This time, Kanye gave us more songs that followed in the vein of Follow God. He stayed consistent with the theme of professing his spirituality and expressing his religious beliefs. But that content was layered with production that allowed him to give us more rap bars than singing melodies. Therefore when songs that had a more traditional Gospel feel like 24 and Come to Life started to play, it sounded better.
I have nothing against Gospel Music, but I am a Hip Hop Head at heart. So when I listen to someone who I consider one of the best Hip Hop producers of all time, I want to hear some Hip Hop music. I do understand it would have been a disservice to Kanye’s creative genius if he had just made the same Hip Hop music throughout his career. He has more than proven that he can’t be boxed in and that his musical greatness extends throughout all genres of music. However, I do feel like he is at his worst when he steers too far from his Hip Hop roots. That’s probably why the Kanye albums I dislike the most are Yeezus and Jesus is King.
Although this is not Kanye’s worst album, it is far from his best album. As I said, there are 27 songs on here and there are a ton of features. Almost every song has a different person on there. The album doesn’t seem like an album from Kanye the artist, but more of Kanye the producer putting out a collaboration album with other artists. To me, the two best songs on the album are Keep My Spirit Alive and Jesus Lord. The former is just a nice clean song that features Westside Gunn and Conway the Machine. The latter is a super dope song that features Jay Electronica and The Lox in the second version. I actually prefer the one without The Lox because it’s shorter. There is an outro from Larry Hoover Jr. and when you add The Lox to the song, it extends to over 11 minutes.
Overall, the album could have been shorter. When you chop off the four-part two songs off the album. With the two interludes and the confusing Pop Smoke verse, you are left with about 20 actual songs on Donda. Out of those 20 songs, I liked about nine of them. Which is not bad, but it’s not great. Maybe Kanye’s desire to be great in everything endeavor is what fuels him. The fact that he doesn’t hide that desire creates a spectacle that gives the impression that everything he is about to do will be great. In turn, when people don’t think the product doesn’t match the hype, he gets criticized.
This album was the perfect example of creating a buzz so big that it would have been almost impossible to match the hype. On the other hand, I think the album is worth a listen and a replay. It has moments that remind you that Kanye is one of the best to ever do it. Overall I will give Donda a C+.