Make me new again
After three massive listening parties, years of speculation and Kanye locking himself in Mercedes-Benz Stadium, 'Donda' has finally dropped (... without his permission). Its likely that Kanye will continue to tinker and update the album following its premature release (much like he did with The Life of Pablo), but in its current state, it holds an amalgam of Kanye's hardest work yet.
Spanning longer than some feature length films, Donda’s 27- track-long album represents a culmination and anthology of Kanye's creative abilities. From the beautiful ‘Moon’ with Kid Cudi, to the hard-as-hell, drill-inspired ‘Off The Grid’, the album never sits still with its production. Frantically switching up styles, beats and momentums so that you never feel at ease or know what’s coming next. Where 'Yeezus' was minimalist, 'Donda' is maximalist.
He's done miracles on me
With Donda, Kanye attempts to bring religion back into the mainstream of popular-culture, eschewing the obnoxious insincerity of atheists that seems to pervade entertainment at the moment (see: Ricky Gervais crucified). Kanye's appeal to ideas of faith and Christianity are artistically admirable and a risk. His spiritual transformation allows for rejection of the political and cultural bitterness that has surrounded him, and is an embrace of self-deprecation in the hope for self-realisation.
Kanye hasn't so much reinvented himself, as he has continued his transformation that began with 'Jesus is King'. His spiritual and religious concerns are centre-frame here with a focus on the musical theatrics of religious worship; you can hear Kanye working with his 'Sunday Service Choir', the organs on tracks like 'Junya' and the repetitive chants on 'New Again'. Each of these elements is infused with Kanye's classic synthetic production to create something truly godly... and gaudy. There's a sense of tastelessness that pervades the album which will turn many off it, but I relish in that dissonance.
In 'Hurricane' and 'Pure Souls', Kanye reveals his uncertainties most clearly; "Sixty-million-dollar home, never went home to it", "Personal worth is not what a person is worth I can give a dollar to every person on Earth". Kanye is lamenting his focus on his financial worth as being an impediment to his personal life and his commitment to family, whilst still vaunting and bragging about how much he is worth. Kanye's music-making isn't just a confession in these moments, but an attempt to harmonise his known contradictions.
What did I teach him? And why Kanye ain't scared?
Already, a wave of critics have levelled their responses to Donda, calling it "a slog", "disposable and forgettable", and an album that "lacks direction". I disagree with all of them. A lot of the lyrics throughout the album are same old Kanye, some production feels unfinished, and Kanye even edits out his own swears (why didn't he just not swear in the first place?). But the energy behind 'Donda' is what makes it unforgettable.
There’s something to be said for Kanye in making an album this weighty. He could have stripped it back to a 50-minute masterpiece in songwriting. There’s certainly enough incredible material for him to have done that. But instead he sculpted this epic, rough-hewn sonic odyssey with ups and downs, build-ups and beat-drops that never make you bored and makes for a real musical experience. The album is a musical statement of excess; never settling for less and ignoring the staleness of supposed perfection.
Never forget all the memories
The Kid-Cudi and Don Toliver led 'Moon' is the most beautiful moment of the album. The title is clearly a reference to Cudi's 'Man on the Moon' trilogy, but its more than that. Its a reflection on our spiritual place on this earth, and that yearning to ascend. The production is stunning, and the interwoven choruses of Cudi and Toliver, to me, feel like an embodiment of that Christian idea of agape. A zenith of love, reaching to the moon. The deep reverb and echoing lyrics, "Don't leave so soon" are so arresting, you can't help but be still in that moment. Kanye has never made something so earnest.
Free my father
The centre-piece of the album is the 9-minute long 'Jesus Lord'. The track represents all of the dissonances, idiosyncracies and contradictions of Kanye's psyche. He interweaves visions, personal confessions and memories of his mother Donda. Jay Electronica's verse on the track is flawless, his flow extraordinary. 'Jesus Lord' ends with a beautiful and emotionally-destroying spoken-word coda by Larry Hoover Jr., speaking about his father's imprisonment and the injustices of the prison-system on his family. It extends to the experiences of many in America who have been ignored, segregated and forgotten. The song is one of the most focused moments of Kanye's body of work.
I've been waitin' for my father to come home
They told me when I graduate eighth grade, he would be home
Then they told me when I graduate from high school, he would be home
I went away to Morris Brown, I graduated and he still ain't home
Now I'm a adult, and my daughter went away to college and graduated
He still not home
- Larry Hoover Jr. on 'Jesus Lord'
Never the right time to go
For a man who is so self-evidently ill-suited to the unethical, perplexing and unnatural life of celebrity, Donda represents Kanye's appeal to the comfort and warmt of faith to deal with his anxieties, unease and failures. His personal theology is contradictory and nonsensical, but its an externalisation of his inner thoughts, no different to any other adherent. Laying himelf bear on Donda, we can not only see the failures of Kanye, but we can also see our own failures. Where we needed to turn to someone, or something else for help when we needed it most. For Kanye its Jesus, why not for us?
