Kanye West Debuts Donda 2 With Jack Harlow, Marilyn Manson, & A Kim Kardashian Sample
Kanye West’s new album Donda 2 was supposed to come out today, and it was supposed to be available exclusively on West’s Donda Stem Player. That hasn’t happened yet. But Kanye’s Donda 2 premiere event, a massive spectacle held in Miami’s LoanDepot Park, did go down last night, and it streamed live on the internet. Kanye, unmasked this time, staged his latest spectacle as a sort of hybrid listening party and performance. He debuted the songs that will presumably appear on Donda 2 whenever it arrives, and he included many famous friends.
Last night, West performed in the middle of LoanDepot Park in front of a fake house on fire while standing in a shallow artificial lake. For much of the evening, he was surrounded by extras in motorcycle jumpsuits and helmets. During the first part of the performance, when he was doing new songs, Kanye West was joined out in the lake by artists like Migos and Jack Harlow. He also did his recent single “Eazy” with the Game, and Pusha T arrived to perform “Diet Coke,” the recent single that Kanye co-produced.
The new songs also seemed to feature the voices of artists who did not appear with West. Future, who is supposedly the executive producer of Donda 2, seemingly appeared on a few songs, and other tracks included voices that sounded like Travis Scott, Baby Keem, and Don Tolliver. The sample voice of the late XXXTentacion appeared on one song. At other points, the album also featured a sample of Kamala Harris’ celebratory phone call to Joe Biden — “We did it, Joe!” — and another sample of Kim Kardashian, Kanye’s ex-wife, talking about Kanye in her Saturday Night Live opening monologue: “I married the best rapper of all time. Not only that, he’s the richest Black man in America.” (The sample cut off before Kim got to the punchline: “So, when I divorce him, you have to know it came down to just one thing: his personality!”)
Later on, West performed songs from the first Donda. One of those songs was “Jail,” and West was once again joined by Marilyn Manson and DaBaby two figures who have been disgraced for radically different reasons. He also did “Off The Grid” with Fivio Foreign and Playboi Carti, the latter of whom was wearing Joker makeup. And he performed the recent single “City Of Gods” with Fivio and Alicia Keys.
Plenty of fans were stressed-out about the crappy sound quality of the livestream, and there were apparently tech problems in the building. At one point, an apparently pissed-off Kanye threw away his mic. But the event was still full of celebrities, including Elon Musk. You can watch the whole event below, but be warned that it starts with about two hours of heartbeat sounds.
UPDATE: The first four Donda 2 tracks are apparently now available on Kanye’s Stem Player.