By Rina Weaver
The music isn’t the main focus of Donda 2. It hasn’t even been properly dubbed Donda 2—instead, it’s labeled “V2.22.22 Miami.” That appears to be Kanye’s goal in any case. The Stem Player, a $200 device that he believes is innovative modern tech but is really just a glorified iPod Shuffle, was used entirely to release the album. The Stem Player’s concept is that Ye will modify and rework the album whenever he deems appropriate, which some may hail as revolutionary or unconventional, but it comes across as an excuse to release mediocre, underdeveloped music while describing it as a dynamic, changing art creation that will never be finished. Is Donda 2 essentially unable to criticize as a result of this?
Nope. This ragged, unfinished collection of tracks is hidden beneath the presentation. But, unlike the Madison Square Garden fashion show before The Life of Pablo, this spectacle is meant to draw attention away from Kanye’s shifting passions: from making some of the most culture-defining albums of the last two decades to wishing to be mentioned alongside Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
There’s no greater critique of Kanye than him failing miserably at arguably his most important skill: curation. Despite the roughness of later Kanye albums, he had an unrivaled ability to pull any artist into the fold and carefully select the proper small bits of their style to make them shine. I mean, Desiigner sounds reasonably good on Pablo, and Fivio Foreign was momentarily the trendiest rapper in New York due to the original Donda. Vory, whose lovely wailing over one of those definitive symphonic Kanye and Co. beats on “Lord Lift Me Up,” is entrancing, seems to be the only artist who seems as if they have a pulse on Donda 2. On “Keep It Burning,” Future also sounds passionate, but Kanye’s verse is muted and incomplete.
The rest of the artists featured on the album indicate Kanye used anyone available, asking any artist on the Billboard charts to see if they would show up, according to the rest of the album’s collaborators. Soulja Boy phones in a sloppily mixed verse. On “Selfish” and “True Love,” the XXXTentacion hooks feel tiny and unmemorable as if they’re merely there to fill space. Jack Harlow pops in, doing an amateurish Drake impression, which is unfortunate for everyone.
Songs contain a few amazing moments, but they lack structure. “Security” has a hysterically excellent starting line, but the rest of the song is freestyled and will be replaced later. With his voice drowned in an incredible amount of Auto-Tune that he sounds virtually robotic, “Get Lost” has strong heartache vibes, but as a pure acapella it is kind of boring. The production on “Sci-Fi” is lavish, but adapting an SNL comedy routine from Kim Kardashian—in which she boasts about Ye by dubbing him “the best rapper of all time” and “the richest Black man in America”—feels oddly akin to a movie character ripping out pictures of their crush and hanging them on the wall. Ye is free to deal with his split in a normal manner, but why not express some of his feelings through the lyrics?