I want to preface this article by saying that I love Kanye, and I most certainly miss the old Kanye. But what he has produced with his new album, Donda, is one of his best works. Named after his late mother, Donda West, the Album explores Kanye’s relationship with his mother, his family, and learning to accept the death of his mother and move on with his life. I will guide your hand through this album and tell you why it’s so good, what sucks about it, and what areas it knocked out of the park. 

We start the Album with Donda Chant, which matches the dying heartbeat of his mother with an uttering of Donda at each beat, a very weird song if you don’t know the backstory. Then we Hop right into Jail, which features the best guitar rip that takes over the song, and a Jay Z feature. It is possibly one of the best things I’ve ever heard, but its lyrics are inconsistent and hard to make out at times, showing Kanye’s grief at the start of the album for his mother and how he feels like he’s in Jail with grief. The next song God breathed is terrible, and sounds unfinished, truly one of the worst Kanye songs I’ve ever heard. God Breathed is followed by an incredible three track run of Off The Grid, Hurricane and Praise God, which have some of the best features on the album and are excellent in general. 

The midpoint of the album, Donda, signifies the switch in the album’s tone from more gritty, rockish tones to more lighter, gospel tracks. The first of these is New Again which has Kanye’s best hook ever if Gold Digger didn’t exist. Then we get Jesus Lord, Which is a top 5 Kanye song. It has the second best storytelling from Kanye I’ve ever heard. The song is about Kanye’s mom, and the loss he feels, and the loss the black community feels when a loved one is taken from them by the capitalistic system that they are surrounded in. 

Kanye has never made me as mad as the amount of times he teased this album and didn’t come out with it, but man was it worth it. This is my second favorite Kanye Album, behind The Life Of Pablo, and it gave me everything I could possibly ask for in a Kanye Album. Thank you Kanye, from the bottom of my heart, honestly. No one who I don’t know lifts me up the way you do.