Kanye West is in album mode, and it's not really Yeezy if it's not controversial, right? Over the past several months, the rapper has been making headlines: his well-documented divorce from Kim Kardashian, his run for the presidency, and his series of Twitter rants. That said, many fans have expected his upcoming Donda album to be on the same level as 808s & Heartbreak: candid, revolutionary, and personal.
Unfortunately, Donda has just joined the laundry list of Kanye West's delayed albums because that's just how Kanye West is. According to reports, Donda will drop on August 6 instead of the original July 23 release window. This isn't the first time he's delayed an album's release date, and he's a long history of doing so.
9 Kanye West's Upcoming Album, 'Donda,' Was Initially Set To Be Released On July 24, 2020
Last year, Kanye West announced he was set to title his next album as God Country, then changed it to Donda to honor his late mother. The original release date was set on July 24, 2020, but it'd faced Dr. Dre's Detox type of uncertainty until this year, where Def Jam Recordings announced that it'd be released on July 23, 2021. The album has still yet to be seen, as of this writing. After months of speculation, hopefully, we will be see the ultimate release date for Donda in August. We'll see.
8 He Delayed 'The Life of Pablo' To Finish Recording 'Waves' With Chance the Rapper
West took over three years to craft The Life of Pablo album, with the original title being So Help Me God. After previewing the album on February 11, 2016, at Madison Square Garden during his Yeezy Fashion Show, he modified the tracklist and delayed it further to finalize the track "Waves" with co-writer Chance the Rapper.
"It’s Chance’s fault the album not out yet… he really wanted Waves on that B***h… we in the lab now…" he tweeted.
7 He Pushed The 'Graduation' Release Date To Fight 50 Cent's 'Curtis' In A Legendary Sales Battle
2007 was a special year for Kanye West and mainstream hip-hop. During the age where gangsta and street were the most prominent topics in raps, West went toe-to-toe with 50 Cent in a legendary sales battle: Graduation vs. Curtis.
Ye ended up winning and paving the way for other hip-hop artists who did not associate themselves with a gangsta image to still enjoy commercial success. The original release date was set on September 18, 2007, but he pushed it up one week to September 11 for the battle.
6 He Delayed 'Cruel Summer' Three Times
Kanye West tapped his GOOD Music artists and his affiliates, like Pusha T, Big Sean, Kid Cudi, John Legend, and Jay-Z, for the Cruel Summer compilation album. The record was originally set to be released on August 7, 2012, as Pusha T said on Funkmaster Flex's radio show, but West pushed it back to September 4.
5 '808s & Heartbreak' Was Released A Day Before The Initial Date To Capitalize On Thanksgiving Weekend
In 2008, West cooked a special album in less than a month: 808s & Heartbreak. After debuting "Love Lockdown" in September, he stated that he's planning to drop the record in October. Again, it was pushed back until December 17, before he subsequently released it on November 24 to capitalize on the Thanksgiving holiday. 808s & Heartbreak ended up becoming one of the most important hip-hop albums of the decade.
4 'Late Registration' Was Also ... Late
After hitting a commercial success with the debut album The College Dropout, West quickly geared up for his sophomore record Late Registration. It was scheduled to be released on July 12, 2005, before getting delayed until August 16 and subsequently dropped on August 30 instead. The reason? He and producer Jon Brion had to wait for weeks to rent the harpsichord to complete the album's production.
3 'Watch The Throne' Was Postponed For One Week
Kanye West boasted that he "would "drop a 5 song album called Watch the Throne before even finishing his then-forthcoming album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The collaborative album was rumored to be released on the Independence Day of 2011, before the official online release date on August 1 and offline release on August 5 were announced. Neither of these two dates was right, instead, Watch the Throne hit the stores on August 8.
"Before success, there weren’t interviews or photo shoots," Jay-Z explained to Delta Sky magazine about the delay. “Now it’s a big thing to get in the studio. It’s like a process just to get there. And once I’m there, I have to dial into an emotion."
2 He Scrapped His 'Good A** Job' Collaborative Album With Chance The Rapper
Kanye West and Chance the Rapper were gearing up for the Good A** Job collaborative album. Unfortunately, the record has never seen the light of the day up to this writing.
"The project is something I've been wanting to do for a very long time. I don't think it's Kanye's thing, he's about to drop Yandhi. There's no doing it, the project hasn't started yet," said Chance, explaining that the record would be a separate project from West's now-scrapped Watch the Throne 2.
1 'The College Dropout' Missed 193 Days From Its Original Release Due To Internet Leaks
There are many cases of albums that suffer from internet leaks, including Kanye West's debut The College Dropout. West, fresh off producing Jay-Z's The Blueprint, said that The College Dropout was originally scheduled in August 2003. However, his perfectionist habit led the album to face three separate delays: October 2003, January 2004, before ended up being released on February 10, 2004.
