loose tracks both leaked and officially released (including alleged first single “Wash Us In The Blood”, which, unsurprisingly, did not make the final cut) and the promised involvement of Dr. Dre that ultimately led nowhere, all before the first of three (three!) listening parties for the then-incomplete Donda took place in Atlanta, Georgia in late July of 2021.

The project continued to evolve during the three parties, its revolving guest list often recording their cameos mere hours before they were unveiled to the paying crowd, and Ye continued tinkering with his work right up to its release date of August 29, 2021, and then doing even more after it was already made available on streaming services (similar to what he did to The Life of Pablo and the G.O.O.D. Music label sampler Cruel Summer) – say what you want about Kanye West, and I certainly will throughout this write-up, but he’s never satisfied as an artist, a trait that has been front and center the entire time he’s been in the public eye, although obviously he’s much worse about it these days, given that he’s made sure to surround himself with exclusively yes-men (the type that tell him that a 2020 presidential run is a “good idea”) and is aligned with a record label (Def Jam) that always puts up with his bullshit because he guarantees trending topics on social media.

Donda is Ye’s second Christian rap album, following in the (lack of) footsteps (in the sand) as Jesus Is King but, as is the man’s way, taking things to an uncomfortable extreme: if the previous effort was representative of Kanye West dipping his toes into the water, unsure how his fans would accept his adjusted career trajectory, then Donda is God’s middle finger aimed directly at all of his detractors, twenty-seven songs transpiring over one hundred and eight fucking minutes, longer than most major motion pictures, not a single moment of which seems to have ever been visited by Kanye’s fairy godeditor (even with engineer Mike Dean by his side the majority of the time). Donda didn’t originally have twenty-seven tracks, of course: the man was recording and producing on the fly, at one point even choosing to live in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium following one of the listening parties just so he could focus, which didn’t seem to work, as the project continued to grow and he couldn’t be bothered to make any real changes (except for in the case of rapper Soulja Boy, whose contribution was apparently so godawful that not even Kanye West could bless him with a feature credit). Traditionally these types of listening parties are set up after the album has been completed and locked, but come on, this is Kanye West we’re talking about – he even complained that he wasn’t finished with Donda when it was actually released, claiming that it was leaked to streaming services by an impatient Universal Music Group (Def Jam’s parent company), which, honestly? I get that. You see this shit, you two? Kanye West made me side with a global fucking conglomerate. The man is such a fucking asshole.

Aside from the numerous guests who don’t receive any proper feature credits on Donda itself (but are still listed below, because you have the right to know), Kanye West enlisted a murderer’s row of producers to help bring his still-probably-incomplete vision to life. One of the man’s better traits is ensuring that anyone that contributed to a track is named, although this leads to many situations where songs appear to have been touched by a minimum of twelve producers (including usual suspects 88-Keys, Boi-1da, Swizz Beatz, DJ Khalil, and the aforementioned Dean, among others), leaving it damn near impossible to determine just what Ye did, if he even did anything. Involving multiple producers gives Donda the feel of a disjointed funhouse on carnival grounds, a new voice or musical twist to be found behind every corner, and it. Is. Fucking. Exhausting.

Which is why it’s taken me so long to finish writing about Donda. That, and I really didn’t want to do it. But I like you two, so.

(Editor’s note: As you probably noticed, the title of today's post indicates that this is just the first part of my write-up for Donda. This review is based on the original twenty-seven-track version made available late in the afternoon of August 29, 2021, split in half (with the remainder coming soon), and my thoughts will not address any of the adjustments Kanye made after the fact, although some of those updates may be briefly referenced below.)

1. DONDA CHANT (FEAT. SYLENNA JOHNSON)
Have you ever repeated a word out loud so often that it started to sound ridiculous and foreign to your ears, losing any and all meaning whatsoever? That’s what Syleena Johnson does for fifty-two goddamned seconds of “Donda Chant”, a disorienting rap album intro which renders the name of Kanye’s mother (the supposed inspiration for this project in the first place) into meaningless, obnoxious gibberish before morphing into a disturbingly hypnotic example of speaking in tongues, which couldn’t have been our host’s original intention. Definitely doesn’t help that our ringmaster doesn’t even bother laying any music underneath this nonsense. I don’t blame Johnson one bit for her participation: if I could get paid to repeat a single word for nearly a full minute by one of the biggest artists in the industry, I’d probably do it too. But “Donda Chant”, which starts sounding like Desiigner’s “Panda” without the music but with the same level of talent required, still plays as a middle finger aimed toward the listener, which certainly isn’t very Christian of Kanye West, now, is it? Still, it took brass fucking balls for Ye to name the album after his mother and then immediately demolish any memory of her the audience might have had.

2. JAIL (FEAT. JAY-Z)
The unlikely reunion of The Throne that is “Jail” had already been derailed in three distinct ways, first by the fucked-up rollout for Donda dampening any potential for excitement, and then by the song itself being overshadowed a few days before the actual release by a replacement verse from a man named after a specific age of child (more on that when we get to it). Above all else, however, is the fact that Shawn Carter’s verse is fucking horrible. Our host, along with his friends in the group Francis and the Lights, delivers some disconnected horseshit about failed relationships (“Guess who’s getting ‘ex’-ed?” – no, Kanye isn’t working through any of his personal problems through his music, why do you ask?), and how everybody is a liar, but credit where it’s due, his (sung) performance isn’t completely awful or anything. His hook even gave me the briefest of flashes to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’s “Runaway”, except “Runaway” is legitimately a good song. The music is somehow both simple and overwrought throughout, at least until the end, where our host lets loose a tiny bit. Hov still sounds bad, though. I should be happy that he actually bothered to pay attention to Ye’s loose assignment on “Jail”, but his verse is some of the laziest fucking writing from his mind pen since DMX’s “Bath Salts”, except this verse was recorded much more recently (on the day of one of Ye’s listening parties), relying on audible breaths and multiple gimmicky flows to get whatever his message is supposed to have been across. “I can’t be controlled by programs and presets,” the billionaire says after blatantly teasing “the return of The Throne”, an event that still isn’t likely to happen, since I can’t imagine Jay-Z acquiescing to Ye’s need to keep the verses about a single, spiritual topic when he would ostensibly be the co-headliner.

TL: DR – not a great song, but passable in a self-flagellating way, until Hov pops in to kill it dead in its tracks.

3. GOD BREATHED (FEAT. VORY)
Long promised as “I Know God Breathed On This,” a phrase repeated here no less than an infinite number of times, “God Breathed” is another five-minute-plus joint on Donda that overstays its welcome, running out of shit to say almost immediately. When I had heard snippets from the very first listening party, I jokingly-but-not-really referred to this project as 808’s and Yeezus (not my finest work, I know), and “God Breathed” is pretty much the textbook definition of that description, both sound-wise and because Kanye West says a bunch of nothing rather aggressively. (“God the father like Maury,” was kind of funny, though – for a guy who lost his sense of humor ages ago, it’s nice to occasionally hear him crack a joke.) The music is dark, repetitive, and dull as shit (especially during the back half, which is exclusively instrumental), and guest Vory’s contribution (the hook and a verse) is so inconsequential that the average hip hop head will likely let his comment about “now they want the old me” slide, unable to locate any energy to oppose that statement with the fact that Vory is still a relative unknown in the music industry and that it is highly unlikely that anyone can discern much of a difference between shit he released two years ago and his output today. That show of unearned hubris was as offensive as our host himself predicts during his opening verse, but not for the reason our host believes (which is never actually revealed, so thanks for that, Kanye).

4. OFF THE GRID (FEAT. PLAYBOI CARTI & FIVIO FOREIGN)
The Interweb tells me that “Off the Grid” was originally produced for guest artist Playboi Carti. I believe it, because Carti’s performance here is so fucking godawful that he could have only spurred up the courage to record that garbage-ass performance if he thought it would be for his own personal work. You don’t do this kind of shit to your friends, and Carti is no friend to Yeezy. He sucks, the hook sucks, and, once again, he sucks (so much so that I’m going to overexaggerate here and say that, should you happen to enjoy his verse here, you should be banned from ever listening to music again, and not just hip hop, fucking all music), so “Off the Grid” is already dying in a grave of its own digging when the other guest, Fivio Foreign, steps in with an extra-lengthy verse that, well, isn’t great, but is streets ahead of Playboi Carti’s bullshit, and even manages to adhere to the religious theme of Donda. Sort of. (“You know I’m prayin’, He carrying both feet / N----s know we got God with us,” technically counts.) His verse is censored a bunch because you know how these kids get with their cursing, but Fivio at least seems to appreciate the rarefied air he’s been pulled up into on “Off the Grid”, even as his own performance is lacking in entertainment value as a whole. Kanye seems to be at home, content with providing a shitty hook and an okay-ish loop set to paper-thin trap drums, and the track even comes to a close… until it doesn’t, when our host comes roaring back with a Cappadonna “Winter Warz”-esque verse (side note: I still love how that’s my go-to reference point for this type of performance, and that you two absolutely understand what I’m trying to say without asking) his damn self, one that he sounds like he’s having fun spitting, and for a moment it’s actually fun to hear Ye rapping his ass off, as he sounds like the cocky Mr. West of olde, even with all of the Jesus trappings and the whole “no real cursing” thing. Shit, “I just bought a floor out of Selfridges,” even sounds right in line with his bombast and bluster from the past. (Any idea who wrote these bars for him? The usual suspects don’t appear to be credited here.) And then he finally winds down “Off the Grid” with his shitty hook, reminding you two that we’re still listening to Donda and not, say, Graduation. In short, “Off the Grid” isn’t good, but it also isn’t bad, aside from Carti for the reasons specific above. Fuck that guy for completely ruining the song, and all of you should be ashamed of yourselves for enabling that kind of bullshit within our chosen genre.

5. HURRICANE (FEAT. LIL BABY & THE WEEKND)
The apparent first single from the project, I felt like I had already heard this one before, and it turns out I was right, albeit not in the form in which it appears on Donda. (It occurs to me that readers who aren’t members of the Patreon may not have caught that I wrote about one of the Yandhi bootlegs a while back – the article is still there, so you should go subscribe as soon as possible so you can read that shit.) Formerly known as “80 Degrees”, “Hurricane” has been transformed into a collaboration with The Weeknd and Lil Baby, the former of which provides a God-fearing hook that manages to still sound fully on-brand for him, and the latter of whom providing the first verse, a performance that is by far the most widespread that he’s had up to this point in his career, and he doesn’t do a bad job with this larger platform, although his unique delivery takes a bit of getting used to. Ye himself has another lengthy stanza, a verse that sounds a lot like the shit Yeezy used to rap about prior to allowing Jesus to take the wheel (even with all the references to his God that already appeared in his work prior to the conversion), so much so that his overall message is muddled (“There I go acting too rich, here I go with a new chick,” he says, as any proper Christian certainly would not – the only difference between the old Kanye and our host is that the previous model would have likely used the term “bitch”). “Everybody so judgmental,” says our host, the guy who judges whether he should take any advice from others based on what their net worth is. Not a very interesting song, but Lil Baby was an alright addition, and at least this one was longer than five goddamned minutes?

6. PRAISE GOD (FEAT. BABY KEEM & TRAVIS SCOTT)
Confusingly, the first track to feature the titular character (or a sample cribbed from one of her speeches, anyway) plays as a Baby Keem song that also features an extremely lengthy introduction from both Kanye West and Travis Scott. The organ-laced “Praise God” certainly talks the talk (Ye: “The devil my opp,” a line that I’m sure his younger stans will take away from this track as sage philosophy when it's really barely decent enough as a t-shirt slogan), and Scott even manages to respect the overall theme of the project (his ad-libs are still persistent, obviously, but his “bars” are relatively clean), but this is a showcase for Keem, one complete with a bullshit redundant intro that only made me angry, which was then repeated midway through the kid’s lengthy verse as a bridge of sorts. If I never hear Baby Keem speak the phrase “let’s get right” ever again, it’ll still be too soon. Keem’s verse is all over the place thematically, his brief God talk mixed in with genial boasts-n-bullshit (“Y’all treat your Lord and savior like renters insurance,” was a pretty solid burn, though), and it just doesn’t serve well as the introduction to a wider audience this undoubtedly is for Kendrick Lamar’s cousin. Ye’s instrumental, credited to nine hundred different people, sounded alright, nothing particularly inspiring but nothing overly offensive either, and Scott isn’t around long enough to influence the proceedings anyway. It was kind of weird for Kanye to weaponize his mother’s voice in such a brash, wasteful fashion, however – an out-of-context sound bite, along with repetition of part of that sound bite ending one of his bars, isn’t the best way for the man to honor his mother, at least in this music critic’s ears. If this were a Baby Keem track I’d deem it forgettable and move on, but Ye forces everyone’s hand on “Praise God” by including his late mother in the conversation, and I’m not taking the bait – this shit. Does. Not. Work.

7. JONAH (FEAT. LIL DURK & VORY)
It’s literally taken me three days to write about “Jonah”, certainly not because I just can’t stop listening to it, but because my thoughts are as jumbled and incoherent as Donda has been thus far. But here goes nothing: Over an instrumental that somehow feels even more subdued than 808’s & Heartbreak’s “Say You Will” (read: no drums), Kanye cedes (most of) the spotlight to a returning Vory, who receives the most screen time by far, the bulk of which is occupied by his overly-wordy hook, which is repeated eight million times and reaches Auto-Tuned notes that made me think of fucking Take That’s “Back For Good”. It isn’t awful, but there was no need for this level of repetition, especially as he should much more of a pulse during his actual verse. Chicago rapper Lil Durk, an artist I only really know from seeing his name alongside Lil Baby’s rather often, including on a DJ Khaled single that I admittedly enjoy, is pretty awful on “Jonah”, however, his performance also color-corrected in post to remove any trace of passion from the project. He kicks off his verse with, “Kanye and Jay still brothers,” which, sure, cool, but it would be nice to hear that from Jay and not, you know, you. Ye himself close the song with a decent verse that implies much more violence than a Christian rap album ought to, I believe, but unlike his collaborators here our host doesn’t curse, so it’s okay, apparently? I will admit to chuckling at the Herculean effort it takes West these bars off: “When you text, change the beginning of every word / You will speak to me with only no cap”. But overall, this was instantly forgettable.

8. OK OK (FEAT. LIL YACHTY & ROOGA)
Ye has always been about setting trends while simultaneously following them breathlessly, but that description fits him even more during this phase in his career. On the abysmal “OK OK”, that trend is leaving the drums at home, which gives the track no rhythm section and no goddamned soul, which, in its way, is perfect for the artists involved, who all manage to sound terrible here. Never one to not be wasteful in some way, Kanye West deploys rapper Fivio Foreign on ad-libs only, delivered during his own opening verse where, true to his current form, he censors himself when hilariously claiming that “all you rap n----s sound like me, can’t tell who is who,” when he doesn’t even sound remotely close to the Kanye West we’ve since grown accustomed to. Guests Lil Yachty and Rooga fare just as poorly, Yachty’s awkward flow falling off the beat much more often than it should while Rooga’s verse may as well be an instrumental given how many of his bars are censored. Ye’s hook is also both stupid and questionable: “Okay, okay, I’m not okay,” comes dangerously close to our host playing with the idea of mental health in a way that only benefits him, which, well, isn’t okay. (See also: the outro on ye’s “Yikes”: “That’s my bipolar shit, n---a, what? / That’s my superpower, n---a, ain’t no disability / I’m a superhero!”) I see on the tracklist that “OK OK” is revived later in the evening, and I am dreading every fucking second of it.

9. JUNYA (FEAT. PLAYBOI CARTI)
Also utterly stupid, but in a way that aligns with Kanye’s brand flawlessly. “Junya”, named after the designer Junya Watanabe, isn’t a great song or anything, but its overall vibe plays in the same materialistic, bombastic sandbox as some of our host’s previous work (see: “N----s In Paris”, for example), in that Ye sounds actively playful when it comes to the sparse lyrics. Kanye and a returning Playboi Carti (who doesn’t do much on here, thankfully, although he still sucks) talk their shit as though the holy spirit wasn’t hovering over them at the time, and it certainly could have sounded worse. Kanye’s still going to Kanye, after all – the man is nothing if not consistent when it comes to his love of money, fame, women, and the Lord. “Junya” also features what is supposed to be a direct attack aimed at Drake, another volley served in their never-ending soft war of words (although “Move out of the way of my release,” is incredibly vague and could be about literally anybody, including the folks at his own label’s parent company Universal for allegedly holding the release of Donda for whatever reason). “Why can’t losers never lose in peace?” is a solid burn, though, one that also applies to Ye’s MAGA BFF (low-hanging fruit, yes, but hey, fuck that guy). Again, this isn’t that great of a song, but had it appeared on Yeezus or The Life of Pablo, you’d likely just let it ride and move on.

10. BELIEVE WHAT I SAY
Hip Hop Twitter had a fucking meltdown when a snippet of “Believe What I Say” leaked, revealing that Ye had sampled Lauryn Hill’s “Doo Wop (That Thing)” for its instrumental. Because nobody had ever dared to sample Hill’s solo work before, he asked knowingly?

(*cough* Drake *cough*)

My question is simple: who gives a shit? Why does that sample source specifically matter? Were people excited by the fact that Ye was also aware of Lauryn’s hit song from 1998? Because I have to tell you, a lot of people remember that song. It was a monster hit, folks, and it still receives airplay today. Besides, “Believe What I Say” doesn’t even mark the first time Ye borrowed some of Lauryn’s vocals for one of his own songs, although I gatekeepingly assume that fans of the Donda-era West simply aren’t going to be aware of the original version of “All Falls Down” (from The College Dropout, which was released back when Ye’s current stans were still swimming with millions of their brethren in ball sacks the world over). People get excited about the weirdest shit, you two. “Believe What I Say” is a song that doesn’t immediately appear to be about much of anything, before our host shifts it into an “all that glitters isn’t gold” parable involving his relationship with global fame, but while there isn’t anything inherently offensive about the track (even an uncredited Buju Banton’s extended riff sounded pretty decent over this beat), there also isn’t much going for it, either. It’s a generic Kanye West song that could have been released at literally any point in his career (although pre-Jesus Is King he likely would have left the curses unedited), which makes this not special in the least. Oh wait, I get it now – everyone glommed on to the Lauryn sample because that was the only bit of “Believe What I Say” that anybody could even remember once it was over. Huh.

11. 24 (FEAT. VORY)
Ye’s ode to the late Kobe Bryant may strike a chord with some of you two, as his crooning (alongside his Sunday Service Choir) utilizes the power of positive thinking to help the listener through any loss they may be experiencing – lots of “the devil is a lie”’s and “throw your hands in the sky”’s to be found here. His constant refrain of “We gonna be okay” sounds to me, anyway. Less like he’s trying to help you as much as it does our host trying to convince himself, but I’m not going to critique that, I’ll just mention that I buy into Pharrell Williams’s similar-sounding “n---a we gon’ be alright” hook from Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” much more, personally. Ye’s decision to use sampled, echoing vocals from his Choir lend “24” a sooky, ethereal feel for parts of its runtime, making it seem like our host’s prediction that everything is going to be okay is ultimately true because he has connections in the afterlife that have already told him as such. As far as Kobe tributes go, I prefer Jay-Z’s verse on Jay Electronica’s “A.P.I.D.T.A.”, but while I probably wouldn’t ever seek this one out again on purpose, it isn’t terrible.

12. REMOTE CONTROL (FEAT. YOUNG THUG)
Not convinced that the omnipresence of Kanye’s God is best described as the Lord doing remote work out of the office like a “CEO” – even with Zoom meetings and work-from-home protocols becoming more commonplace during the ongoing panorama, that’s quite the stretch, I also don’t like the concept of God being a CEO, as it implies that while we, the mere peasants, all work for him, He (I’m willing to bet that Kanye West absolutely worships a male version of God, let’s be real) still answers to a board of directors, which renders this metaphor incomprehensibly stupid. (To say nothing of the whole “Remote Control” aspect, which implies that any higher power could ignore his creations simply by… changing the fucking channel.) Ye really thought he had something here, though, so much so that he believed leaving in a bar about Instagram that makes no sense within the context of “Remote Control” would be as easily forgiven as his sins. Ugh. Ye’s contributions to his own song are utter nonsense, as are Young Thug’s vocals, the half-sung, half-rapped ridiculousness that slurs every third word through Auto-Tune that the children (I said what I said) seem to like because they haven’t listened to enough music yet. “I’d give you kids at the drop of a dime,” isn’t a sweet line when Thug follows up immediately with, “told the bitch fold my clothes.” The fuck? Kanye really was just winging it during these Donda listening parties, huh? There’s no plan here, no subject matter to follow, no coherence to be found. Again, ugh.

13. MOON (FEAT. DON TOLIVER & KID CUDI)
I’m not immune to the charms found in Auto-Tuned harmonizing, and “Moon” is a better example of the trope, as guests Don Toliver and Kid Cudi (who I assume the track’s title was at least inspired by?) attempt to out-croon one another over a lo-fi instrumental while Kanye West minimizes his own presence, only chiming in during the chorus, and even then only with the aid of computer trickery. My issue is that the placement of “Moon” doesn’t exactly fit the proceedings – if anything, it’s an about-face, a street sign informing the listener of an impending U-Turn installed by an animated coyote. Mescudi is the only artist present to get what feels like an actual verse, and to his credit he sounds alright, happy to be working alongside his friend (and Kids See Ghosts bandmate) again. This makes sense, though, when you discover that “Moon” was once just an intermission featuring only Toliver’s repetitive performance. Ye updating “Moon” into a three-man show seems self-indulgent at best, forget about whether or not all of the AI singing on here actually works.

14. HEAVEN AND HELL
I wasn’t super thrilled to hear the vocal sample from 20th Century Steel Band’s “Heaven and Hell is on Earth” opening “Heaven and Hell”, as its overuse not just in hip hop, but music in general, deprives it of its power. Until the actual music kicks in here, at which point I had to admit that Kanye West wouldn’t be the type of producer to merely coast upon old tropes. “Heaven and Hell”, a one-verse wonder from our host that obviously runs along the more Christian side of the fence, both in direct references to his Lord and Savior and with his own ridiculous bars (“Save my people through the music,” Ye offers without a hint of irony), is a Donda highlight as the marriage between the music and our host’s performance is at its most harmonious. “Never too late for Him to save you,” he helpfully informs the listener in a fairly pushy manner, although “Heaven and Hell” also ends with our host’s efforts to recreate the sounds of gunfire from his mouth, Westside Gunn-style, so there’s a little something here for every sort of head, I guess. For serious, though, I liked this one. Sue me.

This is the point where I hit you all with a (TO BE CONTINUED…), so stay tuned! We’ll get through this one together, I promise. I do ask that if you leave a comment, please try to limit the topic to the tracks we discussed above - there will be plenty of time to talk about the rest later, I swear.

-Max

RELATED POSTS:
Kanye West has a relatively large presence on this site. Click here to read all about his work.