The first noticeable thing about
Kanye West's tenth studio album,
Donda, is its mass. With 27 tracks, a running time of an hour and 48 minutes, and a dense list of contributors including
Jay-Z,
Kid Cudi,
Roddy Ricch, Jay Electronica,
Travis Scott,
Lil Durk, and many, many more,
Donda is poised to be an epic statement, an all-out event. The music itself tells a different story. Still bearing the religious overtones of 2019's
Jesus Is King,
West assembles the sprawling
Donda from minimal, often eerie arrangements. This is perhaps most apparent in the conspicuous absence of drums from many of the tracks. The hooky "Jail" sounds like a rocked-up version of something from
Graduation, with Auto-Tuned vocals swimming happily around crunchy guitars. It's a banger with no bang, though, waiting until the last seconds of the song to bring in a brief, stilted drum pattern. "Tell the Vision" also lacks a forceful rhythm track, stitching together a stumbling piano loop with fragmented hi-hat skitters to hold a ghostly verse from
Pop Smoke. Traces of the old
Kanye show up alongside this new subtractive approach. "Junya" is upbeat and confident, with a cheery church organ sample and another skeletal rhythm track serving as a backing track for lively flows. We're reminded of
West's production mastery when he cuts up a
Lauryn Hill sample for standout track "Believe What I Say," while "Lord I Need You" carries diminished echoes of the grandiose pop magnitude of
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and the thick bass and abrasive rush of "God Breathed" would fit in on
Yeezus.
Donda isn't without its highlights, but taken as a whole it's both confused and confusing. The album is purportedly a tribute to
Kanye's late mother, Donda West, who died in 2007. Donda's presence is felt throughout the record, in particular during moments like the somber beauty of "Jesus Lord," and more directly on the song that bears her name and includes audio of her speaking. ~ Fred Thomas