Kanye West dropped his booming album, “Donda” on Aug. 29, 2021. There were many mixed emotions attached to this album. It is 27 tracks including euphoric highs that lack connectivity. I see this album as West searching for a higher calling in terms of audience approval and keeping his name in the business. Regardless, whether or not you enjoyed the album, its popularity did not go unnoticed. There were an insane number of streams and listeners showing not only the popularity of Kanye West, but the public’s love for his music as well. The album includes 357 million streams, a weekly record for the year, and 37,000 copies, sold as a complete package. 

The album did have some very pleasing songs that many were glad to see in the release. My three favorite songs in this album were “Off the Grid,” “Jesus Lord,” and “Pure Souls.” These three tracks showed extreme versatility and employed a rhythm that is prime Kanye West. These projects have found a way to do something new and creative with certain melodic and lyric combinations, and each track has a deep meaning when you really dig into the lyrics. My least favorite tracks on the album were “24,” “Remote Control,” and “Moon.” In all honesty, some of these songs had very little meaning, which tended to bore me. I was not pleased with how Kanye reused lyrics multiple times in different songs. It created for a repetitive album that did not live up to its original hype. 

The biggest controversy of it all was that Kanye West claimed that he did not give Universal Studios his permission to release “Donda.” West took to Instagram with a post claiming that the label did not have his permission to release it. Universal then responded by presenting West’s actions as “preposterous.” The twenty-fourth track on the album, “Jail pt.2” was not released until hours after the rest of the album had debuted. The reasoning behind all this was that Kanye did not want to release “Jail pt.2” without a hit feature, Dababy’s permission. 

Overall, Kanye’s album was disappointing. Minus a couple great songs, the album lacked the typical Kanye jazz and spice that most of his songs consist of. I would give the album a five out of 10 rating, solely because he is keeping himself relevant in social media, and he provided a few great songs in the album.