The artist Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, released his tenth album Donda on August 29, 2020 and it does not live up to the expectations it was given.
This album is a tribute to his late mother, Donda West, who passed away on Nov.10, 2007. This makes this album extremely special and sincere since it is dedicated to his mother, but that does not excuse the fact that the album itself does not hold up to his previous works.
Donda is simply not comparable to his previous albums such as his number one album Yeezus, or other albums like 808s and Heartbreaks or Late Registration.
Many students around the Stockton Delta campus haven’t even heard that he had released a new album, showing that he is becoming irrelevant amongst the younger population of listeners.
This album doesn’t hold up for many reasons, one of the biggest being that it feels as if it were haphazardly thrown together rather than a cohesive whole.
He is trying to do many artistic and risky things with his music, such as including a 3-minute-long operatic break at the end of the third track. Although it is great for artists to branch out and experiment with different styles and techniques, this feels too overwhelming and all over the place.
If Ye had stuck to what worked in past albums such as Yeezus and combined that with some of the newer style choices displayed in Donda, this album would be more solid and cohesive.
The concepts and style used in Yeezus felt very futuristic, and that them stayed throughout the entire album, and he used amazing samples such as Nina Simone’s “Strange Fruit” at the beginning of “Blood On The Leaves” to create a haunting and chilling introduction.
The samples in Donda are not utilized nearly as well as he has in the past, and he does not keep a consistent theme throughout the album again creating a scattered feeling.
This album also has a whopping 27 songs, which is drastically more than most albums like this, and especially compared to Ye’s past albums.
This in and of itself is not bad. Many fans were actually excited to see so many songs on the album. But many of the songs are simply not as good in quality as the rest.
Not every song has to go in the final product. It is often better to have fewer songs of high quality rather than a plethora of songs with seven or eight good songs here and there.
Despite all these negative aspects, there are some good things about the album as well.
The songs on this album that are actually good are very impressive songs and deserve the praise they have been given.
One example of this would be “Believe What I Say”, this is because it samples Lauryn Hill’s “Doo-Wop (That Thing)” beautifully and it incorporates all the best themes introduced throughout the album.
And this album being a tribute to his mother makes it special and creates a deeper connection between Ye and his fans.
