The Kanye Tracklist Bench

8.31.21

DaBaby, Kanye West, Marilyn Manson

Donda has finally arrived, but not everyone is excited about it. Not only did Kanye West blast on his social media pages that Universal dropped the album before all the songs had cleared, but others are calling on Ye for removing their tracks from the project. The album is currently 26 tracks and just under two hours of listening time, but it is clear that Kanye has plenty of other tracks in the vault, that did not make their way to the project.

Firstly, DaBaby was pretty shocked to realize that Donda had released and his song was not featured. DaBaby had shown up at the final listening party, and debuted his verse on Jail PT 2. At this point in time, everyone had thought that Jay-Z’s verse was not cleared, or was removed from the album. Come drop time, Jay’s verse is on the track, but DaBaby is no where to be found. Rumors circulated that DaBaby’s team did not clear the track, but prior to the end of the day of release, Jail PT 2 was added to the track list. This track is one of our “Part 2” songs on the album.

The whole thing with Universal came out because Ye stated he was wanted to wait for DaBaby’s team to clear his verse, but they dropped it prior. Some reports are saying that because Drake confirmed his release date of September 3rd for Certified Lover Boy, Universal did not want to take any more chances of delaying the launch. Not a bad conspiracy, but I guess we will never truly know what on earth is going on in Kanye’s world.

Aside from the Jail PT 2 drama, the madness continues to unfold. Chris Brown is first to step into the shade, as he posts an Instagram Story saying “Kanye West is a whole Hoe,” followed by “Nah he tweaking.” Interestingly enough, Chris Brown is on the album, specifically New Again, track 18, one of my personal favorites. Chris was recently accused of hitting another woman in LA a few weeks back. It is possible that Ye may have cut up Chris’ verse, or displayed something different than he was expecting to hear. However again, the full truth is currently unclear.

Soulja Boy is next, and he came with receipts, and a whole verse leak. Allegedly, Kanye reached out to Soulja Boy to have him come travel to do a verse for his project. When Soulja realized he was not on the project, he decided to share his verse on Twitter. Soulja was allegedly supposed to be on track 12, Remote Control, which features Young Thug. Soulja has been claiming back all of his relevance with his new single and recent Verzuz battle. It would make a lot of sense to have him on the project, but it looks like he just did not make the cut.

A name I was a bit surprised to see come up was Calboy. Calboy is a fantastic artist, but it has been a bit since he put out a massive record. After seeing Soulja leak his verse that did not make the project, he tweeted out that he would do the same. So, it is apparent that Calboy was also cut from the already lengthy Donda track list.

Knowing Kanye, maybe he will drop the deluxe on the same day as CLB, even though we already have so many songs to catch up and memorize. I am sure this makes the featured artists that did make the list feel extra special.