Spectreview: Kanye West – Donda

Released: August 29, 2021

Hip Hop/Rap
(Experimental Hip-Hop)
(Christian Hip-Hop)

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“And I repent for everything I’ma do again”

Kanye West is lost. On white canvas stretched wide across Mercedez-Benz Stadium he walks the length between each corner like a half-blind boxer, clad in orange, face covered and unrecognizable. He fluctuates between animated pantomimes of his yet-unfinished music and stretches of detached nonchalance, as if experiencing brief periods of amnesia at the fact that a stadium’s worth of people had just paid a significant sum to watch a hero publicly ruminate on embryonic versions of his songs. At times he stops and looks down as if noting what else needs to be added to what he’s listening to; at other times he checks his phone, mentally blocking out the crowd. He is present, until he’s not; he cares, until he doesn’t.

More than the showy spectacles of the next two listening parties, or the tenebrous attention sucker of the messy Donda rollout, this is the moment that best sums up West’s tenth record. Two years after a public fall from grace and fresh out of a divorce that would have been impossible to keep private, the celebrated artist stands alone on a pedestal of his own making: isolated by ambition, unwilling (or unable) to help himself. More than ever he is alone, and the subtext of the record sees him wondering how it happened and unable to come to an easy conclusion.

Ironically, Donda is stuffed with credits and chock full of features, an overwhelming majority of which lift the double LP far beyond what West could manage himself, and oftentimes in spite of him. Playboi Carti’s magnetic charisma and Fivio’s career-making verse enliven “Off The Grid” until West’s breathy verse enervates it again; The Weeknd fashions a brilliant chorus on “Hurricane”; Jay Electronica delivers an incredible run of bars on the climactic “Jesus Lord”; JAY-Z shows up for posterity on “Jail”. Nothing mitigates the sheer loneliness West exudes at every turn. The few great moments embedded in its runtime are weighed down with an avalanche of filler, much of which is by design; too many tracks start in an empty space and go nowhere, while others are contemplative by nature of their impotency. On many of his verses West sounds relatedly beaten down, unsure, trying to summon an enthusiasm that isn’t there.

His obsessions on Donda – at least the ones specific to the record – are bimodal. There’s the ever-present spirit of the Lord, an entity West sidles up to with a sickening enthusiasm. This flavor of worship is markedly different from the unbridled optimism of “Jesus Walks,” the ascendant gospel of “Ultralight Beam,” and even the navel-gazing praise of Jesus Is King. West invokes God relentlessly, unconscionably, the way an insecure teenager takes every opportunity to mention his “Canadian” girlfriend; it feels compensatory and detached from reality. Like a family member grabbing your arm to explain in detail the spirits they saw swarming a political figure on TV, West’s exhortations are hard to relate to because they come from such a vulnerable place, and yet in the record’s numerous invocations of faith he expects us to be there with him, to reassure his dominance.

And then there’s the title mother figure herself, cast in holy light and so intertwined with the Christian God it forms its own tragedy. Donda West’s death provided fodder for one of the most influential rap records in history thirteen years ago, and yet in spite of that temporal distance, Donda proves that familial grief never really leaves completely. In execution, the concept feels less panegyrical and more opportunistic myth-making, like empty proof on a staked claim. Mentions are few and far between, except for when her voice is manipulated into eerie reanimation on her namesake track, which feels part Tupac hologram and part desperate cry for help. It’s this, along with his untenable reliance on faith, that imbue the project with a vortex of bleakness so visceral it becomes impossible to pull away from.

“Donda” is one of several peculiar decisions scattered across the records, many of which echo the fundamental problems of his last few record. A track like “Tell The Vision” is amputated as to be completely ineffectual; others, like “God Breathed,” “24” and “Lord I Need You” plod on with visible seams, as if West has forgotten how to end a song or was simply filling time, trying to take his mind off of what’s eating him alive. Four versions of songs with alternate features are tacked onto the end of an already exhaustingly-long album like a preemptive deluxe edition, though none are revelatory enough to fully justify their inclusion. Even relatively stronger tracks are peppered with under-baked structures and plagued with visible scaffolding. Kanye West records have suffered from rushed developments and widespread inconsistencies since 2013’s Yeezus, yet Donda’s messiness is on another level entirely; the unevenness is a constantly-rewarded bad habit reaching its logical conclusion, where the term “quality control” doesn’t even enter the picture.

This is an old story now, one that his legion of long-time devotees understand. Many may have balked at his proclaiming himself a god on Yeezus, but it’s functionally true. There’s very few artists who cast a spell over their audiences quite like West, few who make mistakes egregious enough to potentially dismiss even the most die-hard fans and still hold them in their grasps, few who incite such artistic scrutiny despite repeatedly refusing to live up to expectations. As with a holy figure, it’s always the promise of salvation that endures: the notion that West’s natural talent will eventually result in individual triumphs powerful enough to justify the piety and repair the faith.

Blessedly for these people, Donda has several, although some are undoubtedly products of an earlier, less tumultuous creative period. There’s the affecting, weightless “Moon” and its perfectly-produced vocal hook; there’s the moody, cutting “Hurricane”; there’s the stunningly-conscious “Jesus Lord,” which takes what might be a cheesy devotional refrain and turns it into a compelling eight-minute mantra. On “Believe What I Say” West finally gets to base a song on Lauryn Hill’s banger “Doo Wop (That Thing)” and the result is sublime, a pure vibe that’s simply fantastic. And “Come To Life” provides a clear-eyed denouement on a wearying journey, where West tries on a small, heartbreaking optimism as layers of piano swallow the ears. It’s a moment executed so brilliantly, and so moving, that it threatens to make up for the record’s lengthy torrent of indulgences.

Until, of course, we’re reminded of the process behind the work and the man behind the board. People are able to separate art from artist on an individual level, but the circumstances surrounding West’s releases are baked into the work. This is by design. West learned long ago of the impenetrability of a life made art, of controversy enacted with confidence. His interruption of the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards pulled the slingshot back for his 2010 artistic triumph, all the while earning Billboard’s spot as Top Male Artist of that year. His adoption of Twitter as a real-time celebrity platform created the foundation for today’s stan culture. Rampant procrastination reigned on Yeezus, then The Life of Pablo, and then Ye, during the latter of which he embraced the racist MAGA movement and claimed that slavery was a choice.

Savviness or insanity, West makes decisions that continue to benefit him because of how the industry works, and in doing so he nurtures an artist-audience relationship so inherently poisonous that it prevents him from making whatever beneficial structural changes could help. Now, as he always has, he dares us to look: takes as many opportunities to keep us laser-focused on his efforts and then repels us the way he always does, with repellent behavior. He casts himself as devout – as a warrior of God using his platform to spread the Good Word – and then belies his devoutness with a Michael Scott-like selfishness of presence, whether it’s inviting disgraced rocker (and alleged sexual assaulter) Marilyn Manson into the project or hurriedly slotting in controversial rapper DaBaby weeks after (or possibly due to) his recent controversies. Chris Brown once again enters the picture on “New Again”. Hours before its release he rants about producer gatekeeping; hours after, he cries wolf about label mismanagement. He takes several opportunities on the record to let loose about the end of his relationship, but – I can only assume – deep down he knows how much of a strain his erratic behavior must have put on it, how her decision to separate must have felt crushingly reasonable.

Change is impossible while the machine continues to run, and happiness remains elusive as long as he depends on his audience to supply it. He is doomed to be who he is despite the bonds he sheds; Donda takes lengthy stock of the wreckage and finds that only God and ghosts, the incorporeal and invisible, are his extant companions.

Recommended? You decide.