Kanye West releases deluxe version of ‘Donda,’ includes previously leaked Andre 3000 collaboration
The album has expanded from 27 to 32 tracks.
If you thought that Kanye West’s album Donda had a lot of songs, you haven’t seen anything yet. On Sunday, the rapper/producer dropped the deluxe edition of Donda on streaming services featuring additional tracks and guest features.
The latest edition of the 22-time Grammy Award winner’s tenth solo studio album expanded the previous tracklist of 27 songs to 32 songs. The new tracks are “Life Of The Party,” “Up From The Ashes,” “Never Abandon Your Family,” “Keep My Spirit Alive Part 2,” and “Remote Control Part 2.”
The new song with the highest profile is “Life Of The Party,” a song featuring Outkast rapper Andre 3000.
Left on the cutting room floor for the official Aug. 29 release, an unreleased version of “Life of the Party” was leaked to the public by Drake. It was the result of a public feud between him and West that’s been growing since 2018.
However, fans had a near-universally positive response to the song. On “Life of the Party,” Andre delivers a poignant verse about the death of his own mother and how he’s had to navigate trauma throughout his life without her presence. Donda is named after West’s late mother, Dr. Donda West, who passed away in 2008.
Andre raps on the song,
“Hey, Miss Donda
You run into my mama, please tell her I said, ‘Say something,’
I’m startin’ to believe ain’t no such thing as Heaven’s trumpets,
No after-over, this is it, done,
If there’s a Heaven, you would think they’d let ya speak to your son.”
Last month, “Life of the Party” was added to Donda on West’s stem player, a portable device that allows you to manipulate the stem tracks of a song, and isolate certain musical elements while playing them.
West sells the player on his official website with Donda already loaded. It was one of three additional songs added to the tracklist. The other two songs, “Up From the Ashes,” and “Remote Control Part 2” also found their way onto the deluxe version of the album.
The new version of the latter features Kid Cudi and a previously removed verse from Young Thug.
KayCyy guests on “Keep My Spirit Alive Part 2” joining Griselda rappers Conway the Machine and Westside Gunn. “Never Abandon Your Family” was part of a previous iteration of Donda that was played live at one of four album listening sessions, three of which were public, according to Variety.
West, who now legally goes by ‘Ye, held one listening session in Atlanta’s Mercedes Benz Stadium in July, a second in August, and a third at Chicago’s Soldier Field. Each time, West played Donda with altered production elements, guest verses, and different tracks.
In between the two Atlanta listening sessions, West created a makeshift recording studio at the stadium to make revisions on the album and was reportedly even sleeping there.
In addition to the five new tracks, the sequencing of the Donda Deluxe tracklist has also been changed. For instance, while “Donda Chant” remains the opening track, the next track, “Jail” featuring Jay-Z, was moved to later on the album, while “Hurricane,” West’s Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop number one collaboration with The Weeknd and Lil Baby took its place as the second song, followed by “Life of the Party.”
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