Original image by There Stands the Glass.
I drove from Portland to Mount Hood a few hours after Donda was released. Approaching the landmark while hearing Kanye West’s long-awaited tenth album for the first time was an unforgettable experience. The increasingly imposing Mount Hood played peekaboo through the Oregon forest amid the plentiful twists and turns on U.S. Route 26. Donda provided a correspondingly awe-inspiring soundtrack.
Just as calling Mount Hood a big pile of lava is misleading, to say Donda is unwieldy is a gross understatement. Donda’s overwhelming scale initially causes it to seem incomprehensible. Even though complaining about an excess of music from the most talented and influential figure in popular music of the past 20 years is churlish, the flabby album would benefit from the ruthless trimming of an unforgiving editor.
Pruned to four minutes, “Jesus Lord” would be an instant classic. Yet “Jesus Lord” is stretched to nine minutes on the 108-minute Donda. The 23-minute addendum of alternate versions of four songs tacked on to the end of Donda exacerbates the flaw. In spite of its cumbersome length, Donda is a tour de force.
Donda is a somewhat conservative consolidation of West’s career. Two elements prevent the ruminative perspective from being a nostalgic regression. He attempts- and like all his brethren in faith, fails- to uphold the Christian tenets he’s embraced in recent years. The palpable tension between the sacred and profane is delectable.
An astonishing parade of guests likewise invigorates Donda. “Off the Grid,” one of Donda’s most immediately accessible songs- is bolstered by the presence of current star Playboi Carti. Few things in recent memory make me happier than hearing the breakout Griselda crew members Conway the Machine and Westside Gunn collaborate with West on “Keep My Spirit Alive.” The youthful coterie is balanced by the contributions of veterans including Buju Banton, Jay Electronica and Jay-Z.
Dad jokes, verses about parental responsibilities and acknowledgements of marital woes further reinforce West’s generational status. As one of West’s famous rivals might suggest, what a time to be alive! One day West will be as dormant as Mount Hood. Yet appreciative fans will relish scrutinizing Donda’s gloriously imperfect cataclysmic eruptions for decades.