Kanye West’s “Donda Experience Performance” event, marking the premiere of his new album and Donda sequel Donda 2, is taking place tonight at LoanDepot Park in Miami. Billed as a “DONDA 2 listening and DONDA 1 performance” by West on Instagram, the event’s livestream is happening in IMAX theaters and at Kanye’s Stem Player website. Watch it below.
After over two hours of heartbeat noise, the show began with a house on fire and a new song that appeared to feature posthumous vocals from XXXTentacion. As multiple new songs played in the stadium, West danced near the flaming house while wading through water. He shared “Flowers,” which he teased with his Stem Player exclusivity announcement, and “Eazy.”
West was joined in the water by Migos as a new song featuring Baby Keem and the trio played. The next two songs featured Future, who reportedly executive produced the album, and the latter also appeared to feature Travis Scott. Pusha-T appeared in the stadium as his new single “Diet Coke” played. A subsequent song opened with a sample of Vice President Kamala Harris’ “we did it, Joe” phone call, featured Jack Harlow (who appeared at the event), and Kanye’s repeated line “we stopped buying Louis bags after Virgil passed.” It was followed by another song featuring Future.
Donda 2 will reportedly be made available exclusively through West’s Donda Stem Player. He claimed that he turned down a $100 million deal from Apple, choosing instead to release the album via his own platform. In late January, West had announced that Donda 2 would arrive on February 22, but it did not appear online or on the stem players at midnight.
West has lately become an avid Instagrammer, using his page to share (and typically delete) controversial posts, often about Kim Kardashian West, as well as her rumored boyfriend Pete Davidson. Among the first of West’s recent incendiary posts was a criticism of his oldest daughter North West’s TikTok use. He also harassed Davidson directly. Due to West’s anger with Davidson, he also appeared to cut ties with Kid Cudi—a friend of Davidson’s. West, on February 12, said that Cudi would not appear on Donda 2. Cudi had previously appeared alongside West on Donda’s “Moon.”
Since the August 2021 release of Donda, West has co-headlined the Amazon-sponsored Free Larry Hoover Benefit Concert with Drake and was announced as a Coachella headliner. The first part of the Jeen-Yuhs documentary about his life premiered at Sundance, and he had been a mainstay in the tabloids due to his relationship with actress Julia Fox. (Fox and West broke up in February after a couple of months together.) Plus, he legally changed his name to Ye, which is also the name of his 2018 studio album.
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