Where is Kanye West’s Donda album? The 10th studio album for the rapper is yet to be released.
Kanye is known for his chaotic creative process, often changing albums both before and after release. Donda appears to be no different, suffering from its creator’s perfectionism even after two live release parties at the Mercedes-Benz theater in Atlanta.
Donda was first teased in March 2020 with a tentative July 2020 release date. But since then, Kanye has changed nearly every conceivable detail he’s released about the album in the last 18 months. While Kanye is supposedly working hard to ‘finish’ the album for fans, here’s a peek at how it all got started.
Kanye West Donda Production Timeline
On March 23, 2020 Pusha T revealed on Twitter that he was working on new music with Kanye before the pandemic hit. A few days later on March 25, a Wall Street Journal feature contained a snippet that West was “preparing to record a new album in Mexico.”
Things were quiet again until April 16, 2020. A GQ cover feature with writer Will Welch revealed he spent time with Kanye in Mexico in March. “I heard a number of new songs at various stages of completion,” the writer confirmed. In an interview with West, Kanye asked “Have I ever not done anything I said I was going to do? I made it back from addiction, I beat the predictions, brought real to the fictions,” that’s off the new album he adds.
On June 26, 2020 the Kanye West Twitter account lit up with a flurry of activity. He announced the collaboration between Yeezy and GAP. Other teased projects include a Dr. Dre version of Jesus is King and a video for the new single “Wash Us in the Blood.”
On June 30, Kanye released “Wash Us in the Blood.”
On July 13, Kanye celebrated the 71st birthday of his late mother by dropping a new two-minute song on Twitter. The track opens with a recording of his mother reciting lyrics from ‘Sound of Da Police.’ Pretty soon, Kanye deleted the tweet and the track.
On July 18, Kanye teased his new album Donda again. He promised the album would drop on July 24 and posted a track-list to Twitter. A few days later on July 21, he posts an entirely new tracklist with 12 songs containing 39 minutes of music. The tracklist is completely different from the one released just days before.
On July 25, with fans tweeting at him about the album, Kanye revealed the Donda album artwork. The artwork looks similar to something a spraypaint can artist on the streets of LA might make if asked to design a Kanye album cover.
On July 28, Lil Baby tweets a video of himself at Kanye’s ranch in Wyoming. Lil Baby confirmed he is working on new music with Kanye after the two connected on Twitter.
Kanye soon began to focus on his presidential run, instead of promoting the Donda album.
Fans began to believe the Donda album had been shelved entirely. Even after the November elections, Kanye tweeted KANYE 2024 with no mention of Donda. But on March 9, CyHi says Kanye began work on Donda again after taking a break in December and January.
On July 18, Kanye hosted a surprise listening party for Donda in Las Vegas. Justin LaBoy attended the party, writing on Twitter: “The production is light years ahead of its time, and the bars sound like he’s broke & hungry trying to get signed again.”
That private listening party was a teaser for the main event on July 22. West announced the listening party would be streamed from the Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Apple Music. The listening party included West’s estranged wife, Kim Kardashian.
On August 5, Kanye livestreamed from his bunker in the bowels of the Atlanta stadium. He has been living there since the first listening party. But news has broke that Kanye has moved to another stadium to finish the album.
Now, Apple Music is listing August 13 as the new release date for Donda. So where is Kanye West’s Donda album? Only the man himself knows at this point.
August 19 – Kanye West has announced a third listening party for the Donda album, this time at Soldier Field in Chicago. The album has a new tentative release date of August 26 this time. West’s manager has confirmed on Twitter that the album will absolutely drop on this date – we’ll see.