For a little over a week, Ye has been teasing the release of a deluxe version for his tenth album, Donda. He recently spoke about it during an appearance on the Drink Champs podcast, and while exact details behind the deluxe were not revealed, but luckily for those who were excited to press play on the updated album, it’s finally here. On Sunday evening, Ye released the deluxe version of Donda complete with five new songs that extends the already-lengthy album to a total of 32 songs.
The new additions include the previously-leaked “Life Of The Party” with Andre 3000, which features a new verse from Ye. The track also features audio from a beloved video featuring the late DMX which sees him comforting his daughter while they ride a rollercoaster together. Ye also added sequels to “Remote Control,” which features Kid Cudi in addition to Young Thug, and “Keep My Spirit Alive,” which brings in KayCyy to join Conway The Machine and Westside Gunn. The last two additions to the deluxe version of Donda are “Never Abandon Your Family” and “Up From The Ashes.”
— Channel 220 Network (@The220Podcast) April 8, 2021
The new release comes after a number of Ye clones were spotted in New York City. The clones mimicked Ye’s Donda-era look by rocking black pants, black bomber jackets, a black baseball cap, and a beige prosthetic mask.
Donda (Deluxe) is out now via GOOD Music/Def Jam. Get it here.
Young Thug is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
It’s almost three months since Ye released his tenth album Donda. The project came out more than a year after the rapper first announced it, and it was also preceded by a trio of listening sessions that took place in stadiums in Chicago and Atlanta. A deluxe reissue of the album is on the way, which he revealed during an appearance on the podcast Drink Champs earlier this week. That led to quite the odd occurrence in New York City over the weekend.
Clones of Ye were seen walking around New York City, dressed in black pants, black bomber jackets, and black baseball caps — a look that Ye has been wearing publicly throughout the album’s rollout. The clones were also seen wearing a beige prosthetic mask, just like the one he wore last month during a meeting with former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. The mob of clones seems to tie in with the promotion of Donda as someone spotted a billboard that reads “Kanye West Presents Donda Deluxe.”
This all comes after J. Prince somehow convinced Ye to set aside his longstanding beef with Drake. If Drake accepts the olive branch, the two rappers will collaborate for a benefit concert that advocates for the release of Chicago gang founder Larry Hoover.
Ye’sDonda seemingly took forever to come out. The project arrived more than a year after it was originally announced and after three album listening sessions held in major stadiums in Atlanta and Chicago. Thankfully, the wait came to an end at the end of August when the rapper released the project complete with 27 songs and guest appearances from Jay-Z, Lil Durk, Young Thug, Roddy Ricch, The LOX, Lil Baby, The Weeknd, Playboi Carti, Kid Cudi, Don Toliver, Ty Dolla Sign, and more. Two months after Donda was released, Ye is seemingly gearing up to release a deluxe version of the album.
A Twitter user shared two screenshots of teasers for a deluxe reissue for Donda on Twitter. The first appear on the platform’s Italy page and was captioned, “A deluxe version of Yeezus’ tenth recording miracle,” while the second appeared on Apple Music’s Germany page. Ye or anyone in his camp has to confirm when the deluxe would arrive or whether or not one is in the works in the first place.
This comes after the rapper’s Donda stem players were finally delivered to fans who purchased it. The device allows “customize any song” and control vocals, drums, bass, and samples, isolate certain parts of a song, as well as add effects. The stem players were also delivered three unreleased songs — “Life Of The Party,” “Up From The Ashes,” and “Never Abandon Your Family” — in addition to Ye’s complete tenth album.
You can view the screenshots of the Apple Music teasers for Donda deluxe above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Just days before Kanye West finally released his tenth album Donda, it was revealed that the rapper would be packaging purchases of the album with a stem player that allows its users to “customize any song.” The product’s features let users control vocals, drums, bass, and samples, isolate certain parts of a song, and add effects. It also supports Bluetooth capabilities and features a headphone jack, volume buttons, speakers, a haptic engine, and 8GB of storage. Two months after it was made available, the stem player is finally being delivered and it appears that the device certainly lives up to the hype. Furthermore, Kanye uploaded three more songs, in addition to the entirety of Donda, to the stem player.
The first song that was added is a censored version of “Life Of The Party,” featuring Andre 3000. For those who remember, the song was thrown into the middle of West and Drake’s beef after the latter leaked it during a late-night radio broadcast. Andre spoke out about the song being leaked in a statement, writing, “It’s unfortunate that it was released in this way and two artists that I love are going back and forth.”
The other two songs that were added are the official version of “Up From The Ashes” — a track that was a last-minute scratch from West 2019 album Jesus Is King, according to HipHopNMore — and a final and complete version of “Never Abandon Your Family.” Additionally, Kid Cudi appears on “Remote” with Young Thug after he was removed from the digital version of the track.
You can check out previews of the added songs as well as how the stem player works all together in the videos above.
Young Thug is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
This Friday marks a bit moment for the music world: the release of a new Young Thug album. The Atlanta rapper is gearing up to share P*NK, which fans have spent the better part of two months waiting for after he announced it during an NPR Tiny Desk performance over the summer. Thug sat down with Complex for an interview, where he spoke about Kanye West and how he ended up on his tenth album, Donda.
“I just hit Kanye like, ‘Bro, if I ain’t on the album, we are not speaking,’” he said to Complex’s Erik Skelton. He explained his take on the legendary superstar. “What n****s don’t know about Kanye West is he’s a real n***a,” Thug said. “He’s a billionaire, and all that sh*t is cool, but in real life, he could survive in the trenches. If he go to the trenches, the jungle, he could survive. He a real n***a.”
So far, Thug has only shared one single from the album, namely “Tick Tock.”
It looks like Kanye West still isn’t done with Donda. The rapper has been continuously making changes to the album he released at the end of August, including removing Chris Brown from “New Again.” He’s also looking to use the name for an upcoming tech line. According to legal documents that were obtained by TMZ, West filed a trademark application on September 21 that would allow him to use the album title on a wide array of tech products.
Some potential products that West would include in the line are tablet computers, audio speakers, surround sound systems, smartwatches, smart glasses, wearable activity trackers, protective flip cover for tablets, earbuds, headphones, and wireless headsets for both computers and mobile devices. If things go as planned, West may also look to add wireless receivers that come on jewelry and smart rings, as well as downloadable electronic publications that include books, magazines, journals, brochures, leaflets, pamphlets, and newsletters.
There’s no telling when this tech line would launch, but if it does, it could prove to be a big success. Until then, fans can stay tuned for a possible upcoming collaboration between West, Post Malone, and Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold, as the trio was captured in the studio together. West will also join Mike Dean on the production team for Ghostface Killah’s upcoming album, Supreme Clientele 2, which the Wu-Tang rapper says will arrive in February 2022.
Kanye West is (in)famous for making changes to his albums after they have been released, and Donda seemed especially prone to that given that West claimed his label released the project without his approval. Now, West has indeed made alterations to Donda, some of which are significant, including the removal of Chris Brown from the album.
Users in the r/hiphopheads subreddit noted that two versions of Donda appeared on streaming platforms, one being the original version and the other being the altered edition. Now, though, it appears only one version of Donda remains. As for the changes, fans noted that Brown’s vocals on “New Again” were replaced by new ones from West and the Sunday Service Choir. Meanwhile, on “Keep My Spirit Alive,” a new hook from West also replaces the original from KayCyy. Beyond that, there are some more subtle mixing changes throughout the album.
Brown is of course a controversial figure given his various legal and personal issues over the years, but it’s not clear if that was part of why West removed him from the album or if other factors were in play. West has yet to offer a public statement about what compelled him to make these new Donda alterations.
It’s been about a month since Kanye West’s finally released his tenth album, Donda, which arrived after multiple pump fakes, including three listening sessions and numerous un-met release dates. Now West has taken to Instagram to unveil a new video for “Donda Chant,” the album’s big opener. It finds the rapper using clips from the Chicago listening event for the album as well as images of his late mother, who died in 2007.
The video arrives after Mike Dean shared an interesting tidbit about the creative process behind Donda. “Kanye had three listening parties, so each listening party was like a test, kind of,” he said during an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “And after each one, I think he wanted… I can’t talk too much about his process. He took all the information he got from everyone — including online reviews, personal friends’ reviews — and he just kind of digested it all and adjusted the album the way he wants.”
In addition to “Donda Chant,” Kanye has also released videos for “24” and “Come To Life.” Donda also became the rapper’s tenth No. 1 album, making him one of eight artists to do this.
Kanye West’s fascination with the afterlife forms the basis of his latest Donda video, “24.” The video appears to be an excerpt from Kanye’s third listening event for the album at Chicago’s Soldier Field, during which he simulated his ascension to heaven as his late mom (for whom the album is titled) watches on beatifically.
It’s only the second video to emerge from the album’s lengthy, chaotic rollout, after “Come To Life” also made use of a part of the Chicago listening in which Kanye was literally set on fire. And while the spectacle of his listening events and the hype for the album was enough to lift the project to the top of the Billboard albums chart, it certainly had its shortcomings, detractors, and downfalls, as collaborators like Soulja Boy and Todd Rundgren criticized the recording process (as well as its final result), Drake allegedly trolled Kanye by leaking his Andre 3000 collaboration (disappointing both Andre and Tyler The Creator in the process), and Drake’s Certified Lover Boyout-streamedDonda on its way to replacing it atop the Billboard 200. With all the drama swirling around the album, perhaps releasing more videos will return focus back to the music.
Ever since Drake first exploded onto the mainstream stage in 2009 with his groundbreaking EP So Far Gone, he’s been a magnet for capital-D Discourse, as fans struggle to hash out his place in the rap world and whether or not there’s any deeper meaning behind his existence.
To those people, I say: “Give it a rest.”
Pardon me for getting meta for a bit, but the album cycle for Drake’s new album, Certified Lover Boy, has just been exhausting — and for me, it has only highlighted the many, many shortcomings of the way we talk about albums in the social media/streaming era.
As for the album itself, it’s, well, a Drake album. It’s by turns boastful and maudlin, filled to the brim with vapid, faux soul-searching and spite for exes, and features all the exuberance and sonic scene sampling you’ve come to expect from The Boy. The standouts highlight his self-awareness (“I’m Too Sexy” featuring Future and Young Thug features a Right Said Fred interpolation so on-the-nose, you wonder how any of them can draw breath to utter their tongue-in-cheek rhymes), Drake offers up a plethora (nay, an entire encyclopedia) of caption-able, petty, passive-aggressive Drake-isms (“Girls Want Girls” and its infamous “lesbian” line), and the producers craft the inescapably catchy, murky soundscapes that have been his signature since ’09 (“TSU” is a favorite).
Either this stuff works for you or it doesn’t. No amount of flowery language or bullying will cajole you into changing your opinion — and maybe that’s the problem. It’s more of the disposable, pleasant, middle-of-the-road pop-rap of the type Drake perhaps had the biggest hand in popularizing — why can’t that be enough?
Because it hasn’t seemed to be enough to just enjoy the biggest rap albums of the day lately. No, having a Take has become paramount to having an opinion and you absolutely must have a Take about everything all at once. So much of the initial response to Drake’s release has focused on its relation to another album that came out recently: Kanye West’s much-hyped Donda. From the respective rollouts to speculative “beef” between the two former collaborators to comparing their streaming numbers less than a week since the release of Certified Lover Boy, so little of the discussion focuses on the music that it almost feels like the music itself is just an afterthought.
Within moments of CLB dropping on streaming services (shortly after an announcement that it would arrive later than usual — a seemingly pointed jab at Kanye’s inevitable tardiness), fans were already calling it album of the year, a classic, trash, or comparing it to Kendrick Lamar’s as-yet-unannounced follow-up to DAMN. Mind you, these were people who couldn’t possibly have listened to much more than the first song or two before making such pronouncements. Hyperbolic or facetious as they may have been, they added more fuel to the dumpster fire that is rap discourse.
Picking a side and adamantly defending it is the stuff of Stan wars on Twitter but it is utterly bonkers behavior to me. I’ve always thought that if people needed competition so badly they could join an adult league. They have those for just about any sport, game, or hobby you can think of, and it would be infinitely healthier than arguing with strangers on the internet about something that is just supposed to be entertaining.
Meanwhile, there are so many tweets and essays and reviews and think pieces about why Drake needs to talk about something else other than women who’ve hurt him. Why? That’s like, the overwhelming majority of what pop music has focused on for the last fifty years. I’d rather see some acknowledgment given to Drake’s nods to the breadth of that history, his efforts to preserve and highlight regional heroes like Project Pat and OG Ron C (sampled on “TSU,” prompting an outcry because of the prosaic ways copyright law forced an R. Kelly songwriting credit into a song that doesn’t feature R. Kelly in any significant way). That’s needed; just see the way “Who is Project Pat?” inflamed and informed the discussion for a few hours after the album’s release.
Drake’s songwriting is staid? Okay. “Race My Mind” is about a booty call, absolutely, but the song is constructed around a deft Rick James reference. “Give It To Me Baby” is as old as Drake himself; this subject isn’t new or unique to him. If anything, it’s timeless, and has been relatable since before drunk texting was even a possibility — a possibility Drake uses his songwriting to reflect, because songwriters talk about the world around them. It doesn’t even have to be recent or even Drake talking about himself at all! The assumption that it is shows how much we limit writers, especially those in rap, to autobiography. It’s also pretty telling that when it comes to rap, we default to “beef” and “keeping it real” — constructs that are intrinsic to hip-hop culture, yes, but seemingly exaggerated and constraining when applied to every single major release. These storylines keep popping up in relation to rap and rappers and I think that says a lot about how we see the people most associated with the music.
A friend pointed out on Twitter that at some point, analysis became punditry, and nothing has backed up that argument like the way the Discourse surrounding major releases has devolved into a repetition of the same tired Twitter tropes. There’s no digging, there’s little appreciation, and we seemingly can’t even agree to disagree without things getting contentious. When everybody is competing to have the “most woke” outlook, you can’t help but have these ostensibly progressive debates about representation of women on these albums that actually flatten and denigrate much-needed discussions. (Why are we counting? What’s the correct quota of female features? Why do the women need the approval of or cosigns from these overgrown manchildren in the first place?).
It’d be great if music was just fun again. Or if, instead of feeling like we all have to weigh in on the biggest names, we could plug our favorite alternatives. Little Simz dropped a truly fantastic project the same day as Certified Lover Boy. What if all those people who want to hear more women’s voices in rap supported that album instead of arguing all day about whether Certified Lover Boy was “better” than Donda or insisting that Kendrick Lamar would blow both out of the water? The most frustrating part is that, in reading Drake’s Apple Music description of his latest album, it became really obvious (if it wasn’t already from the ridiculous album cover and the month of back-and-forth trolling between him and Kanye) that he’s been in on the joke the entire time. We should be laughing along, not getting mad because he gave us exactly what we want.
Certified Lover Boy is out now via OVO/Republic Records. Get it here.
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