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Whew! By now folks should know, Kanye West does nothing small. After 1,2,3 listening parties and several delays, “Donda” dropped on streaming platforms early Sunday morning. The release brought an onset of more delays, praise, blasts, and album updates. Here’s everything you need to know about the day “Donda” finally arrived.
Kanye posted screenshots to his Instagram page of text messages with his manager and DaBaby. His manager Abou “Bu” Thiam alleged that DaBaby’s manager Arnold Taylor did not clear the song ‘Jail’. He informed him “Donda” couldn’t be uploaded unless DaBaby is taken off. Kanye questioned why the record wasn’t cleared and Bu revealed he couldn’t reach the manager or DaBaby.
“I’m not taking my brother off,” Kanye wrote to Bu. “He was the only person who said he would vote for me in public.”
In another screenshot, Kanye shared a thread with DaBaby asking if he knew about the album delay. DaBaBy says he didn’t. Kanye follows up by accusing DaBaby’s manager and “the people next” to him of trying to “destroy him.”
“But God gotta bigger plan,” Kanye wrote and DaBaby responded saying “A plan that can’t be stopped.”
At about 8 a.m. eastern time, “Donda” finally hit all streaming platforms. Named after his late mother, the project is Ye’s 10th studio album and featured 26 songs at the time it was first released. News of the drop quickly made “Donda” viral across social media platforms, particularly Twitter. Folks chatted heavily about the features on the album which, according to Complex, included: Kid Cudi, Jay-Z, Pusha-T, The Weeknd, Fivio Foreign, Lil Yachty, Playboi Carti, Travis Scott, Baby Keem, Young Thug, Vory, Kaycyy, Roddy Ricch, Lil Durk, 070 Shake, Westside Gunn, Conway the Machine, Jay Electronica, Sheek Louch, Jadakiss, Styles P., Larry Hoover, Jr., Jhe Rooga, Pop Smoke, Francis and the Lights, Sunday Service Choir, Don Toliver, Shenseea and Lil Baby.
Arnold Taylor was not here for the public blast that he didn’t clear “Jail.” In fact, he straight up denied those allegations calling it “cap” and revealing he never received an email or phone call from any of Kanye’s team prior to Sunday. Arnold stated that when he received the request, he “cleared it in two seconds.”
“Why wouldn’t I want a hit song out when #SCMG is all about the growth and culture of hip hop and my artist,” Arnold wrote in an Instagram caption.
Accusation number two of the day came from gospel singer Briana Fontenot, who claimed that Kanye sampled her ad lib in the song “Lord I Need You.” In an Instagram post, Bri shared a once-viral video of her singing the song “Make Me Over” by Tonéx.
“Thank you to everyone who congratulated me on the #Donda album,” she wrote. “However, I had no knowledge of this beforehand.”
Bri also went live on Sunday to clarify that she never claimed to own the song. She did say there’s many similarities between the intro of “Lord I Need You” and her ad lib.
Shortly after Arnold’s blast, an update was made to “Donda” on streaming platforms. A track named “Jail Pt. 2” was added to the album list, bringing the number of songs to 27.
Not one to hold his tongue, Soulja Boy took to Twitter to also blast Kanye for allegedly removing his verse from the album. Soulja shared text messages from May that show Kanye calling him a “genius” and requesting to work with him on music and fashion.
“This n**** Kanye smh,” Soulja Boy wrote. “Tell homie don’t hit my phone no more.”
He continued on in a series of tweets calling Kanye “weird af” and a “clown a** n****.” He also revealed plans to drop a Kanye West diss track in response to the removal.
And the plot thickened with Mr.West coming for Universal. Following Soulja Boy’s Twitter rant, Kanye took to Instagram to drop his own bomb. Apparently, fans weren’t supposed to receive “Donda” just yet.
The artist shared a post saying “Universal put my album out without my approval and they blocked “Jail 2″ from being on the album.”
Fans hopped on the topic, sending “Donda” back to the top of Twitter’s trending topics. Check out the post below to see what folks had to say:
Chris Brown joined the Kanye blast train via his Instagram Story. He kept his written message short calling Kanye “a whole h**.” Sources close to The Shade Room revealed Chris felt some type of way after his verse was removed from “New Again” on Ye’s album.
Chile, who knows what this week will bring, but we do know one thing — “Donda” is doing the numbers. By night, the project reached number one status in 93 countries on Apple Music. We see you, ‘Ye!
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