Coincidentally or not, Kanye West‘s livestream and theatrical simulcast of his “Donda Experience” event Tuesday night seemed to make some use of a staging conceit that Adele had recently nixed for her scotched Las Vegas residency. The latter singer had reportedly balked at a design that would have had appear to be in or floating atop the middle of a large pool. But for West, walking on (or in) water was just the ticket.
The “Donda 2” event at Miami’s LoanDepot Park — which was ultimately streamed (and remains available) on YouTube, despite West’s earlier assurances that it wouldn’t be — had the performer pacing around a full-sized replication of his Chicago childhood home, a la the last listening party for his previous “Donda” album last year. But this time it was surrounded by a lake of two or three inches of water laid out across the LoanDepot field, which required waders not only of West but guest performers like Jack Harlow, Playboi Carti, Pusha T, Migos, Baby Keem, Fivio Foreign, the Game, the Sunday Service Choir and (notoriously returning from the last “Donda” listening party) Marilyn Manson and DaBaby. Alicia Keys, who played piano as well as sang on one of the concluding numbers, did get to keep her feet dry.
The “Donda 2” album itself did not drop Tuesday night, although perhaps only those who already purchased and received a $200-plus Stem Player from West’s web store would be able to know for sure, since the hip-hop titan has vowed that only those who own one of his new handheld listening/mixing devices will be able to hear the recording. It’s possible that it won’t turn out to be that exclusive after all, since West did broaden the audience for Tuesday’s “Donda Experience” at virtually the last minute. Initially he announced that he’d turned down an Apple Music deal to stream the event, and it appeared that it would only be viewable beyond the Miami stadium on IMAX theaters in 15 cities, at a cost of $20-30. Then, Tuesday afternoon, a message went out that it could be seen live “only on stemplayer.” Ultimately it also went out for free via YouTube and Amazon’s Twitch service, despite West having railed against those tech giants in the last week when he sent out the message, “Donda 2 will only be available on my own platform, the Stem Player. Not on Apple Amazon Spotify or YouTube… It’s time to free music from this oppressive system.”
Tuesday night’s show began at 10:45 p.m. ET, an hour and 45 minutes past the advertised showtime, which allowed for lots of extra popcorn sales in the nationwide IMAX theaters where ticket buyers were cooling their heels watching a screen saver and listening to a heartbeat on loop. The 80-minute set that followed was ultimately broken into two parts, divided by a moment in the show when the building at the center of the wading pool split in two, literally becoming a divided home, seen by fans as a likely reference to the impending divorce that has occupied West’s attention lately.
Preceding that literal split was a 16-song set mostly consisting of songs that have been promised for the “Donda 2” album, although not in the order that they have appeared on track lists that West has posted on Instagram. Also sneaking in there among the newbies were a pair of more familiar songs: the Game collaboration “Eazy” and the Pusha T collab “Diet Coke.”
Following the break, so to speak, another 10 tracks were played, half of them from last year’s “Donda” album, along with bonuses like the Sunday Service song “Jesus Is King” and the just-released Fivio/Alicia Keys collaboration “City of Gods.” The show concluded with West being joined again by Fivio as well as Playboi Carti for the “Donda” track “Off the Grid,” before a sudden plume of light torching up toward the rafters signaled the end of the experience.
As with previous “Donda” shows in 2021, this one skirted the line between concert, listening party and interpretive dance event, with West and guests mostly pantomiming to the music — or, in the case of a nearly still-life Manson and DaBaby during “Jail”, just loitering — or having what was taken to be the Sunday Service Choir march or stand in formation in dark, militaristic helmets and uniforms while motorcycles circled the perimeter. Although there was little pretense of even lip-synching for most of the show, at least two performers appeared to be notably live in their vocals — Keys, as she started off “City of Gods” alone at the piano before being joined by her own multi-tracked vocals and collaborators, and Playboi Carti, whose flamboyantly screeched vocals set off peels of admiring laughter among the pleased audience at a screening PvNew attended at Hollywood’s Chinese Theatre.
Not all the guests who are set to appear on the “Donda 2” album were there to mime or dance to their parts in person. Most obviously, that would include the late XXXtentacion, heard toward the very beginning of the performance. Also heard on the new album tracks were a few other guests who, for whatever reason, did not make the trip to Miami, including Future, Travis Scott and Soulja Boy, whose apparent reconciliation with West after a public beef would have made for a memorable visual.
But the apparent “guest” on “Donda 2” whose lack of a live appearance was most foreordained was estranged wife Kim Kardashian. A snippet of her monologue from her 2021 “Saturday Night Live” hosting gig, before she filed for divorce, was loudly played at the beginning of the new “Sci-Fi,” as Kardashian was loudly heard to exclaim,“I married the best rapper of all time. Not only that, he is the richest Black man in America. A talented, legit genius who gave me four incredible kids.”
Given the amount of time West has devoted on social media of late to imploring Kardashian to get back together with him, and/or focusing on family disputes and her romance with Pete Davidson, there was less time overtly spent on those matters than might have been expected. But there was still plenty. “Never take the family picture off the fridge / Never stand between a man and his kids / Y’all ain’t got enough security for this,” went the refrain from a new song, “Security.”
Full assessments of “Donda 2” will have to wait for when the album is released — or if is released in anything close to the form heard Tuesday, as West premiered multiple iterations of the previous album in arena events before the final release version. Many viewers complained about the audio, although it would seem that any trouble making out lyrics may have been a deliberate part of the sound design for a new album that is very different from “Donda 1.” The whole sonic approach of the new album seems distinct enough that it isn’t necessarily clear why he’s billing it as a sequel, beyond release proximity. Whereas the last “Donda” was more of a stylistic tour de force, what was revealed of “Donda 2” Tuesday night feels like much more of a mood piece, with extended hypnotic passages replacing the pop hooks or gospel moments found on the last album. When several of the song early in the performance emphasized heavily AutoTuned vocals sung rather than rapped by West — especially “Too Easy” — a listener might even have wondered if the album should be called “808s & Heartbreak 2” instead of “Donda 2.”
Audio aside, few would likely dispute how successfully cinematic the show was, in or out of the theatrical setting, with West — as is his recent wont — no doubt directing director Aus Taylor to favor long, uninterrupted takes that allowed for every ripple in the pool to extend across the screen. The lighting was kept low, which made for a spooky effect when West sat alone on the steps of his quasi-burned-out house, nearly in the dark (with concession signs for the venue still brightly lit up in the distance). Although West does like his constant smoke or fog effects, thankfully, he did not spend very much of the show engulfed in a completely impenetrable fog, as he did in the recent livestream of his co-headlining gig with Drake at the L.A. Coliseum.
Not every beef West invoked Tuesday involved family. The collaboration with Harlow that was debuted, “Louis Bags,” was a sort of anti-commercial that had West expressing an apparent preference for Gucci as he led into the refrain: “I stopped buying Louis bags after Virgil passed” (a reference to the death of his friend Virgil Abloh, an artistic director for the fashion design house).
The Kardashian speech snippet was the most obviously risible moment of a show that was actually relatively rather light on outright provocation, embedded lyrics about Kim-and-Pete aside. The big, rebellious moment was a rerun, with Manson (or, as Rolling Stone repeatedly refers to him, “accused rapist Marilyn Manson”) and alleged homophobe DaBaby simply repeating their highly controversial walk-ons from last year’s “Donda” event, as if West simply wanted to impart that he’s not the backing-down type. But we knew that.
The full event can be seen here:
