By: Ryan Croke I, along with millions of others, woke up on August 29 to a major shock. Kanye West had finally released his long-awaited 10th solo album Donda. The 27 track project features collaborations from all sorts of artists, and is Kanye's longest album to date, with a runtime of 1 hour and 48 minutes. After 3 separate listening parties for Donda were held in massive stadiums and the album still wasn't released, people were beginning to lose hope that it would ever be formally released. The hype surrounding this album is massive, and it shows. The album had the biggest release day of any record released on Spotify in the platform's history, behind only Taylor Swift's 2020 record folklore and Drake's Scorpion and new record Certified Lover Boy which came out less than a week after Donda. Donda racked up close to 100 million streams within 24 hours of release. Fans had been craving this album for over a year, as West tweeted on July 21, 2020, that Donda would be released three days later. The album never came out, much to the dismay of fans, and they thought the album was another project from the artist that was scrapped and would never be released. Over a year later, these fans were proven wrong. Was Donda worth the wait? Or did it fail to live up to the hype? I'll dive into my thoughts on the project right after I detail what a tumultuous ride this album rollout has been for Kanye fans like myself. The Rollout Private Listening Party and the First Public Listening Event Donda was originally planned to drop on July 24, 2020, but never did, and for almost a year, fans believed that West had failed to finish the album, or that he scrapped it all together like he did several times in years past. However, in mid-July of this year, rumors surfaced that Kanye was holding a private listening party in Las Vegas for his new album, Donda. This was big news for Kanye fans, and the whole world was talking about possible release dates. Kanye said not one word to the public. Later that week, several sources close to Kanye confirm that Donda will be released on Friday, July 23, 2021, and a public listening party will be held in and live-streamed from Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta the night before. That night, over 2 million people tuned into the event, smashing the previous Apple Music live stream viewership record. Fan reception was overwhelmingly positive, and everyone who tuned in or attended the event was raving about the neo-gospel-themed album. There were several surprise features, but the standout moment of the night came when a Jay Z verse kicked in on the final track of the night. Jay and Kanye had famously had disagreements in the past, and it surprised many that the two had clearly made amends. The excitement was higher than ever. Then the next day came. No album. Fans bargained, created false hope for themselves, did everything they could to convince themselves that Donda would be released, all to no avail. It was a repeat of a bad memory. Disappointment set in yet again as Kanye had announced yet another album and had failed to deliver. Only this time, he rubbed salt on the wound by playing the album for millions of people before not releasing it. Fans were outraged, and rightfully so. Until the following week. Listening Party 2 Kanye posted to Instagram the next week that a second listening party would be held exactly 2 weeks after the first, on August 5, also in Mercedes-Benz stadium, and the album would be released the next day. Hype for the project built up yet again, and fans wondered what Kanye could do with 2 more weeks to work on the unfinished album. When the second listening event rolled around, it became apparent that a lot had changed in the last 2 weeks. The album featured more surprise features, with the main surprise of the night being Kid Cudi, who was featured on multiple tracks after fans were disappointed that Kanye's longtime friend wasn't on the album two weeks before. The second event blew the first out of the water, statistically and in quality, as the live stream viewership record set by the first event was smashed, as the second live stream saw over 5 million viewers. This time around, Kanye created a cinematic show that corresponded to the music, and the conclusion of the event saw a masked Kanye ascend into the heavens through the open roof of Mercedes-Benz Stadium basked in white light in what will one day be an iconic shot. Fans were ultimately glad that Kanye had taken more time to seemingly perfect his work, and were eagerly awaiting the album's release at midnight the same night. Of course, they were disappointed yet again, as the album wasn't released the next day. Fans were once again heartbroken and wondered what could possibly be holding back the project's release. Another two weeks passed with nothing from Kanye. He hadn't said a single word throughout the entire rollout so far, hadn't even captioned his cryptic Instagram posts, and fans thought the album had no hopes of coming out. Listening Party 3 Once more, Kanye posted a listening party date, this time August 26, at Soldier Field in West's hometown of Chicago. This one seemed fitting. An album named after West's late mother Donda West would be played for the public one last time in Kanye's hometown. This event was another cinematic show, with several cool shots of West cloaked in fire, standing outside a recreation of his childhood home, before finally removing the mask at the end of the show. This event received mixed reviews, as fans were enraged with some of the choices made over the last three weeks. Kid Cudi was replaced by a sample of the viral Globglogabgalab video, Jay Z was replaced by Da Baby, and numerous other changes had been made. It seemed that Kanye had spent almost too much time on the album, and should have quit while he was ahead. Regardless, fans were not really surprised when the album wasn't released the next day and had almost put the nail in the coffin for their hopes of Donda being released. Two Days Later Two days later, Sunday, August 29, millions of fans across the globe received news that Donda had been released at 8 am ET and was available on streaming platforms for fans to enjoy. The album received outpouring praise from fans, and all people could talk about on social media was Donda. After a year's wait, Kanye had finally released his 10th solo album. Kanye's fans were finally rewarded for their patience, and thanked West by helping the album break several records on streaming platforms. The world was finally given a new Kanye West album, and for most people, it was worth the painful wait. The Review Overview The best way to describe Donda is all over the place, as the album really has no sense of direction. The only thing consistent throughout is themes of spirituality throughout the lyrics, as Kanye and most of the featured artists are rapping about God and Jesus throughout the entire project. Kanye brings an insane amount of collaborators to the table to create this sense of family and forgiveness that is also constant throughout. Listening to Donda is certainly an experience unlike any other, and I'll give my thoughts on the album right now. Low Points / Critiques The majority of Donda is great, and some of Kanye's best work to date. However, on a 27 track album, there are bound to be some songs that just don't meet the standards set by the other tracks. First, let's start with the songs that have a part 2. The final four tracks of the album are altered versions of other tracks from Donda, and all of them are very lackluster compared to the other versions. All these "part 2" tracks have that separates them from the other version of the song are new features, most of which are mediocre or painful to listen to, especially when most of these new features end up replacing a vastly superior guest appearance. At least Kanye didn't make these part 2 tracks the official version of the song because that would have been a nightmare. One other disappointing track from this album is Tell The Vision, which is just 90 seconds of Pop Smoke repeating "we made it," and it makes no sense to me why this was included. It could be a tribute to the late drill artist or signify that Kanye has made it to heaven, but both of those are significant stretches. Either way, it's pretty boring and unnecessary and serves no purpose that I can find. If you remove the part 2 tracks and Tell The Vision, the album is still 22 tracks long, and there are a good amount of these that are boring, unnecessary, and don't add anything to the tracklist. God Breathed is an interesting track at first, but it has no business being over 5 minutes long. The production is solid, but Kanye's performance is underwhelming, and so is Vory's, although both of them will make up for it on later tracks. Cut this song down to a runtime of 2 and a half minutes, and it's a solid track. Jonah has a great feature from Vory on the chorus, but Lil Durk is insufferable as always, and Kanye once again has very weak bars that don't feel like a lot of effort was spent in writing. Ok Ok is solid, with a great appearance from Lil Yachty, but the instrumental is boring, Kanye's performance is lackluster, and Rooga's verse on the back end is incredibly weak. Junya is probably my least favorite song on the entire album not counting the part 2 tracks, and for good reason. The organ instrumental is cool at first but overstays its welcome early on into the 2 and a half minute track. Kanye and Playboi Carti's verses are repetitive, boring, and the line from Kanye that goes, "I won with the bucks, boy, let me Giannis", is one of his cringiest lines to date. Remote Control isn't horrible, but it isn't anything special, as Kanye and Young Thug don't do anything to ruin the song or to make it a classic. The track becomes infuriating in the last 10 seconds, however, as fans who tuned i