The other half of Donda definitely has songs that are better oriented towards the message of Donda. This is best demonstrated by the song after Remote Control, Moon, a beautiful ballad involving the best of Kid Cudi and Kanye, which encapsulates the magic seen on many of their other collaborations. It’s heart wrenching and truly captures the feeling of being emotionally disconnected from the one you love. Heaven and Hell is also a highlight from the album, truly rising in power as Kanye’s sample ties into his rapping extremely well. The ending is also reminiscent of Feel the Love from the Cudi-Kanye collaborative album, Kids See Ghosts.
The songs Keep My Spirit Alive and Lord I Need You from the latter half of this album both use these contemplative instrumentals and have catchy choruses, and both are focused on Kanye’s devotion to God. The features are pretty good on Keep My Spirit Alive and I love how the song references the vocal effects from Beautiful Dark Fantasy. This is of course nice and all, but other than the choruses, Kanye’s rapping ability really has to be questioned at this point on the album. It’s especially evident on the opening on Lord I Need You that Kanye’s rapping ability has been on the decline since Yeezus. However, both these songs touch on many of Kanye's deepest troubles, with his divorce and the grief he suffers from losing her mother. There is a rawness to many of the songs on the album that is truly amazing.
New Again and Pure Souls are nice songs that are more upbeat and energetic than the two aforementioned songs. New Again has a stellar intro and a nice Graduation-esque beat to it, although the outro is lengthy. Pure Souls has an amazing feature from Roddy Ricch and beats with the 808s and organ instrumentals, and the switch up of the mood with its contemplative, religious vocals on the outro is ethereal. Truly one of the highlights of the album. Donda and Tell the Vision are short songs, almost like unfinished concepts. For this, and the shameful recycling of the original Tell the Vision from Pop Smoke’s Faith album, both should’ve definitely been kept off the album. Jesus Lord is a somewhat confusing but wholesome 8 minute experience, with Kanye rapping under a pretty mid beat, but it does some solid, purposeful rapping from him with a respectful anti-violence message.
At the climax of the album there is the penultimate track, Come to Life. This, in my opinion, is the best song of the album. It focuses on his divorce from Kim Kardashian and you can truly hear Kanye at his most hurt. Backed by sparse yet building organ synths, he reflects on his deepest fears and admits that he, who a decade ago said that he was a god, is backed into a corner. And as he wishes that changes would appear, the organs disappear, replaced by an accelerating piano riff backed by sparse synthesizers. This mixture of piano, synths and melancholy matures into a beautiful apex where Kanye finally declares that even under all the adversity, his mother’s death and his divorce, he will still be free. As the piano wraps to a close, the closing track No Child Left Behind begins; a great somber track with heavy organs. Of course there are four extra alternative tracks, but after 2 hours of listening, I doubt anyone continued and listened to them.
In the end, Donda is a melting pot of different messages. While on the surface, Donda seems like a tribute to Kanye’s mother, it is really just a look into Kanye’s inner psyche; a look that we have never truly seen before, not even on introspective albums like ye. While some songs sample Donda West’s voice, most songs don’t even reference her. The album, while occasionally unfocused, does focus on Kanye’s divorce and his relationship with God. The songs, while often euphemizing his relationship with God with corny and lazy lyrics, still give a very clear and interesting picture of his relationship with Kim. It does no better job reflecting on his relationship with God than Jesus is King, but it does give a nice, in depth and emotional picture of his divorce that reflects the lyricism of 808s and Heartbreak, although with a much blunter tone.
Compared to the rest of his discography, if the quality of the songs were to be averaged out, this album would probably be on the same level as the Life of Pablo. They also share a bloated characteristic and song quality. However, the highlights honestly deserve to be classics. The songs I think are highlights, Moon, Come to Life, Believe What I Say, Pure Souls, Praise God and Hurricane, can honestly rival classic Kanye songs. Meanwhile, songs like Tell the Vision, God Breathed and Remote Control probably deserve to be thrown into a bonfire and incinerated from the public consciousness. In the end, Donda has a lot of flaws and even more bloat. But if you go beyond just scratching the surface, Donda becomes a very rewarding album with its gospel-rap fusion instrumentation and messaging.