He invited Pusha T to perform his latest Ye-produced single ‘Diet Coke’, while Migos and Future traded bars with Ye over trap and bass heavy tracks. It was a beautiful reckoning of death and life, burial and resurrection.īesides the choir’s performances, Ye revealed a lineup of surprise guests – some new and some a re-collabs – like Jack Harlow on ‘Louie Bags’, a track paying homage to Ye’s late friend and Louis Vuitton’s artistic director Virgil Abloh (“ I stopped buying Louis bags after Virgil passed”). They eased the erratic energy of the show when they sang the religious testament ‘Jesus Is Lord’ and the prayer ‘Requiem Aeternam’ their symphonic voices filled all directions of the arena with a sombre tone, as if the crowd had entered a funeral procession. What Ye lacked in movement, his Sunday Service Choir made up for.ĭonning Squid Games-like black costumes and masks, they flowed onto the scene, criss-crossing and marching the perimeter of the stage until they all lined up in rows in front of Ye and the burning house. Stomping the water and dancing in front of the house as a simulation of Pluto burned as the backdrop, Ye stayed mostly in one spot throughout the night, pantomiming his songs like he was doing karaoke with friends instead of performing projects he had poured time and energy into. The melodic hook was captivating and grounded the song, as Ye emerged dressed in his uniform of black Balenciaga croc boots, jeans and a shiny black puffer coat. Blasting speakers drowned out most of the vocals on the track tentatively titled ‘True Love’, featuring late Florida artist XXXTentacion. Over two hours after the advertised 8PM start time, a visual of a heart symbol, which appeared on his Stem Player website and during a livestream of the show, signified that Ye was about to arrive.Īlmost half-an-hour later, at 10:45, the stadium went black and Ye’s childhood home ignited into flames as the first song belted into the stadium. I hadn’t noticed the heartbeat sound until it began to swell the stadium with excitement and anticipation. So far, he’s made over $2 million in sales on the device – although the album has yet to drop.Ī rhythmic thudding soon began to reverberate throughout the arena. Most of this speculation emerged from the fact that the album was ensconced in mystery: Ye had announced he would only be releasing ‘Donda 2’ on the Stem Player, the device that he debuted around the first ‘Donda’. Some, coalescing around this show, assumed that Ye would surprise listeners with a divergent sound unlike anything that’s currently being heard. Still, fans conversed on their interpretation of the charred home and what would be different this time around. Billows of smoke made the scene look even more harrowing. For almost three hours, we stared at a burnt rendering of his Chicago childhood home – which was also recreated for last year’s ‘Donda’ listening parties in Atlanta and Chicago – stilted on an-all black platform brimming with water.
On a clear-skied, breezy Tuesday night, fans filled the LoanDepot Park stadium in Miami, Florida, to experience what was advertised as a ‘Donda 2’ experience rather than another janky listening party.
But what could have been an opportunity to button up the discord on ‘Donda’ (named after his late mother) has just turned into a continuum of chaos. When Ye – formally known as Kanye West – revealed that he would be releasing a sequel to last year’s ‘Donda’ on 2/22/22, a palindrome day that marked the US’ first Pluto return, it seemed possible that this album rollout would represent some kind of metamorphosis.
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