The Rebirth of Kanye West
What Donda reveals about Kanye West’s spiritual growth over the past decade
(GQ)
BY JACK KUBINEC
On August 26th, Kanye West fans flocked to Soldier Field in Chicago where the rapper was holding what would be the third and final listening party for his tenth studio album, Donda. Rather than performing from a conventional stage, West had a replica of his childhood home in southside Chicago built atop a mound of dirt in the middle of the stadium. When West played the album for the 38,000 fans in attendance, the output borrowed heavily from the musical palettes of earlier Kanye albums 808s and Heartbreak, Yeezus, and Jesus is King.
Detractors have criticized Donda for sounding like a collection of B-sides from West’s prior work, but using novelty as the measuring stick for artistic quality misses the point of the record. The beauty of Donda lies not in any new musical or thematic venture for Kanye but in the rapper’s ability to find freedom from troubles that have been cropping up in his life for as long as he has been in the public eye.
The circumstances surrounding Donda’s release are nothing new for longtime Kanye listeners. West brought high-profile artists and producers into a studio he had rented out indefinitely and created an album in the wake of a well-publicized split with his spouse, an erratic public persona, and persistent grief over the death of his mother.
These details fit the precise mold that surrounded the release of West’s 2010 magnum opus, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy — at the time, West had just split with his then-fiance, Amber Rose, had been (the 2010 equivalent of) cancelled for interrupting Taylor Swift at the VMAs, and had been taking time to mourn his mother’s 2007 passing. Donda, then, is best analyzed in conversation with Dark Fantasy, of which Donda seems to be a kind of reinterpretation.
Donda and Dark Fantasy approach the same narrative from different sides. In Dark Fantasy, West plays the role of a brash celebrity-genius, delivering verse after verse about his opulent lifestyle and emotionally damaged state without ever finding real meaning or closure, resulting in a fascinating meditation on the perils of fame. In one moment, West is driving a Lamborghini and finding “bravery” in his “bravado.” In the next, West is yelling into the void, reflecting on his split with Amber Rose but lacking the depth of character to confess any wrongdoing.
On Donda, West drops the facade and lets his scars take center stage. On the album’s lead single, “Hurricane,” West again raps about his high-profile lifestyle but this time litters his verse with references to hitting rock bottom, attending Alcoholics Anonymous and seeking truth in his relationship with Kim Kardashian. On “Moon,” West enlists Don Toliver to perform a hook that plays like a child crying out to his mother, begging her, “Don’t leave so soon.”
West closed his Chicago listening party with what is perhaps Donda’s most poignant track, “Come to Life.” Over an instrumental that begins with synth chords that slowly melt into a glittering piano, West croons about his wife and children while wondering aloud why none of his visions for his personal life have come to fruition.
As the song blared through loudspeakers on that warm summer evening in Chicago, the Soldier Field lights dimmed, and West sat alone in a wooden chair in the replica of his childhood home, an overgrown boy still dealing with the same troubles that were plaguing him over a decade ago. Amid this feeling of nostalgia and missed expectations at the listening party, West suddenly burst into flames and walked out of the replica house on fire.
It is pertinent to Donda’s meaning that West set himself, rather than his childhood home, on fire. Rather than trying to escape his past, West has learned to live with it. As a recently-converted Christian, he instead chooses to symbolically die to himself, so that he can finally come to life, and have it abundantly.
SOURCES
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/08/kanye-west-donda-review/619934/
https://www.foxnews.com/story/kanye-wests-tour-canceled-weeks-after-embarrassing-taylor-swift-incident