A Review of Donda by Kanye West
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Sorry for this one coming a day late. Ohio State played Minnesota on a Thursday night out of disrespect of the Hoopla Newsletter, so it messed up my schedule. It will be back on Thursdays starting next week and ending when the sun burns out.
Kanye West is one of the most polarizing artists of the century, and he has been for much of his career. Kanye has never steered away from this, and has instead used it to make some of the best rap albums of all-time, at least in my opinion.
My goal here is not to sell you on Kanye West the person, I figure your opinion there is pretty much set in stone one way or another. I am instead here to talk about his latest album, “Donda,” a 27-song, 109-minute project that is named after his late mother, and one that has been delayed for over a year.
I had not listened to any of Kanye’s live streams and performances of the album with the hope to go into the project ready for anything whenever (or if it ever) released.
Thankfully, it did last Sunday morning, even if Kanye may have not wanted it to. So, let’s talk about it.
Listen to Donda on Apple Music here or on Spotify here
When I look at “Donda,” I often look at it for what it could have been. There are so many great, great songs throughout this thing that it is difficult to imagine it being anything but up there with Kanye’s best works.
But instead, I find myself putting it, once again, toward the lower end of his discography, something that is happening far too much with his recent stretch of albums.
Let’s talk about these songs. After the very bizarre and unnecessary “Donda Chant,” we get “Jail,” a wonderful song that uses a blaring guitar sample and some excellent Kanye vocals to make its impact. I don’t love the JAY-Z feature, but I understand why this version is at the top of the album and not the version with both DaBaby and Marilyn Manson on it.
This stretch of songs 3-7 is some of Kanye’s best on the whole album. After “God Breathed,” which sounds like it could have fit perfectly on “Yeezus,” we get “Off The Grid,” which has the best pure rap on the project. Kanye does well in his verse – I think his Leo Messi and ribs lines are classic Kanye – but it is Fivio Foreign who makes this track what it is. He goes berserk on his extended feature and completely blew me away.
“Hurricane” is a stunning track thanks to The Weeknd’s vocals on the chorus, as well as a strong opening feature by Lil Baby. Two more strong songs in “Praise God” and “Jonah,” each of which sound different than anything else on the project to this point, and Kanye really had me believing this was about to be worth the duration.
But the middle of the album has a few good, not great moments to get through. I think “Ok Ok” and “Junya” are perfectly fine, but they did not have the same wow factor for me as much of the album had thus far. “Believe What I Say” and “24” get back on the right track, one of which expertly uses a Lauryn Hill sample, while the other is the most somber moment on the album yet, and it works well with the choir and organ helping to supplement Kanye’s vocals.
Then comes “Remote Control,” a song that again, I think is still decent, but seeing this as Track 12 of 27 made it feel like one that could have been left on the cutting room floor, despite how much I usually love a Young Thug feature.
Eventually, the hits start coming back with “Moon,” “Heaven and Hell” and “Donda.” This is a terrific three-song stretch, with a pair of emotional moments sandwiching a strong rap moment for Kanye after he has let so many of his guests shine throughout the rest of this album.
“Moon” is a true highlight in the track list, and shows for the umpteenth time how much range Kanye has in his production. This is a stunning, quiet moment on the album that is brought together perfectly thanks to a lovely Kid Cudi feature.
I like Westside Gunn on “Keep My Spirit Alive,” but it is another track that I think would have been best to cut simply because of how much is on this thing, and also because of what comes after it. That would be “Jesus Lord,” a harrowing nine-minute track that stands out as one of the best moments on the album.
The production is terrific, Kanye’s performance comes through with plenty of emotion, Jay Electronica’s feature adds on to it, and the song is just a moment that reminds you what Kanye is capable of when firing on all cylinders. I think this track would have been excellent right after the title track to really bring in all the power from both songs.
I enjoy the closing moments of “New Again” but on the whole think it could have been taken off, and the same goes for “Tell The Vision,” even though I understand that the latter is there to pay respect to Pop Smoke, who has since passed away.
Moving forward toward what I consider to be the true end of this album are a pair of strong, but not groundbreaking songs in “Lord I Need You” and “Pure Souls.” I sound like a broken record here, but while I can listen to these songs on their own and enjoy what I am hearing, the same can not be said when you are we over an hour into the project. At that point, they feel a bit redundant.
But, this album could have been going on for eight hours before “Come to Life” and it would not have mattered. This is not only the best song on “Donda,” but one of the best songs Kanye West has ever made. When Kanye said that he would be moving more toward religious music, this is the type of song I had envisioned.
This is certainly a religious album throughout, and there are moments with instrumentals, church choirs and organs that are beautiful in their own right. But it all comes together in this five-minute masterpiece that builds into this beautiful piano sequence all while Kanye has some of the best singing moments of his career.
The lyrics are also heart-crushing as Kanye talks about his family and the desire to not die alone. It is all a perfect build to what is really the closing track in my book: “No Child Left Behind.” There are barely any lyrics, but the use of the organ and the simple “He’s done miracles on me,” repeated six times works wonders to bring the overarching themes of Kanye using religion to get through this dark stretch of time to the forefront.
I don’t particularly want to go in depth with all the Part 2s that end this album, but I will say that I do think DaBaby gave a strong verse, likely even better than Jay-Z’s. But, he’s been very not cool in a whole lot of ways, as has Marilyn Manson who is also in this version, and I would have just left them off of this.
That is how I feel about these five songs, which feel like bonus tracks more than anything. There are some good moments, but they are remarkably unnecessary here and leave a bad taste in my mouth after there was so much good before them.
And that’s the big takeaway I have with “Donda”: It feels like less than the sum of its parts. Ask me about any of the 27 songs individually and almost all of them I will say are pretty great. But when I listen to it in its entirety, the fatigue sets in and I find myself liking songs much less than I should.
There is an album that is 17 or 18 songs and 65-70 minutes long somewhere in “Donda” that I believe could compete with some of the best works Kanye has put out. But instead, those extra 10ish songs make the whole thing sink lower than it should.
I don’t dislike this album, in fact I would even say that I enjoy it quite a bit. Kanye took a big risk here, and most of it paid off in ways I didn’t think were possible anymore after he dropped “Jesus Is King.”
But I still think that Kanye got in his own way here and diminished the final product because of it. On the whole, though, “Donda” is worth a listen, and is a rare album that I think is worth choosing your favorites from and listening to those instead.
The product is just a little messier than it should be, and that makes all the difference when looking to see if this is simply a very good album, or one that transcends like so many of Kanye’s albums have done in the past.