Kanye West held a live listening event on July 22nd for his new album, Donda. The sold out event was held at the Mercedes-Benz arena in Atlanta, GA. This is Ye’s first studio album since 2019’s Jesus is King and tenth in his career.
The album’s title, Donda, comes from his mother, Donda West who tragically passed away in 2007.
If you’d like more info on Donda West’s passing, check out this in depth explanation from Trap Lore Ross:
In true Kanye fashion, the event started 2 hours late. That didn’t deter fans who were streaming the event via Apple Music to stick around for the show.
At 10 PM, the album began to play. Rather than going on one of his famous rants, he remained silent and let the record speak for itself.
Ye had another surprise in store; a track featuring Jay-Z. The pair last collaborated way back in 2011 for their Watch The Throne album.
And that’s where this post was supposed to end. Until we all realized that Donda was not uploaded to streaming platforms the day after the listening event.
Kanye explained that the album “wasn’t finished” and he would be living at the Mercedez Benz arena until the project was complete.
On August 6th, he hosted another listening event that drew another sold out crowd. After this, surely the album would be available on Spotify…
Not a chance. The album is apparently still a work in progress and the last update we were given is that Donda would drop on August 15th (latest report as of this post).
The chances of that may be slim, but we can hold out hope. Some fans have developed theories on what they think will happen with the release of this record. Here’s one particularly interesting one from Trap Lore Ross:
What do you think? Will Donda be released on 8/15? Will it ever reach streaming services at all?
We’ll be sure to update you as the story develops.
EDIT: 8/30/21
After another live listening event which featured Marilyn Manson (not performing, just…hanging out on stage), Kanye finally blessed us with Donda on streaming services just yesterday.