Kanye West

Someday, Kanye West may actually release Donda, the album for which he has already hosted two stadium-sized listening events. The album has already missed multiple expected release dates, including today, August 13. Information on that front isn’t really pouring out of West’s camp, but regardless, the album has a new projected release day: August 20.

Again, that’s not according to anybody on West’s team, but rather, the current Apple Music listing for the album. Furthermore, the page shows off a 24-song tracklist, but without any song titles, save for “Hurricane” featuring The Weeknd and Lil Baby. The listing indicates that users can listen to that song now, but it doesn’t appear to be available in the US (or the UK either, per NME). The tracklist also has star icons attached to Track 1, 2 (“Hurricane”), 8, 9, 12, 17, and 19.

Meanwhile, it seems like a good idea for West to keep hosting his Donda listening parties, at least from a financial perspective: It was reportedly recently that from the two listening events, West made a combined $7 million dollars just from merch sales. The second event also broke viewership records on Apple Music. As for West, it would seem he’s still holed up in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, despite rumors that he was relocating.

Two Kanye West listening events for his album Donda have come and gone with no album yet, but according to Billboard, perhaps the music wasn’t really the point of the events after all. Sources told Billboard that the official merchandise sales from the two events combined totaled $7 million — the same amount as the Yeezy x Gap down jacket Kanye dropped in the middle of the night on his birthday reportedly banked in that one night. Meanwhile, he’s likely set to double down — no pun intended — with a preorder link for the jacket he wore to the listening going live last week.

The listening event also broke Apple Music records for viewership, dragging in well over 5 million eyeballs, making it one of the most-watched livestream events within the past year. The album, which is tentatively set for release this Friday, was apparently recorded in the same venue in which Kanye held his listening events, as he had a room set up in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium where he slept, recorded, and streamed his activities leading up to the second listening event last week. That stream also featured a quick shot of Kanye in his underwear, prompting a minor frenzy among fans on Twitter.

The Donda era is already turning out to be both lucrative and expensive for Kanye, but will it pay off for fans as well? Hopefully, we’ll find out on Friday.

It’s been almost three weeks since Kanye West meant to — but didn’t — drop his tenth album, Donda. The rapper previously said the album, which he first announced last summer, would arrive on July 23, 2021, following a listening session at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. While the event went as planned, the album was not released — and still hasn’t been, even after a second listening event. Donda currently has a tentative release day of Friday, August 13, but fans will have to wait until that day to see if it actually drops. But it seems that the project has been a success, at least for him, even though he has yet to even release the album.

According to Billboard, West’s second listening event for Donda, which occurred on August 5, set a new livestream record on Apple Music, garnering 5.4 million viewers. That number is still short of the 6.1 million people that watched the 2020 Primetime Emmys last September, which makes the second Donda listening session one of the most-watched livestream events within the past year. The second livestream also amassed some $7 million in revenue thanks to in-person purchases made at the stadium.

In the meantime, it’s been reported that “Hurricane,” a track from Donda with The Weeknd and Lil Baby, could arrive as the first single for the album.

Among other things, Kanye West has a reputation for not releasing albums on time. His upcoming LP Donda, named after his late mother, was delayed until last Friday but has still yet to be released. The rapper is currently holed up at a stadium as he finishes the album and a collaborator seemingly gave an update on its delay, saying they planned on moving arenas. But it now looks like that may not actually be the case.

West hosted a first Donda listening party at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium last month before he decided to make it his temporary home while putting the finishing touches on his release. But shortly after Donda didn’t arrive as planned last Friday, West’s collaborator KayCyy took to Twitter to say, “We moving to another stadium.”

The tweet was swiftly deleted, but not before it made the rounds on the internet. KayCyy has now issued an update, saying the original tweet was posted by hackers. “4 of my tweets were hacks … I will not be on twitter anymore for the rest of the week,” he wrote.

KayCyy then informed his followers that he and West were not moving to another stadium after all.

The exact date that fans can finally expect to hear Donda still remains unclear, though streaming services now report that it can be heard on August 13. The rapper did seem to have an excuse as to why it didn’t drop on Friday, however. Apparently, West had noticed a mistake in the album’s mixing during his last listening party, which may have contributed to yet another delay.

After his first Donda listening event at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Kanye West confirmed the rumors that he was temporarily living in the venue while he finished work on the album. Now, it appears he’s moving out, but not back into a more traditional sort of home. Instead, it appear he’s relocating to another stadium.

This news comes via West collaborator KayCyy, who noted in a now-deleted tweet (as XXL reports), “We moving to another stadium.”

As the publication notes, other stadiums in the Atlanta area to which West could move include State Farm Arena, Truist Park, and Russ Chandler Stadium. Of course, there’s also the possibility that West will land in a stadium in a different part of the world entirely.

As for when Donda will be released, that remains unclear. West apparently noticed a mixing mistake during his second Donda listening event, so there’s still work to be done. As it stands now, streaming platforms like Apple Music say the album is set for this week, August 13, although neither West nor anybody from his team have made that announcement. Even if there was a confirmed release date, though, West has proven, with this album and previous efforts, that these deadlines can’t necessarily be treated as gospel.