About Kanye West’s new album “Donda”, you may want to know this | HYPEBEAST

On August 29th, Kanye West released his tenth solo album “Donda” in the much-anticipated audience. This new album that has been rumored a few years ago and has a warm-up period of more than one year is this year. One of the most anticipated music projects. Whether it was three massive auditions or a series of confusing actions that Kanye deliberately or unintentionally, they all contributed to the birth of “Donda”.

In HYPEBEAST’s previous report “Kanye West’s tenth studio album “Donda” is about to be released, reviewing the story so far by the timeline”, we have sorted out the progress of “Donda” and Kanye before the second audition. My own dynamics; and in this push, we have sorted out the commercial operation of the “Donda” music product behind this “Album of the Year”, the public opinion disputes surrounding Kanye, and Kim’s moving whiteness at the audition site. The story behind the wedding dress.

DaBaby was removed due to improper words and deeds

A few hours after the album was released, Kanye West used his Instagram account to post a picture message that read “Universal Music released “Donda” without my permission, and they withdrew “Jail pt 2″.” According to the “Donda” page listed on Spotify, the “Jail pt 2” in the album is not open to users for trial listening. According to Ye himself, it was DaBaby’s management team that requested “Donda” to delete his part before allowing it to be released; On the other side, UMG also does not want DaBaby’s work, which is currently at the center of public opinion, to appear in the album. He is currently under severe criticism from the public for a series of unfair remarks against the LGBTQ+ group.

Subsequently, Ye quickly stated that as “the only friend who supported his presidential campaign”, he would never give up DaBaby. After several hours of fighting for reasons, “Jail pt 2” was finally successfully put on the shelves under the cooperation of multiple parties.

It is worth noting that on many streaming media platforms outside the North American market, “Jail pt 2” has never been banned. For example, most domestic music streaming media platforms uploaded this song from the beginning. It is not difficult to speculate that overseas distribution agents do not have enough time to make adjustments in the face of the hasty release of the album: sometimes the negligence of the staff is not necessarily a bad thing for music lovers, and the overseas market has not received corresponding attention. , Is the point worth worrying about.

All-black album cover

Before the album was released, Ye had released different versions of the cover design several times in different ways.

The rumors about the album cover of “Donda” originated from a photo posted by Kanye on Twitter last year. The content was the work “The Incomplete Truth” created by Damien Hirst in 2006, which was part of the art collection he bought at the time. One, it was worth more than 1 million US dollars, but this speculation soon ended when he deleted this group of photos; later, when his collaboration with DaBaby “Nah Nah Nah” was released, fans also thought that this was by Kanye. I personally promised that “DONDA ALBM CVR” and the work created by street inkjet artist Pierre-Louis Auvray will be the cover of the new album; the closest one is the version released by ye this year during the preview of the “Donda” audition: this gray The blue background and red paint outline paintings are from French-American artist Louise Bourgeois and are included in the “The blue heads and the red women” series. In the work, Louise Bourgeois expresses the memory of his deceased mother. Perhaps it was this that moved Ye once.

However, the above-mentioned existing art works failed to become the cover of “Donda” in the end. After the release, many people were also confused by the cover of the “Donda” album. What does a pure black color block want to express? What? It even led music fans to wonder whether the record company did not get the correct version of the cover because of the forcible release of the album in advance. However, as the main visual of the new album, the “black” element has always run through every stage of the new album’s announcement. From the time of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium audition in Atlanta, Kanye used to play in the temporary single-player recording studio. The black costume appeared on the live broadcast; in the third audition, black elements filled every corner of the scene-in fact, only Apple Music seemed to accurately predict this moment, because from the beginning, their “Donda” album The cover on your homepage is this black picture.

Moved the childhood home into the stadium

While people were still feeling unsatisfied with the first two auditions, Kanye announced the location of his last audition, the Soldier Field Military Stadium in his hometown of Chicago, where he would bring a “previous performance”.

At the scene, Ye not only disclosed more versions of the tracks on the album, but also moved his childhood home to the gymnasium-yes, he restored an entire house on stage. When the event started, the musicians who participated in the performance filed out of the room and completed an incredible performance on this ingenious stage.

With unique scene settings and grand visual effects design, the “immersive” experience is no longer enough to describe the shock of this audition. When the whole house was burnt to ashes in the song “Come to Life” and Ye (actually his substitute) was surrounded by flames, the atmosphere on the scene was pushed to its climax, which proved this again. A rapper’s “omnipotence” is not only reflected in music-sometimes he is also better at playing things other than music.

Demna Gvasalia appeared in the audition

When it comes to things other than music, the success of the “Donda” audition is inseparable from the strong support of creative director Demna Gvasalia and his brand Balenciaga.

In the live broadcast on the morning of August 5th, Kanye invited Chance the Rapper and Demna Gvasalia to his temporary recording studio at the time to prepare for the second audition session. Ye tried on a Balenciaga 2020 autumn jacket on the spot. This scene was also taken by many netizens and made a meme, becoming the first iconic fashion event since the launch of “Donda”.

Although Yeezy and Yeezy GAP projects have repeatedly emphasized his preference for pragmatic clothing for most of the time, it seems that Kanye on stage still has problems with super-functional clothing (bullet-proof vests and other items). Little obsession. The stage style of The Yeezus Tour period was also carried over to the “Donda” audition. All black masks, spiked jackets-all from Balenciaga, plus the distinctive brand logo on the guests, Balenciaga’s support for Ye has been well rewarded.

It is worth mentioning that, as a “religious” theme album, this hint has become more and more connected with the Balenciaga FW20 show under the auspices of Nicke Bildstein-Zaar about “flood” and “sea level rise”. ambiguous.

Kim Kardashian’s wedding dress at the audition

If you want to select a “best item” at the “Donda” audition site, Kanye’s flame cap or DONDA bulletproof vest seems to be a different contender, but Kim Kardashian’s wedding dress is undoubtedly the one closest to the championship. .

When the last song “No Child Left Behind” was played, Ye’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian wore Balenciaga’s ivory silk wedding dress with a veil made of wool. In the “Wedding March” He walked towards Ye and took off the latter’s hat and mask.

This moving scene became one of the highlight moments of the night, although according to the report of “PEOPLE”, they wanted to express “love has the power of healing”, and Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West have not remarried for the time being. Kim chose not to change his surname after the divorce, which may be enough to explain the problem.

How to get competitors to promote the new album for you?

Around the specific release date of the new album, there is another mystery that has not been able to dissipate, and that is the protracted dispute between Kanye and Drake.

When Ye first postponed the release of a new album, this “conspiracy theory” gradually surfaced-it is said that every time Drake releases a new work, Kanye will release his work in a “timely” raid, and “Donda” is his role. Of course, the most important collection of works in recent years will not miss this opportunity. Drake “fired” at Ye in the cooperation with Trippie Redd. Ye also urgently added the Diss Drake part of the new work, and even deliberately leaked the latter’s address on social media-the situation was on the verge of getting out of control, but he got his wish. Attracted everyone’s attention.

As the battle between the two sides on the Internet has become more intense, this controversy has also spread offline. According to legend, fans wrote the release date of Drake’s new work “Certified Lover Boy” on the cardboard and placed it at the door of Kanye’s old residence for provocation. But he did not expect Ye to move his entire house to the site of the new release-using all available resources, even competitors, Kanye West’s shrewdness and cunning can be seen from this.

A few days ago, Drake also announced that “Certified Lover Boy” will be released this week. The head-to-head confrontation between the two heavyweight musicians may not be until then.

Merch is issued through pre-sale

With the release of this new work, Kanye and the Merch peripheral model that was created five years ago are also not absent as always.

Before the third audition session, Kanye had released a compact player with the full audio of all the songs of the “Donda” album embedded, as well as the sub-track files of each song-this is never before in the music field. Buyers can not only use it to listen to the new album, but also use the built-in Mixer of the player to perform simple processing on the sound effects of the album, such as cutting high and low frequencies. The sub-track files in the audio package also represent Ye Regarding User Generated Content (UGC) “testing the waters”, I believe that a batch of fan-made Remix works will be launched soon: After everyone can wear Yeezy, does Ye hope that everyone can create their own “Yeezus”?

Continuing the collaboration with Demna Gvasalia and Balenciaga, the designer around the “Donda” album is also dominated by the designer, bringing two T-shirts, a hat, and a zippered face mask; however, the pricing has also increased — -A T-shirt of US$200 and a face mask of US$160. Even the most loyal Ye fans need to think twice.

Different from the previous way of selling Merch, Ye also adopted the same release strategy as Travis Scott this time: pre-sale production, whether it is a player or peripheral clothing, needs to be produced after the order is placed and paid, and the delivery cycle is as long as 12 -16 weeks, and the open booking time is also greatly extended, trying to maximize profits.

As many as 27 songs, new ways to play the Deluxe album?

106 minutes-this is the total length of the “Donda” album. The release of as many as 27 new works and a series of “Pt.2” tracks can’t help but make people wonder if Ye made the mistake of releasing the Deluxe version album as the original version-although Highly productive musicians can often create a huge amount of works quickly, but putting so much information in the same album will undoubtedly put a lot of pressure on the audience.

In 2020, the release of Deluxe albums seems to have become a weapon for Hip-hop musicians to capture the traffic market (see “10 Key Words to Combine Hip-hop Music Trends in 2020”), but this trend has changed again this year : The listeners seem to get tired of pushing different versions of the same song very quickly, so the volume of the studio album has become larger and longer, and it is more like a Deluxe album-“Donda” is brought together. With the help of more than 30 guests and the joint efforts of 35 producers, no one is willing to be excluded from the “main list”. As for why, just look at Soulja Boy and Chris Brown.

But it’s not easy to say, what if there is “Donda (Deluxe)”?

Just like Kanye West’s release of a new work every time it arouses heated discussion among music fans-whether he likes him or not, no music lover can be in this multi-dimensional war that spans music, print, social media, and even data algorithms. And retreat. “Donda” can hit with an unstoppable force, covering the horizons of all music lovers. Although it has the uniqueness of his creative ingenuity, it seems that there are other forces behind it that are driving this phenomenon. .