From the reports of Twitter’s resident sleuths and celebrity-adjacent social media personalities, Kanye West premiered his forthcoming album at an intimate listening party in Las Vegas. Although snippets of the event has yet to be officially confirmed, long-time fans of the musical maestro believe that the tracks are from his unreleased album Donda — a tribute to his late mother who passed away in 2007.
BREAKING: Kanye West's listening party for his upcoming album is going on right now in Las Vegas! pic.twitter.com/fxMEINun4q
— SAINT (@saint) July 19, 2021
News of the reported event flooded timelines Sunday evening and on Monday, footage of the event seemingly captured Ye’ nodding steadily to cadence of a song with a mask covering his identifying features. The verse recorded in the roughly 30-second video detailed a household fraught with trauma, drug abuse and an absentee parent. “Daughter just turned one, and she still depending on her mom / Big brother in the streets, he went and bought him a gun,” the lyrics, which are partially muffled, seem to say. The track continues, “And her mom doing drugs cause that’s the only time she feel love.”
FIRST SNIPPET FROM KANYE WEST'S LAS VEGAS LISTENING PARTY 🔥 pic.twitter.com/OcqaesIgnW
— Squirt Reynolds (@SquirtReynolds_) July 19, 2021
On Monday, Justin Laboy, who has a cult-like social media following for his #Respectfully slogan and is the host of Respectfully Justin on REVOLT, also confirmed via Twitter that West played his new album for him and NBA all-star Kevin Durant. “Man listen! The production is light years ahead of it’s time, and the bars sound like he’s broke & hungry trying to get signed again. Any artist who plan on dropping soon should just push it back,” he wrote, adding an apparent photo of the three in the studio in a separate tweet.
Kanye played his new album for me & @KDTrey5 last night in Vegas. Man listen! The production is light years ahead of it’s time, and the bars sound like he’s broke & hungry trying to get signed again. Any artist who plan on dropping soon should just push it back 😤 #Respectfully
— Respectfully Justin (@JustinLaboy) July 18, 2021
ALBUM OF THE YEAR. DONT @ ME pic.twitter.com/baaL9fHKOv
— Respectfully Justin (@JustinLaboy) July 19, 2021
In another tweet, Laboy confirmed the album’s hotly-anticipated premiere is imminent, writing, “Kanye West album is really done. When it drops this week, we probably not going to listen to anything else for a while. Let me go enjoy all the current artist I’m listening to until then. God bless.“
Kanye West album is really done. When it drops this week, we probably not going to listen to anything else for a while.. Let me go enjoy all the current artist I’m listening to until then. God bless✌🏾 #Respectfully
— Respectfully Justin (@JustinLaboy) July 18, 2021
As more unauthenticated reports of the album’s circulated and listed features with Westside Gunn, Lil Baby, Travis Scott, Pusha T and Baby Keem, a footage of the latter collaboration also arrived to timelines.
New @kanyewest snippet featuring @babykeem #kanye #KanyeWest #babykeem #donda pic.twitter.com/2HEzj6aRzG
— papa of 16 (@wetspageddi) July 19, 2021
Donda, originally titled God’s Country, was first teased in March 2020 and later slated for release in July 2020. If the tenth studio album finally debuts this week, we’re assured the project will be met with rapturous applause from his die-hard standom.
