Kanye West announces third 'Donda' album-listening event next week
Aug 19, 2021
Washington [US], August 19 : American singer and songwriter Kanye West, has announced a third public listening session for his still-unreleased 'Donda' album at the 60,000-plus-capacity Soldier Field stadium in his hometown of Chicago on Thursday, August 26.
According to Variety, the event will be held at 10 p.m. ET/ 9 p.m. CT/7 p.m., with tickets going live for sale on Friday. If the structure of this third instalment follows the first two, then the event will be live-streamed on Apple Music, and the album will remain unreleased. The album has been dramatically overhauled in the days since the last public listening session.
While West has recorded and teased or even announced release dates for multiple unreleased albums over the years, 'Donda' has had the most public gestation of them all, and of any album by a major artist in history.
There have been speculations that he is setting up a release-date battle with Drake, who has said he's finally finished his long-awaited 'Certified Lover Boy' album, similar to his release-date face-off with 50 Cent in 2007.
West debuted tracks from the album, which included a fiery cameo from Jay-Z, at a private listening session in Las Vegas on July 17, followed by a public event at Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium on July 22. After this the album was scheduled to be released, but wasn't, and then he basically moved into the stadium to work on the album.
He held another event at the Atlanta stadium on August 5, where he played a dramatically different version of the album, including several new songs, mixes and/or features, one of which was from the Weeknd.
Along with Jay-Z, the newer version of the album also features Lil Baby, Pusha T, Don Toliver, Kid Cudi, Fivio Foreign, Jhe Rooga, Lil Yachty, Playboi Carti, Travis Scott, Baby Keem, Young Thug, Vory, KayCyy, Roddy Ricch, Lil Durk, 070 Shake, Westside Gunn, Conway The Machine, Jay Electronica, Sheek Louch, Jadakiss, Styles P, Larry Hoover Jr, Pop Smoke, Francis and the Lights and West's Sunday Service Choir, along with quotes from his late mother, on whom the album is named.
Yet again, the album was scheduled to be released after the event but was not.
As per Variety, snippets of two songs, 'No Child Left Behind' and 'Glory', aired in Beats ads starring athlete Sha'carri Richardson. That commercial contained the only officially released music from 'Donda', although unauthorized recordings of both listening events can easily be found online.
