Kanye West’s long-delayed new record, Donda, is finally out, and it’s a bit of a mess. At 27 tracks and 108 minutes, this thing is exhausting. It’s clear that a lot of work was put into creating these tracks, but not enough into arranging or curating them into a compelling playlist. That said, this is still Kanye West we’re talking about, so there are still many wonderful songs to be found on Donda. The one that has really stuck with me is “Jesus Lord,” the beating heart of the entire album.
In Jesus Is King, Kanye used Christianity as yet another tool to talk about how awesome Kanye is. In “Jesus Lord,” however, Kanye displays an emotional understanding and sense of empathy that I didn’t know he still had in him. He begins the song by talking about his own experience with depression and substance abuse, using clever wordplay without going too over the top and ruining the emotional moment–“Lately, I’ve been swimming on the deepest end. It’s just drugs, it ain’t no hugs, it ain’t no love there. You’ve been down so much you don’t even know what’s upstairs.“
In one of the most earnest moments in Kanye’s entire career as a vocalist, he describes his mother’s death as a moment that “Took the life out of the party.” The pain in his voice is palpable, and it just goes to show that the death of a loved one is a pain you carry with you always. He daydreams of both asking Christ to bring her back to life, or dying and seeing her in the afterlife. Either outcome is good enough for him. It’s incredible imagery.
Jay Electronica also kills it on his verse, despite a questionable Rothschild family name drop (Are we really going to go there? Let’s not ruin such a tender song with casual anti-semitism). The song ends with an extended outtro featuring a voice recording from Larry Hoover Jr, thanking Kanye for personally requesting the White House for the commutation of his father’s prison sentence. Think what you will about Larry Hoover, it’s a heartfelt and gut-wrenching speech about the pain caused to his family by America’s racially biased culture of mass incarceration. It’s an amazing moment.
I may have mixed opinions on Donda as a whole, but it’s tracks like “Jesus Lord” that make this feel like a record that deserves its spot in the Kanye West discography. I’ll keep putting up with chaotic album releases as long as the music is this great.
Amped! 