True to this direction, Donda 2, the sequel to last year’s Donda, is not chiefly concerned with the music.
The music became an afterthought, a mere bullet point in a Kanye machine more concerned with clothing lines, Forbes list rankings, and a pivot to “free thinking,” an excuse to pretend his dumb tweets and political stances were actually genius. Somewhere along the way-I might point to the era around The Life of Pablo and I’m sure some would say earlier-that ego was no longer a piece of the art, but the art itself. An album Kanye believed in so wholeheartedly that even before it lifted him from the shadows to the limelight, he spoke about it as if the world would stop spinning without it. An album that bum-rushed through industry politics, skeptics, and even a near-death experience.
The documentary began shooting years before the release of his debut album, 2004’s The College Dropout, a project Kanye and the directors approach as not just another batch of songs, but a soul-wrenching outpouring.
