When will Kanye release DONDA? With no reliable release date as of July 2021, we must turn to analyzing past release patterns, current events, and future plans to reach an accurate estimation.
Introduction
It is common knowledge among fans that Kanye sets release dates seemingly for the sole purpose of breaking them, and sometimes even scrapping their corresponding projects altogether. We cannot entirely blame him — after all, one of the greatest creatives in modern history cannot be expected to rush out music, especially one who is obsessed with, if not perfection, then perfect cohesion in his music. To quote West himself off of Stronger, ‘You should be honored by my lateness.’ With this being said, Kanye listeners are equally pursuant of new music, even going as far as creating an entirely new album (Kanye 2049) using his previous works. Thus, we will be utilizing a basic scientific research method with the goal of concluding a general indication, if not specific date, of when DONDA will be released.
Literature Review
In standard research, we would begin our search by linking and examining relevant scholarly works in the field. This is simply lacking in the field we are looking to explore. Nevertheless, we shall work with the available material to see what knowledge we can glean from it. According to NME.com, Kanye’s 10th studio album can be expected before the end of July 2020. Clearly, this information is somewhat dated as one year later, in July 2021, we are still speculating. The second, arguable more esteemed, source we must consider is the twitter account @didjesusdrop. Their most recent update: ‘No, DONDA has not dropped yet.’ The above information provides a solid background for our own research.
Methods
The methods employed by our research will be relatively straightforward. We will be conducting a unique form of observational research which method consists only of analyzing past trands, concerened mainly with qualitative data. The exception will be quantitative data where estimated release dates and the spans of time in between will be concerned.
The Life of Pablo Release
We will only be looking back as far as the leadup to and release of TLOP. Althought several Kanye projects were rumored between Yeezus and The Life of Pablo, our research standards dictate we must keep a relatively recent lens. What is the importance of examining past releases? History repeats itself. In analyzing the leadups to the releases of The Life of Pablo, Ye, and Jesus is King (We will exclude Kids See Ghosts on the basis that it was a direct collaboration), we can determine similarities and thus create proportions between previous release lengths, and use these calculations to hypothesize an estimated release date for DONDA.
So, TLOP. At points during the buildup to its release, it was rumored (sometimes by Kanye himself) to be called ‘Swish,’ ‘Waves,’ and ‘So Help Me God,’ among others. Recording sessions started as early as 2013. The album debuted on February 11, 2016, at a listening party in Madison Square Garden. Of course, Kanye then spent three days playing with the album before releasing a significantly different one on February 14th. In the next 24 hours, he briefly made TLOP available for purchase only on his website, but deleted it a few hours later and said it would never be sold, and would only be available on the streaming platform Tidal. A few hours after this, during which Tidal rose to the top of the app store, he changed his mind and said that digital album sales would only be delayed by one week. He then said that the release put him $53 million in debt, asked Mark Zuckerberg for a $1 billion investment in ‘Kanye West ideas,’ and of course had to deal with more controversy from Taylor Swift before performing for the 40th anniversary episode of SNL. This all happened by February 15th.
This makes it difficult to define the release period — it could be considered to be as little as the 4 days between the MSG session and the end of the SNL performance, or as much as the two and a half years before recording sessions were announced, considering that multiple other albums were rumored and scrapped during this time. Because we are working with larger time frames in discussing DONDA, we will elect to consider TLOP’s pre-release timespan to be roughly 2 and a half years.
Ye Release
To set a beginning point for context, Kanye West was rumored to have begun the process of putting an album together at his ranch in Wyoming in 2016. Kanye then went through a period of media-created ‘controversy,’ during which he was targeted for his unconventional thinking and support of President Donald Trump, which culminated in his alleged claim that ‘slavery was a choice.’ Of course, Kanye’s willingness to work with Donald Trump shows only open-mindedness that the media could never dream of possessing, and his discussion on how debt can be compared to modern slavery was completely flipped by the same media to fit their narrative. Perceptions of false reality. Regardless, Kanye scrapped his album following the media backlash to the salvery comments on May 1, and recorded an entirely new album in the next two weeks. He launched the new album less than a month after the comments that sparked it on May 31st, 2018, at a listening party on his ranch. Interestingly, he took the picture that became the album cover while on his way to the release party. While Ye only took 30 days, the fact that fans had been waiting for an album since late 2016 forces us to value its timespan closer to a year and a half.
Jesus Is King Release
Recording for Jesus is King started in August of 2018. At least, this is the date we will be using, as it is very difficult to draw a line between work on Yhandi and Jesus is King. The album was originally meant to drop in September of 2019. It was delayed a month, as the release was pushed to midnight on October 25th. As many of us likely remember, however, the album simply was not there at midnight that night. At 1:18 AM, Kanye tweeted that he was actually still working on polishing off a few tracks, and would not sleep until the album was out. He was spotted at the World Trade Center around 2:30 AM setting up for Sunday Service. However, he did deliver on his promise and Jesus Is King was indeed released on the 25th. This puts the total pre-release timespan at around 1 year and 2 months.
Where We Are in DONDA’s Timespan
Kanye’s tenth studio album, initially rumored to be named God’s Country, was first announced accidentaly when a collaborator let slip that he was working on a new project with him. This was in May of 2020. A month later, on June 26th, Kanye officially announced the album as part of #WestDayEver. On July 13th, Kanye shared a snippet of a song titled ‘Donda’ on Twitter. Five days after this, he announced that the name of the album had been changed to Donda as well, and that it would be released in six days — on July 24th, 2020. Three days before this date, Kanye announced that it would be released aloongside a movie, which in of itself is still a complete mystery, and the 24th came and went without an album. On the 25th, Ye released the cover art. However, nothing further was released until September, when we got another snippet, ‘Believe What I Say.’ As of July 2021, it seems that the album is finished; multiple friends and know collaborators of Kanye have hinted that they have heard the album. However, it has now been nearly a year since the release date, and Kanye, aside from work on various other projects, not the least of which being his work with Gap and his Yeezy Christian Academy, is going through a highly-publicized divorce. If we assume May 2020 to be the start of the pre-release period, it has been 1 year and 2 months thus far into DONDA’s lifespan.
Calculations and Considerations
The waiting span of The Life of Pablo was two and a half years, or 30 months. Ye was lower at around 18 months, and Jesus is King took around 14 months. In July 2021, we are currently 14 months into the wait for DONDA. The average of the previous three albums has been approximately 20.5 months. Now, there are a couple significant factors that we must take into consideration. Firstly, each of the previous three studio albums has seen a drop in its waiting time. The was a difference of 12 months between TLOP and Ye and a difference of 4 months between Ye and Jesus is King. Now, if we expected this trend to continue, we would be wrong. Donda has already matched Jesus is King in time since initial anouncement. However, it is reasonable to claim that Donda will be lower than the 20.5 average, as there is a negative linear relationship between years since 2016 and album waiting time. Now, we must quickly address and dismiss the fact that the album is seemingly already finished. The Life of Pablo was seemingly already finished as early as 2014, but was not released until 2016. With a perfectionist such as Kanye in charge, it does not matter whether an album is supposedly ‘finished.’ Lastly, we must consider the potential significance of the approaching anniversary of the initial release date, July 24th. It is not entirely infeasable that Kanye would drop the album one year late. Undeniably, it would be a boss move.
Conclusion
Kanye West will drop DONDA at midnight on July 24th, 2021. It fits perfectly with our calulations — how else can we explain that, despite the negative linear relationship between years since 2016 (independent variable) and album release waiting time since announcement (dependent variable), Donda has already taken as long as Jesus Is King? Kanye, who has been understandably sidetracked by the divorce and his many other projects, is preparing to release the album on the one-year anniversary of when he was initially supposed to.