By Kanye West’s recent standards, the surprise release of his “lost” album “Donda 2” to streaming services is relatively sedate news.
The rapper, now known as Ye, first released “Donda 2” in very limited fashion in 2022, when its core musical components were uploaded into a proprietary Stem player, a physical device where listeners could tweak its mixes.
Alex Klein, the founder of Kano, the company that made the Stem player, told The Times in 2022 that West was initially “very funny, and can be super candid,” but after his collapse into neo-Nazi sloganeering, Klein said, “I asked Kanye not to take the path he’s on. We’ve told him that we’re unable to work together while he’s putting out racial conspiracy theories.”
The album was a sequel to his 2021 record “Donda,” his last mainstream solo album before his descent into openly neo-Nazi rhetoric. Klein said he cut all ties with West in 2022: “There’s no deal in place.”
First appearing Tuesday on streamers under the artist name Donda, the LP features 18 songs. Given that the album was recorded in a very different point in West’s collapse, it still has some star cameos: Future appears on “Happy” and “Mr. Miagi,” while Jack Harlow appears on “Louie Bag.” The LP has a version of “5:30,” from West’s “Vultures 2” album with Ty Dolla Sign, and West’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian makes an unexpected appearance on “SCIFI,” saying, “I married the best rapper of all time. Not only that, he’s the richest Black man in America. A talented, legit genius who gave me four talented, incredible kids.”
West’s recent music output has competed with his incendiary actions. His single “Carnival” with Ty Dolla Sign topped the Hot 100 last year, and his LP “Bully” was seen as somewhat of a return to his old musical form. Yet his stunt selling swastika-branded merch with a Super Bowl ad and a startling claim he engaged in sex acts with a male cousin in his youth have overshadowed much of the music.
“This song is called COUSINS about my cousin that’s locked in jail for life for killing a pregnant lady a few years after I told him we wouldn’t ‘look at dirty magazines together’ anymore,” Ye tweeted. “Perhaps in my self centered mess I felt it was my fault that I showed him those dirty magazines when he was 6 and then we acted out what we saw.”
Additionally, new details have emerged about Donda Academy, the troubled private school he opened in Los Angeles. Chekarey Byers, a former fifth-grade teacher at Donda, sued West and Donda Academy.
“It was a lot of disorder and chaos,” Byers told The Times before a recent settlement, echoing claims in her lawsuit. “Donda didn’t really have any structure. They had books that they had bought that were just sitting on shelves. Kids were just playing all day. It was just a free-for-all.”
The post Kanye West releases ‘lost’ album ‘Donda 2’ to streamers appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
