Album of the Month: August 2021

August 2021 started as a very slow month for music releases, but soon picked up pace as the month neared its end. While not every album was a winner, there were still plenty of enjoyable releases to dive into. Some of my favorite music from the month includes the sombre neoclassical darkwave of Lingua Ignota’s SINNER GET READY and I Hate Homecoming’s lo-fi Midwest emo on their self-titled debut record. However, it was ultimately the Christian experimental hip-hop on Kanye West’s long-awaited “Donda” that impressed me the most.

At this point, Kanye West needs no introduction. He has been a staple of the music industry for the past two decades, and his influence grows stronger with each passing year. On July 21, 2020, Kanye first declared “Donda’s” release date to be July 24. The album was neither released then, nor on multiple other announced release dates. “Donda” wasn’t released until 8 AM on Sunday, August 29th, 2021 (a date that, ironically, had never even been announced). I, like many others, feared that “Donda” would be a disappointment after over 13 months of anticipation. Luckily, “Donda” is Kanye’s greatest album since 2016’s The Life of Pablo and his third best album overall. This is quite a feat, considering his near-impeccable discography.

“Donda’s” narrative follows an arc that Kanye has explored multiple times throughout his career. On Yeezus, The Life of Pablo, KIDS SEE GHOSTS, and now, “Donda”, Kanye tells the story of someone who begins the album as lost, confused, and frustrated with their place in the world and ends the album finding solace in some aspect of their life, whether it be a significant other, family, hope for the future, or, as is the case of “Donda”, religion.

On the first track of the album, “Jail,” a booming bass announces Kanye’s struggle as he sings, “Take what you want/Take everything.” These lines put the album into context, as “Donda” takes place after Kanye’s divorce from Kim Kardashian. He feels that his life and everything he loves are being taken away from him. In the chorus, he shouts, “Guess who’s going to jail tonight?”, highlighting how he feels trapped inside a prison cell by the chaos of his life.

Kanye’s turmoil continues on the next track, “God Breathed”. Over a menacing instrumental combining industrial hip-hop and Christian liturgical music, Kanye contemplates his relationship with God. He believes God is present in his life but knows he isn’t doing enough for his faith, rapping “Fall far too often, yeah, call God but don’t call enough/Fall down but don’t fall in love, I know God is all in us.”

Next is “Off The Grid,” one of my personal favorites of the album. It does little to further the narrative, but Playboi Carti and Fivio Foreign both deliver great verses, followed by Kanye delivering perhaps the most technically proficient verse of his entire career. His verse also contains some of the most “Kanye” bars from his time as a musician: “Don’t try to test me, I keep it clean, but it can get messy/I talk to God every day, that’s my bestie/They playing soccer in the backyard, I think I see Messi.”

“Jonah” is Kanye’s lowest moment on the album, as he feels that he has no one left in his life to turn to. In the chorus, Vory sings, “Like who’s here when I need a shoulder to lean on?/I hope you’re here when I need the demons to be gone/And it’s not fair, I had to fight them all on my own.” After his bravado and braggadocio on previous tracks, he shows vulnerability and looks for a way to improve his mental health.

On the Lauryn Hill-sampling “Believe What I Say”, Kanye seems to regain some strength as he raps about not letting “the lifestyle drag you down”. He realizes that he is being blinded by the lights of fame and media notoriety, and he wants to go back to focusing on his friends and family: “Who knows, when was the last time you felt the love?”

“24” is a turning point on the album, where Kanye realizes that he wants to devote his life and art to religion, as opposed to the boasting and selfishness he previously displayed. In the chorus, his Sunday Service Choir sings, “Save me, yeah, make it alright/Bow our heads ‘cause it’s alright.” He sings about living your life to the fullest and focusing on the good things you have rather than those you desire: “Know you’re alive, God’s not finished/The Devil’s a lie, but now he’s finished.”

On “Heaven and Hell”, Kanye removes more of the facade and focuses on achieving a higher plane of faith over a minimalist beat, rapping, “No more promos, no more photos/No more logos, no more chokeholds.” The track’s title implies a dichotomy between the fame-driven life he lived beforehand and the faith-driven life he seeks to lead, making “Heaven and Hell” a perfect representation of the album’s main conflict.

Kanye finally embodies his desired lifestyle on “Jesus Lord”, when he takes full advantage of his platform to spread his faith. In the chorus, he concisely raps, “Tell me if you know someone that needs Jesus, Lord.” The highlight of the nine-minute track is undoubtedly Jay Electronica’s masterful verse, which features some of the best wordplay of the year.

The climax of the album comes a few tracks later on “Come to Life”. While this isn’t the greatest song Kanye has written, it is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful. This is possibly the first track in Kanye’s entire discography where his ego is entirely absent. It’s a display of total vulnerability over an ethereal synth line in the first half and a gorgeous post-minimalist piano line in the second. Kanye fears that he isn’t doing enough to improve both the world and himself and worries that his time is running out: “I been in the dark for so long/Night is always darkest ‘fore the dawn/Gotta make my mark ‘fore I’m gone/I don’t want to die alone.” He finalizes his decision to focus entirely on his family and God for the rest of his life, singing, “You the air that I breath, the ultra-ultralight beam/Brought a gift to Northie, all she want was Nikes/This is not about me, God is still alive, so I’m free”. For Kanye to say “This is not about me” after decades of building a career on egotism and bravado is a testament to his tremendous growth as both an artist and a person.

The album closes with “No Child Left Behind”, a beautiful and concise ambient pop track. While there are four tracks after this, they are all simply versions of previous songs on the album with different featured verses. Most of these are disappointing compared to their counterparts, apart from the outstanding “Jesus Lord pt 2”, which, in my opinion, should have taken the place of “Jesus Lord” on the album.

“Donda”, like Kanye himself, is deeply flawed. Some of the tracks, such as “Junya”, “Remote Control”, and “Tell The Vision”, are incredibly disappointing. I genuinely cannot understand why these tracks were included on an album that is already 108 minutes long. Without some of these filler tracks, “Donda” has the potential to be an even better album. “Tell The Vision” in particular is confusing. It’s a clip of a song from Pop Smoke’s new posthumous record, Faith. However, instead of just including the clip, Kanye made the decision to place Pop Smoke’s vocals over a new beat. The problem is that the old beat can still be heard under the new one, resulting in a dissonant and very poorly produced track that should have been excluded from the album.

“Donda” is a bloated and unorganized mess, but that’s what makes it so fascinating. It’s an unfiltered look into the struggles of a top artist. It features Kanye at his lowest moments (“Jonah” and “Jail”) and his highest (“Jesus Lord” and “Come to Life”). In this way, I view “Donda” as a twin record to The Life of Pablo; both albums offer a full kaleidoscopic view of an artist struggling to make sense of his place in both his family and the world. While overly long and messy, “Donda” is ultimately a beautiful and cohesive journey. It’s the sound of a man attempting to find purpose in his life after losing his family.

The Verdict: For its thorough narrative, futuristic production, and thematic scope, “Donda” is August 2021’s Album of the Month.

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