album review: 'donda' by kanye west

…is it obvious enough yet that I don’t want to do this review?

And I already know that admitting anything close to that right from the start for the diehard stans will be plenty to write off my opinion for good - but I’m not really talking to them at this point; after my previous reviews they already know where I stand. No, I’m talking to the mass of casual fans who continue to inflate the hype behind artists this overexposed, this far past their prime, with projects that could never live up to the hype. And it feels like we’ve been down this road for at least the last three projects - and I wind up feeling like I’m on the outside looking in, not because I can’t see all the budget or talent that’s on display, because there clearly is plenty that’s all the more exasperating because it gives you enough slivers to be sure that it could be better with focus and refinement. No, it’s because when I wind up with just a middling to mediocre opinion overall, I get a barrage of folks who cite a genius that I’m just not hearing, or claim some ‘hater’ status because I don’t have the money or clout that the artists do.

In fact, let’s put an end to that narrative right now, because it ties back to the same bullshit ‘it’s massively popular, ergo it must be good’ horseshit that’s a marketing department’s dream and a critic’s nightmare; yes, for the most part I still blame Jay-Z and 50 Cent for all of this, although the roots are probably with Puff in the late 90s. It’s trying to make a claim for critical importance by birthright and brand maintenance, rather than artistic growth or saying anything of value or potency, especially given just how much they’re widely known to collaborate or crib from others that the mainstream public will never care to seek out! And when you factor in just how much of the media attention behind this album is driven by this stupid petty feud between Drake and Kanye, of which the last truly cutting bars were exchanged in 2018, it’s just getting sad watching the two flail at each other, mostly because they both have trump cards on the other they’ve never played. And the reason those cards haven’t been played, at this point, is the money - because there’s just too much on the table between the two of them within the industry to really put an end to the other’s career, even if they’ve got enough ventures outside of music to never need to cut another album.

But that really is the problem: watching the multi-million dollar hype machine roll out behind this album makes me realize there’s no stakes to this - legacies are already set, the fanbase and social media campaigns are already rolling, the influencers already have their captions, the streaming playlists have been bought and paid for, and there won’t be a shred of actual, transgressive risk with any of it. Yeah, accusations on Instagram might fly and other songs will leak later and I know the deluxe editions will come, but the labels cashed their cheques and the mass audience bought in for more in what feels like a slow year for mainstream hip-hop, and it’s going to make Billboard BREAKDOWN a living hell. And forgive me for saying this, but at this point, I’m not really interested in what one of the richest men in hip-hop has to add when it’s clear he was out of ideas years ago! What’s even more galling is the album length - you’d think with nothing left to prove that he wouldn’t have to stream-troll at this point with twenty-plus songs on an hour-plus album, but here we are. And yet it’s genuinely infuriating that I feel like I have to say something or I’m leaving money on the table - I’ve seen the traffic this draws, regardless of what he’s doing, it’s clear that people care and want my opinion. So… what do I think this time?

…you know, I remember a quote from Joe Budden on his podcast where he described ‘low-quality’ music, not relating to someone’s subjective enjoyment of art but as a musician recognizing the compositional effort required to make art as a product and then market and promote it as more than it is. Now I’m generally of the opinion that this is a really sketchy turn of phrase and attitude to approach art - beyond the subjective evaluation of art’s quality, effort does not always translate to it, what might be difficult for someone might be second nature for someone else, and the quantification of artistic work translating to ‘quality’ often boils down to playing to backwards-looking standards of art and taste. That said, I was only on a few songs into this project before that phrase reared its ugly head and it got harder to shake with every subsequent song on this utterly bloated, increasingly empty-feeling album, where without the preexisting fame or audience nobody would care, where anything potent or transcendent has to claw for air between the hookless mediocrity or outright wrongheaded decisions. That’s not saying it’s bad or that I couldn’t get some enjoyment out of it - I genuinely think there are moments that kind of click or have good ideas - but man, it feels shallow and getting passed off as having more depth or punch than there actually is. I mean, has mainstream hip-hop underserved y’all so much that you feel you have to prop something up in 2021, even if it’s this?

And a big part of how I can make this statement - beyond any comparison to the field, trust me when I say that’s not something this rapper wants - is just in terms of raw skill and construction of bars. Because even if you view him as less of a lyrical miracle rapper, it’s impossible to overlook just how broadly simplified the content feels, and not just in concessions to trends in trap, all the more jarringly out of place when you place them alongside the three or four songs where he actually delivers more detailed, fleshed-out bars… or, you know, the guest stars that step up, seemingly out of obligation to actually try. I mean, at this point I expect the corniness and there’s more than a few bars that break the attempted atmosphere of the songs with a sickening crack - this has been a theme in his content for well over a decade - but when you pair it alongside rappers who are actually kind of trying like Jay-Z or even Lil Baby and Lil Durk, or pretty nice performances from Kid Cudi and Ty Dolla $ign, and you go back to half-crooned fragments or bars that just trail off in awkward spots… I’m left wondering how much of this saw a second draft beyond trying to be the first to get the Giannis line off - and he’s already late, Freddie Gibbs beat him to it two years ago! It’s the sort of thing that convinces me a label boss finally put his foot down and said ‘enough with the promo campaign of diminishing returns and your stupid feud, I’m putting the record out’… and yet with all of the time and resources in the world to afford whatever sample or added instrumentation you want, the fact this feels so desperately underpolished is legit shocking. The percussion sounds painfully cheap and stale and airless, the melodies are increasingly clunky and basic if not flagrantly relying on a chopped up sample with little melodic growth and covered in murky effects - and y’all know how much the chipmunked approach rarely works for me when executed well, let alone here - the vocal fidelity and mixing is inconsistent from song to song, and there’s absolutely zero sense of momentum or pacing, which for an album this long is damn near criminal especially when you’re going to tack on an interlude that doesn’t fit with anything!

But I also know that the target audience of this album won’t care: they’ve bought into the legacy, the arc, the clout, they revel in the high drama between Drake and Kanye as two lumbering titans taking swings at each other and clawing for some vestige of inspiration and truth to suck themselves free of the miasma of drug abuse, heartbreak, and depression… and for a second, let me actually humour this. Because it’s the real reason Jay-Z is on this album and trying to play both sides to find class solidarity: the boys club of the uber rich, the alphas, the chads, where everything is permitted, all sins are forgiven, women give you all the attention you clearly deserve and don’t really pipe up to challenge your ego, and where the audacity to say and do whatever you want is the greatest flex of them all. Oh, the extreme wealth is what buys you your ticket to this club - and make no mistake, he wants you to know the success is unfathomable to the average person - but it’s a prosperity gospel, where might makes right, where Nietzsche isn’t referenced like on Nas’ last project, but he might as well be. And unlike The Off-Season by J. Cole where the everyman can’t help but let homespun reality and humanity colour the pictures for better and worse, or CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST by Tyler, The Creator where wealth can’t heal his flaws and angst no matter how hard he desperately tries but there’s at least a sense of ramshackle fun, here you get some of the same sense of paranoid emptiness, but where the success is framed as providing more of a flat cover against any judgement, be it by women in person, the internet haters or peers chasing their coattails, or the world at large, an idle blindness. Or it allows you to play the victim, so very lonely at the top, where those you seek to help or elevate can’t understand your genius, where the angst is just enough of a kernel of relatability to excuse the mountain of projection and bullshit shoved through, especially around women. But let’s face it: to an audience that’s predominantly of men, I get why this works - beyond how just the experience of fame can be whirling or intoxicating, which in a capitalist society can elevate art beyond the aesthetic and content in just the communal fever to be in the conversation. But there’s a part of us that likes the thrill of potentially being able to say or do anything and face no repercussions… and then feel like you’re not just breaking society’s rules, but you’re more evolved or in the right when doing so, or that your joke is just so good nobody realizes there’s more than a few grains of truth to it. And it’s even better if you can frame yourself as an ‘underdog’ regardless of the actual reality, where you claim yourself as the G.O.A.T. even despite all the evidence to the contrary.

But does it actually work? Even if you recognize how well this guy - and his well-prepared team - can work the internet hype cycle and memes, you can tell there are words from social media that he doesn’t want to reach his ears but they do anyway and they stick. And it’s hard to ignore the underlying rampant insecurity especially when everything else is trying to emphasize how far beyond the common man he is. Now there is an attempt to be somewhat self-aware, use this attention as a grounding force… but again, is any of this new? Does it any hold weight when you can see the mechanism trying to lean on the earnestness, where the contradictions between opulence and complicated humanity feel less revealing and more a calculation? And if there is a parallel to be made with The Off-Season, it’s how despite seeing unparalleled success… he doesn’t sound all that happy or free, a increasingly dour listen, which you might think something come come loose with some sort of truth being exposed or discovered in the process, but the longer the album stretches with all the more filler bars and wasted guest appearances, the more hollow it all feels. I don’t hear closure or revelations beyond a recommitment to family and an inner circle that’s all the more tenuous, and if greater substance might be there it’s constantly undercut by all of the petty subliminal shots that come up at the most inopportune times, where even if bridges are forever burned there are parallels that can’t be ignored, and you can there are people on the record who think resolution can be found. Almost like they’re two sides of the same… coin.

Alright, this has been a cute writing exercise, especially as when you look between the lines the similarities are uncanny, but let’s focus on the unique strengths and problems with the album. For DONDA… it’s impossible to overlook how unrefined and undercooked it feels, where Kanye West might be a slightly better singer and the minimalism might work for some in conveying a spiritual vibe, but for me over an extended runtime, it can’t help but expose the empty contradictions that Kanye has been trying to work since at least 2010, and the returns are about dry, especially when it gets blurry what’s an actual organic experiment and what was calculated for more streams. It’s clear that he’s struggled immensely with the loss of his mother which on some level is echoed in his divorce from Kim, but they aren’t really the focus here, as much as anything can be a focus when you remember how little he writes his bars - that’s more on Kanye’s prosperity gospel / Black capitalist evangelism where this might be one place Jay-Z and Jay Electronica completely make sense, but it doesn’t really align when Kanye gets a monologue from the son of Larry Hoover that calls out capitalism directly on the same song! Strangely enough, it’s one of the best moments on the album in terms of structured content even if Kanye has been working a ragged parallel between his struggles and those of Black activists to questionable returns for years now, and that’s the frustrating thing, there are moments that can feel special: ‘Lord I Need You’ feels like a plea to save his failed marriage with just enough detail to feel honest, the piano build on ‘Come To Life’ had a Jon Bellion-esque swell, ‘Moon’ with Don Toliver and Kid Cudi is potent, and Fivio Foreign drops an okay verse although if I was frankly a lot more impressed with Roddy Ricch who drops the most revealing line on the album ‘the truth is only what you get away with’. Which is why I have to assume Kanye kept the features from DaBaby, Marilyn Manson, and Chris Brown on the album, an unrepentant but very revealing transgressive streak that can’t help but tinge the light he tries to bathe in. What’s fascinating is that the dancehall artist Buju Banton is also on the album, who long had a controversy writing a notoriously homophobic song but where he seems to have done the work to walk away from it and ask for broader forgiveness… something the others haven’t done, which is why Conway’s passing reference to being ‘covered in the blood’ reminds me of that sample on Lingua Ignota’s last album, and the same self-righteous zeal towards salvation, where if you have power within this structure, you will be sanctified, regardless of what you do. But this isn’t new territory - Kanye’s been tracing this faux-transgression and absolution arc for a decade, now with more religious trappings to absolve himself and kill the stakes where there was an actual sense of danger in the best moments of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Yeezus, where he can put his hand on the stove and never bleed, and if that’s the most I can extract… look, I don’t hear the resonance.

And thus I keep circling back to that term, ‘low quality music’. It’s a gross term, and it’s deeply cynical… but I can’t escape the feeling that for all of the hype I just don’t feel anything, from what feels like an industry product than a fully developed idea! I wonder how much of this is chasing the last embers of inspiration or just knowing you can phone it in because your audience will take just about anything at this point - hell, after 2018, it was proven! But I’m just not mesmerized, I want to scream that the Emperor has no clothes and you can argue the junk has been flapping in the breeze for years now… and yet there’s a part of me that actually wants to believe, to enjoy this; that’s why I don’t dismiss popular appeal in contributing to the emotional experience of art, because I know it works… even if it’s not guaranteed to last. And with that, I wonder where in a year or even six months when people look back on this, what will last? I don’t hear any obvious winning singles, although knowing the clout I just know on fame and momentum alone there’ll be at least a few that stick on the Hot 100 for as much as that matters, so it really comes down to what resonates beyond the moment. And when you remember, again, that there’s no actual stakes in the feud between Drake and Kanye, that the industry can’t afford to see either truly fail, and that they’re making money hand over fist by everyone buying in - even me by making this review knowing that I have precisely zero chance to change anyone’s mind - the emotional impact shrinks dramatically and I just feel so tired. One of the great lies of capitalism is that it produces and rewards innovation, but the ugly truth is that if you do just enough to appear like you’re doing more because the vast majority will not look deeper - or you’re so cynical you know that doing the bare uncreative minimum will still work - more often than not, especially if you’re already on top, you’re rewarded for it. And even coming back to the album here… are the undercooked flickers of goodness enough to redeem the mountain of forgettable slurry around it? The emotional stakes are undercut at every turn by questionable bars, misplaced guests, inconsistent production, and abysmal sequencing on a project that drags long past making any point, so even if I wanted to get invested, I’m left grasping at something that deep down, I know isn’t anything new, provided it’s there at all. So 4/10 - I hate to say this was a chore to get through, likely to only be matched by the response to this review. And to that… folks, if this gave me more to say, if I hadn’t felt like this album wasn’t a half-formed cudgel in the musical equivalent of Jeff Bezos launching his dick rocket to challenge Richard Branson in a space race, I wouldn’t have repeated myself.