Kanye West — Donda

This album is a colossal disaster. Hideously erratic, sprawling and meandering in its false Christianity. It's exhausting from the very first seconds, impossible to complete. The production is too generic, repetitive, bland, the lyrics are among his worst and Kanye West doesn't have a good voice in these two hours. He sounds lazy, flat, lifeless. Most of the tracks sound the same, it's a mix of gospel, trap, rnb, pop rap and garbage tracks, all collected under the experimental hip-hop label. The product is slow and painful, and is carried out exclusively by the guests.

One of the first guests Playboi Carti is clearly superior to West in "Off the Grid", his flow and youthful performance overshadowing that of the landlord, who appears in a pre-deceased version, is already dead. Fivio Foreign humiliates him, then Kanye mumbles things with a wack style, very poor. Vory sings worthily in gospel songs. Royce da 5'9", uncredited, supports West's wobbly flow on the track with Westside & Conway. Jay Electronica kills an absurd cut of nine minutes and the alternative version of twelve, here reached by LOX. Other artists are good, while some are bad. Syleena Johnson performs an admirable tribute to Kanye friend Desiigner's "Panda" in the introductory piece, one of the worst of West's career. In "Jail", Jay-Z is uninspired, on autopilot.

"Donda" is one of the most postponed albums in recent history. The original release dates have been postponed, as Kanye West feared he would no longer be in first place due to tight competition, and the fact that he's no longer the mainstream artist of the past, he got there at the end (10th; 9th consecutive since solo), but he struggled harder than expected and sweated cold. He held it for a week, then Drake wiped it out. If the LP had been released on July 24, 2020, he would have been killed off by Taylor Swift's album of the year, "Folklore". During that time, he joked with the tracklist, teased his co-workers, and fought with everyone from the label to his wife, becoming more ridicolous day by day. Even a year later, he continued to have an insane fear of not finishing in first place, an obsession with him: the album comes out on August 29, 2021, few days before that of Drake, and Kanye claims that Universal released it without his consent, which is obviously false.

The end result is a product that goes to great lengths to undermine his legacy, more rusty nails in that coffin. 27 tracks, 109 minutes, 140 producers, averaging 5.4 on each track, peaking at 9. It's a scary monster, a Chris Brown LP without Chris Brown: Kanye excludes him on an EDM gospel track, because the host wants to spit a verse. I can't understand what the difference is between having a verse of Chris Brown and not having it in this deadly mess. West no longer has imagination, inventiveness and inspiration, he looks like a finished artist, even the cover is terrible: the boy releases two covers that seem to be drawn by children, then gives up everything and brings out a black screen. There's one awkward song after another, guests struggle to save this garbage, no matter how great their talent may be. The first rhythm that sounds good is "Believe What I Say": Kanye steals from a Lauryn Hill classic, "Doo Wop (That Thing)" and mumbles over it, he's really poor on this album, and this is his attempt to do "Nice for What". He's a faded copy of Drake and fails dramatically in this version.

I wanted to conclude by writing that at least the guy can console himself in the money that the streams will bring him, the awards and in the critical acclaim, but professional reviewers seem to have abandoned him: on the other side of the Atlantic, the record is panned and its questionable choice of rhythms, lyrics, performance and guests is highlighted. It's not easy to witness the decay of a once so brilliant artist, in these situations, despite all his laudable attempts, he seems closer to the asylum than to the church. 2/10.