Kanye West – Donda: Fans frustrated as rapper’s album suffers more delays
Album was rescheduled after being delayed once again in July
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Kanye West has held a second listening party ahead of today (6 August), the supposed new release date for his 10th studio album, Donda.
The record has suffered multiple delays and was most recently scheduled for release on 23 July, but the album never manifested.
West has now put on two listening parties at the Mercedes-Benz stadium in Atlanta, where thousands of fans have been privy to an early glimpse at Donda.
The rapper and producer reportedly went back to work on the album after the first, following a muted reaction from the 42,000 fans in attendance.
The album is named after West’s mother, Donda West, who died in 2007 aged 58.
This current version reportedly includes features such as Playboi Carti, Pusha T, Young Thug, Travis Scott, Jay-Z, Lil Baby and The Weeknd.
Some talking points:
At the time of writing (10am EST, 3am UK time), the album had still not materialised, despite the new release date being scheduled for 2am EST on Friday 6 August.
The liveblog is now closed.
And this brilliant one of Barbra Streisand’s new record by our albums critic Helen Brown:
On Release Me 2, Barbra Streisand’s voice remains one of the most ridiculously luxurious instruments – review
Streisand has a five-star penthouse suite of a voice: plush and spacious, with a solid-gold commitment to the lyrics and a sunken marble bathtub of soft-soapy soul in which to wallow
Start placing your bets on when we’ll get the announcement that, sorry, the album is landing next year instead.
Kanye was offering fans the Covid vaccine during his Donda listening party last night, after initially saying he was “cautious” when it came to the jab last year.
A few hours before the event began, fans spotted an announcement on Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz stadium Twitter account, revealing guests would be able to get the jab on-site.
“Kanye doing more for vaccine outreach than 85 per cent of elected officials lmao,” one fan tweeted.
Fans are joking that the album is probably going to drop tomorrow instead. I can assure you I will not be working that day.
This seems... promising? From Vulture’s excellent critic Craig Jenkins.
Check out this week’s Now Hear This playlist. No Kanye on there, though.
I said this during the liveblog as well, but I wonder how much patience Kanye’s fans have left. Is it too strong to call it a form of gaslighting when he constantly raises their hopes only to crush them for the hundredth time? I feel genuinely sorry for them, it’s not fun. And I don’t think you can pull the “genius” card – plenty of music geniuses manage to release incredible works when they say they’re going to. This entire rollout feels like a mess.
At least they know they’re probably getting their hopes up over nothing
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