After one of the most creative album rollouts of all time, the world is finally tuning in to the tenth solo studio album by Kanye West, Donda. It’s fair to say that the stakes were fairly high for Donda to answer a lot of questions surrounding Kanye’s dedication to music. This didn’t stop the album from breaking new records, hitting No. 1 on Apple Music’s Top Albums chart in 152 countries in just 24 hours, and streamed more than 60 million times in the United States alone. After a hiatus littered with bizarre and sporadic business ventures, public arguments and unusual housing choices, a lot of Yeezus fans felt left in the past while ‘Ye’ trailblazed off into the future. The life of Pablo became crowded with church services, housing projects, sneaker launches, GAP collaborations and public spats with fellow rappers to the detriment of the music. 

If you’ve always loved Kanye West the musician, the lyricist, or the spoken word poet then you may agree that it’s been difficult to recognise a lot of the light-hearted and raw hip-hop elements in anything he’s released in the post Life of Pablo era. A lot of those that remember the passionate activist that used his words to call out injustice in a society that makes us question ‘Who Will Survive In America?’ have grown weary watching him now try to sit atop every aspect of that system. 

However, I think it’s important to highlight that any lost love for “the new Kanye” isn’t to do with his off the pitch antics but rather the calibre of his in-the-booth performance. A lot of Kanye’s core fandom have flowed with and moulded their affections through multiple reimaginings of Ye before, whether it be his transition from a backpack rapper to the 808 loving Love Lockdown sensation, or from the soulful ‘Made in America’ road runner to a gospel self-proclaimed demi-god. Therefore, any dealignment from Kanye fandom has historically never been connected to his transitions or experimentations with new facets of his character. In fact, Kanye’s chameleon-like ability to adapt and reinterpret his artistry has become one of the cornerstone reasons why Kanye is heralded as one of the greatest rappers of his generation. 

So, the recent feeling of stomach-churning concern that Donda may drive some fans even further away can be explained by a simple lack of connection felt toward the music in recent years. The uncertainty of which Ye would actually show up caused a fury of questions that made the numerous delays, leaks and pushbacks unbearable. What style of production would we hear this time? Is he going to look backwards and feature artists who have helped craft his current legacy or go for contemporary artists to help build him a new one? Would it be Ye, Pablo, the college dropout, the graduate, the disciple or the god that stepped to the mic for the first time in his third decade of crafting classic albums? It turns out, in true Kanye fashion, he brought a little of all of them…and boy did it work. 

DONDA BREAKDOWN: PRODUCTION

Let’s answer that first question, where does Donda fit in Kanye’s legacy as a once in a generation Producer? Overall the production on the album is extremely well rounded and balanced, finding a perfect fusion of trademark Ye elements, experimental layering of sounds from a wide variety of contemporary influences and an adept knowledge of how to craft a narrative in a beat using forward-thinking composition. Although the delayed release of the album caused fan frustration, it may have been the right call as nothing feels rushed or cheated from a production standpoint. 

On a track like ‘Heaven & Hell’ he plays with timing and minimal instrumentation to allow the track to breathe, build and unfold organically until the drop kicks in nearly halfway through the track. Conversely, on a track like ‘I’m Not Okay’, he fills in all the silences around his fast double-time lyrics with imposing panning 808’s in order to create a more claustrophobic environment. The duality that Kanye often explores of the relationship between light and dark permeates the production style of Donda, juxtaposing warm organ interludes on tracks like ‘Never Abandon Your family’ with the cold tin-like voice textures on ‘I Know God Breathed On This’. His masterful ability to add such a wide variety of grain and character to different beats allows each track to hit like an individual chapter from one unified, thoughtfully constructed and meaningful story. Rather than using a whole album to convey to his audience just one chapter of his own story or one facet of his character.

Nonetheless, what is most impressive about Kanye’s production throughout this project is the mature level of restraint and discipline he shows, never getting lost in operatic crescendos that drown out the message of the track. Whilst tracks like ‘Jail’ still features the bombastic electric guitar and powerful backing choir reminiscent of ‘Murder To Excellence’, others like ‘Keep My Spirit’ are delicate and stripped back in order to add an element of humble boom-bap production into a lofty album with lots to contend with.

Throughout Donda, Kanye demonstrated his versatility at catering to a wide demographic of fans by drawing on popular components of other genres from around the world of music whilst still seeming as though he stayed true to his own style of producing.  The mellow 80s style funk synths and muted natural deep-house style bass on ‘New Again’ show a willingness to create for the present moment that we haven’t seen from Ye in a long time. Similarly, the UK trap influences on ‘Off The Grid’ are yet another example of Kanye’s awareness of current global trends and a subtle nod to the bar-raising standards set by UK producers since his last drop in 2019.