The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for albums . Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming . It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts Company (OCC) on Fridays (previously Sundays). It is broadcast on BBC Radio 1 (top 5) and found on the OCC website as a Top 100 or on UKChartsPlus as a Top 200, with positions continuing until all sales have been tracked in data only available to industry insiders. However, even though number 100 was classed as a hit album (as in the case of The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums ) in the 1980s until January 1989, since the compilations were removed, this definition was changed to Top 75 with follow-up books such as The Virgin Book of British Hit Albums only including this data. As of 2021, Since 1983, the OCC generally provides a public charts for hits and weeks up to the Top 100. Business customers can require additional chart placings.
239-450: Donda is the tenth studio album by American rapper Kanye West . It was released by GOOD Music and Def Jam Recordings on August 29, 2021. The album features a broad range of guest performances from artists, including The Weeknd , Jay-Z , Marilyn Manson , Kid Cudi , Travis Scott , Lil Yachty , Baby Keem , Playboi Carti , Jay Electronica , Lil Baby , DaBaby , Roddy Ricch , Ty Dolla Sign , Fivio Foreign , Lil Durk , Pop Smoke ,
478-478: A 529 plan to fully cover college tuition for Floyd's daughter. West made cameo appearances as himself in the films State Property 2 (2005) and The Love Guru (2008), and in an episode of the television show Entourage in 2007. West provided the voice for "Kenny West", a rapper, in the animated sitcom The Cleveland Show . In 2009, he starred in the Spike Jonze -directed short film We Were Once
717-533: A Hurricane Sandy benefit concert . In January 2019, West donated $ 10 million towards the completion of the Roden Crater by American artist James Turrell . In June 2020, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the following protests , he donated $ 2 million between the family of Floyd and other victims of police brutality , Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor . The donation funded legal fees for Arbery and Taylor's families, as well as establishing
956-546: A consistent life ethic . In October 2022, he was widely condemned and lost many sponsors and partnerships—including his collaborations with Adidas, Gap, and Balenciaga —after making a series of antisemitic statements, including denying the Holocaust . West was born on June 8, 1977, in Atlanta , Georgia. After his parents divorced when he was three years old, he moved with his mother to Chicago , Illinois. His father, Ray West,
1195-405: A manifesto on his architectural goals during a visit to Harvard Graduate School of Design . In May 2018, West announced he was starting an architecture firm called Yeezy Home, which will act as an arm of his already successful Yeezy fashion label. In June 2018, the first Yeezy Home collaboration was announced by designer Jalil Peraza, teasing an affordable concrete prefabricated home as part of
1434-448: A social housing project. In March 2015, it was announced that West is a co-owner, with various other music artists, in the music streaming service Tidal . The service specialises in lossless audio and high definition music videos. Jay-Z acquired the parent company of Tidal, Aspiro , in the first quarter of 2015. Sixteen artist stakeholders including Jay-Z, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Madonna, Chris Martin , Nicki Minaj co-own Tidal, with
1673-541: A string orchestra for his second album Late Registration . West collaborated with American film score composer Jon Brion , who served as the album's co-executive producer for several tracks. Late Registration sold over 2.3 million units in the United States alone by the end of 2005 and was considered by industry observers as the only successful major album release of the fall season, which had been plagued by steadily declining CD sales. When his song " Touch
1912-492: A "melodically complex" bassline and a "sustained choir". "Hurricane" is an R&B song, with layered organs and processed choir vocals that are cut akin to a sample. West touches on personal issues such as his breakup with Kardashian and his house, while the hook sees the Weeknd exude confidence and Lil Baby provides a mournful performance. " Praise God " contains a vocal sample of Donda West proclaiming, "Even if you are not ready for
2151-411: A "radically superior second half". Kornhaber gave the album a negative review, writing that "supposed transcendence comes to feel suspiciously like regression" while surrender feels like "self-exculpation". He complained how the album "aches" for "a miracle to unfold" of similarity to the accompanying listening events and harshly asserted that it seems like "a career's worth of B-sides ", despite crediting
2390-479: A Fairytale (2009), playing himself acting belligerently while drunk in a nightclub. West wrote, directed, and starred in the musical short film Runaway (2010), which heavily features music from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy . The film depicts a relationship between a man, played by West, and a half-woman, half- phoenix creature. UK Albums Chart To qualify for the Official Albums Chart,
2629-501: A Paris hotel. Determined to "undermine the commercial", he once again brought together close collaborators and attempted to incorporate Chicago drill , dancehall , acid house , and industrial music . Primarily inspired by architecture, West's perfectionist tendencies led him to contact producer Rick Rubin fifteen days shy of its due date to strip down the record's sound in favor of a more minimalist approach. Initial promotion of his sixth album included worldwide video projections of
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#17328767538362868-569: A Top 10 new entry one week, followed by a dramatic decline the next, with most of these releases exiting the Top 75 completely. The majority of these acts would be indie and rock bands like the Wombats , Sea Power and Maxïmo Park , who would market their album to the type of people who would want to own the release via a physical format rather than streaming it. The first number one on the UK Albums Chart
3107-706: A concert in Haikou , China at the Wuyuan River Stadium , West announced his eleventh solo album Bully , debuting the track "Beauty and the Beast". West's musical career is defined by frequent stylistic shifts and different musical approaches. In the subsequent years since his debut, West has both musically and lyrically taken an increasingly experimental approach to crafting progressive hip hop music while maintaining accessible pop sensibilities. Ed Ledsham of PopMatters said that "West's melding of multiple genres into
3346-456: A consecutive run of 70 weeks from November 1958 to March 1960, and had further runs at the top in 1960 and 1961, making a non-consecutive total of 115 weeks. The youngest artist to top the chart is Neil Reid , whose debut album topped the chart in 1972 when he was only 12 years old, while the youngest female artist is Billie Eilish who was 17 years old when she debuted at the top with When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? . The record for
3585-590: A contender for Album of the Year at the 54th Grammy Awards was viewed as a "snub" by several media outlets. 2011 saw West embark on a festival tour to commemorate the release of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy performing and headlining numerous festivals including; SWU Music & Arts , Austin City Limits Music Festival , Oya Festival , Flow Festival , Live Music Festival , The Big Chill , Essence Music Festival , Lollapalooza and Coachella which
3824-460: A controversial video for " Famous ", which depicted wax figures of several celebrities (including West, Kardashian, Taylor Swift, businessman and then-presidential candidate Donald Trump , comedian Bill Cosby , and former president George W. Bush) sleeping nude in a shared bed. In August 2016, West embarked on the Saint Pablo Tour in support of The Life of Pablo. The performances featured
4063-485: A conversation with French fashion designer Michèle Lamy in an Instagram Live stream on May 25, 2020, American cinematographer Arthur Jafa revealed that he was working on video material with West for a single from his forthcoming album, titled God's Country . On July 21, West confirmed the album title had been changed to Donda in honor of his mother , after whom he had also named his creative company . The album had its name briefly changed to Donda: With Child , which
4302-483: A cryptic worldview based on various points, before the song ends with the son of gang leader Larry Hoover thanking West for taking his father's case to the White House of 2017–2021 US president Donald Trump . Throughout the hip house track "New Again", West searches for salvation and showcases awareness of religion's trappings. The first version featured Brown crooning repentance for everything he will do again on
4541-456: A five-day period of tracking, with 309,000 album-equivalent units that consisted of 272,000 streaming-equivalent album units, 37,000 pure album sales, and less than 1,000 track-equivalent units. The album-equivalent units set a record for the highest amount of 2021, exceeding the 295,000 units amassed by Olivia Rodrigo 's Sour . Kanye West scored his 10th chart-topper on the Billboard 200 with
4780-432: A frequent source of controversy due to his conduct on social media , at award shows and public settings, as well as his comments on the music and fashion industries , U.S. politics , race , and slavery . His Christian faith, high-profile marriage to Kim Kardashian , and mental health have also been topics of media attention. In 2020, West launched an unsuccessful independent presidential campaign that advocated for
5019-455: A male artist and solo act to do so. The first female solo artist to have the UK's year-end best seller was Barbra Streisand in 1982, with Love Songs . The first studio album and non-soundtrack or cast recording album to top the decade-end chart was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles in the 1960s – they became the first group to achieve this. James Blunt 's Back to Bedlam , in
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#17328767538365258-509: A manner to "adjust" Donda "the way" he wanted. West held a private listening event for the album at ChurchLV in Las Vegas on July 18, 2021, which required registration and was invite-only. It started at 6:30 p.m. and finished at 8 p.m. Clips of the event surfaced online showing West hunched over his laptop, wearing gloves and a ski mask over his head. West played the music from his MacBook throughout, not speaking whatsoever. Following
5497-463: A mask. The event ended with him being elevated to the ceiling of Mercedes-Benz Stadium by harness, in a manner reminiscent of ascending to heaven. The listening party had over 40,000 attendees. It surpassed West's own record for the most popular livestream on Apple Music, drawing in 5.4 million viewers. Following the event, Kid Cudi was reported to be featured on "Moon" and "Remote Control" alongside Don Toliver and Young Thug, respectively, though he
5736-418: A matching ponytail flows behind her, while a fertility idol is also partially present. After Kanye West posted numerous potential covers, a plain black square was ultimately used as the artwork for the album. In its first day of release, Donda earned the second-biggest global Spotify debut for album streams ever, with nearly 100 million streams, and broke the record for the biggest first day streams of 2021 on
5975-571: A mobile stage suspended from the ceiling. West postponed several dates in October following the Paris robbery of several of his wife's effects. On November 21, 2016, West cancelled the remaining 21 dates on the Saint Pablo Tour, following a week of no-shows, curtailed concerts and rants about politics. He was later admitted for psychiatric observation at UCLA Medical Center . He stayed hospitalized over
6214-405: A month later, indicating via an Instagram post that she was collaborating with West. Speaking for Cocktails with Queens on Fox Soul , Johnson said she recorded the song " Donda Chant " as well as vocals for another track that ended up not getting used, in said session. After holding a listening event for Donda at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on July 22, 2021, West took up temporary residence in one of
6453-619: A new album entitled Yeezus II slated for a 2014 release, West announced in March 2015 that the album would instead be tentatively called So Help Me God . In May 2015, West was awarded an honorary doctorate by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for his contributions to music, fashion, and popular culture. The next month, West headlined at the Glastonbury Festival in the UK, despite
6692-467: A new chart record for the most weeks spent inside the top 40 of the UK Albums Chart for a girl group album. As of 2022, it had spent 69 weeks in the Top 40. To date, Little Mix are the girl group with the most Top 5 albums, with seven as of 2021. In July 2021, ABBA's Gold: Greatest Hits was officially recognised by the Official Charts Company as the first album to spend over 1000 weeks on
6931-588: A new shoe collaboration deal with West. After months of anticipation and rumors, West confirmed the release of the Adidas Yeezy Boosts. In 2015, West unveiled a Yeezy clothing line, premiering in collaboration with Adidas early that year. In June 2016, Adidas announced a new long-term contract with Kanye West that extended the Yeezy line to a number of stores, planning to sell sports performance products like basketball, football, and soccer, although Adidas terminated
7170-528: A petition signed by almost 135,000 people against his appearance. Another petition aimed to block West from headlining the 2015 Pan American Games , garnering 50,000 supporters. West announced in January 2016 that Swish would be released on February 11, and later that month, released new songs " Real Friends " and a snippet of " No More Parties in LA " with Kendrick Lamar. On January 26, 2016, West revealed he had renamed
7409-449: A record deal as a rapper. Multiple record companies, including Capitol Records , denied or ignored him because he did not portray the gangsta image prominent in mainstream hip hop at the time. Desperate to keep West from defecting to another label, then-label head Damon Dash reluctantly signed West to Roc-A-Fella as a recording artist. A 2002 car accident, which shattered his jaw, inspired West; two weeks after being admitted to
Donda - Misplaced Pages Continue
7648-465: A remix of "Nah Nah Nah" that features fellow rappers DaBaby and 2 Chainz . After the original and remix were both removed from streaming services in the lead up to Donda ' s release, neither of them made the final cut. On July 20, 2021, Audio products company Beats by Dre premiered a commercial during game six of the 2021 NBA Finals with athlete Sha'Carri Richardson , scored by West's track " No Child Left Behind ". The commercial also showed
7887-408: A representative for West announced a release date of August 6 for Donda , which was later confirmed via both a Beats by Dre commercial and West's Apple Music livestream. A day prior to this, a pre-order for the album was launched on iTunes , revealing it to feature 24 songs, along with a release date of August 27, 2021, before the date was revised to six days later. Conflictingly, Apple Music displayed
8126-465: A result of the allegations against them of homophobia and sexual abuse respectively. In October 2021, the Stem Player was issued, allowing users to remix the songs and adding new ones; this service was later discontinued the following year. The deluxe edition was released on November 14 and contained three additional songs, as well as two extended versions of songs already present on the album. During
8365-407: A scholarship to attend Chicago's American Academy of Art in 1997 and began taking painting classes. Shortly after, he transferred to Chicago State University to study English. At age 20, he dropped out to pursue his musical career. This greatly displeased his mother, who was also a professor at the university, although she would later accept the decision. West began his early production career in
8604-598: A selection of popular tracks performed by session artists in the style of a recent hit (and unconnected with the BBC series of Top of the Pops albums, which would follow in the 1990s). This decision was soon overturned, with these anonymous cover albums being taken out the chart again. On the Official Albums Chart Top 50 for the week ending 18 August 1973, all the compilations listed as 'various artists' albums were taken out of
8843-450: A series of images, alongside a commercial, featuring Sha'Carri Richardson, scored by the song, " No Child Left Behind ", teasing a release date of July 23. The recording sessions began a month after Jesus Is King was released. Producer BoogzDaBeast recalled that he was called in to Wyoming with West telling him "Man we're going back in, we're about to do a new album. Let's keep this going.". BoogzDaBeast came to Wyoming with 166 beats, which
9082-578: A series of listening events. During the album's events, guest appearances from various artists were revealed, including Lil Baby, Playboi Carti, Pusha T, Jay-Z, Lil Yachty, Vory, KayCyy, Westside Gunn, Conway the Machine, Jay Electronica, Pop Smoke, the Sunday Service Choir, DaBaby, Marilyn Manson, and the Weeknd. West had updated Donda after each listening event like he did with his seventh studio album The Life of Pablo (2016), changing content such as
9321-511: A solo artist of any gender) with 23 weeks, 11 of which were consecutive (which is also a record for a female artist). The first studio album and non-soundtrack or cast recording album to top the year-end chart was With the Beatles by The Beatles in 1963 – they became the first group to achieve this feat. Elton John 's Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player in 1973, marks the first album by
9560-544: A song with me." The rapper ended up recording his verse for " Hurricane " after Kenyan-American rapper KayCyy suggested to him that he should contribute to it. In September 2020, West recorded music with Buju Banton and Saint Jhn at Gargamel Studio in Jamaica. On March 8, 2021, Cyhi the Prynce stated in an interview with VladTV that West had resumed work on Donda amid his divorce from his wife Kim Kardashian . On May 30, West
9799-451: A style of hip-hop production dubbed "chipmunk-soul", a sampling technique involving the manipulation of tempo in order to chop and stretch pitched-up samples from vintage soul songs. On his debut studio album, The College Dropout (2004), West formed the constitutive elements of his style, described as intricate hip-hop beats, topical subject matter, and clumsy rapping laced with inventive wordplay. The record saw West diverge from
Donda - Misplaced Pages Continue
10038-507: A supporting act. The tour was met with rave reviews from critics. Rolling Stone described it as "crazily entertaining, hugely ambitious, emotionally affecting (really!) and, most importantly, totally bonkers". Writing for Forbes , Zack O'Malley Greenburg praised West for "taking risks that few pop stars, if any, are willing to take in today's hyper-exposed world of pop", describing the show as "overwrought and uncomfortable at times, but [it] excels at challenging norms and provoking thought in
10277-509: A time, West acted as a ghost producer for Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie . Due to his association with Angelettie, West was not able to release a solo album, so he formed the Go-Getters, a hip hop group composed of him and fellow Chicago natives GLC , Timmy G, Really Doe, and Arrowstar. The Go-Getters independently released their first and only studio album, World Record Holders in 1999 through West's company, Konman Productions . West spent much of
10516-427: A total of 66 weeks and most top ten albums by any artist, charting 53 releases. Until this same month, he also held the record for the most number one albums by a solo artist in a tie with Robbie Williams , however when Williams' XXV album reached the top on 16 September 2022, the former Take That star broke this record with 14 number ones albums to Presley's 13 chart toppers, with Williams moving into second place in
10755-441: A trilogy of albums, with each of the album's three volumes set to be released on February 9, March 6, and April 5, 2024. In January 2024, West co-signed 4Batz and called him his favorite new artist. On February 8, 2024, West released the first volume's second single, " Talking / Once Again " featuring his eldest daughter North. A day later, producer Erick Sermon revealed in an interview that West's upcoming eleventh studio album
10994-553: A vocal sample of a speech by West's mother of the same name, who talks about him being a genius; the speech precedes a Christian worship moment from The World Famous Tony Williams . On the boom bap track " Keep My Spirit Alive ", West claims to be anti-commercial and links his problems with the behavior of God. " Jesus Lord " is Donda ' s centerpiece and Kanye West details the story of how he changed from who he used to be in his verse, as well as questioning if he will go to heaven and see Donda there. Rapper Jay Electronica then offers
11233-409: A way that just isn't common for mainstream musical acts of late". West subsequently released a number of singles featuring Paul McCartney , including " Only One " and " FourFiveSeconds ", also featuring Rihanna . In November 2013, West stated that he was beginning work on his next studio album, hoping to release it by mid-2014, with production by Rick Rubin and Q-Tip . Having initially announced
11472-485: A year to make his second album. West was inspired by Roseland NYC Live , a 1998 live album by English trip hop group Portishead , produced with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra , incorporating string arrangements into his hip-hop production. Though West had not been able to afford many live instruments around the time of his debut album, the money from his commercial success enabled him to hire
11711-403: Is "done with [his] contract with Sony and Universal". On October 16, he released the single " Nah Nah Nah ". West held several listening parties at Mercedes-Benz Stadium for his upcoming album Donda in the summer of 2021, where he had taken up temporary residence in one of the stadium's locker rooms, converting it into a recording studio to finish the recording. After multiple delays, Donda
11950-417: Is King (2019) and Donda (2021), and psychedelic music on Kids See Ghosts (2018). Early in his career, West made clear his interest in fashion and desire to work in the clothing design industry. He launched his own clothing line in spring 2006, and developed it over the following four years before the line was ultimately cancelled in 2009. In January 2007, West's first sneaker collaboration
12189-722: Is a former Black Panther and was one of the first black photojournalists at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution . Ray later became a Christian counselor, and in 2006, opened the Good Water Store and Café in Lexington Park, Maryland , with startup capital from his son. West's mother, Donda C. West (née Williams), was a professor of English at Clark Atlanta University and the Chair of the English Department at Chicago State University before retiring to serve as his manager. West
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#173287675383612428-472: Is a new version of him to adapt to, while Roddy Ricch wonders about truth on the hook. West sings about the emotional fallout from getting divorced on " Come to Life ", alongside assuring that he is connected with God. "No Child Left Behind" is the album's final track before the second versions of songs and features Vory uttering the titular phrase in reference to the educational act signed by 2001–2009 US president George W. Bush , as well as West singing about
12667-401: Is a tribute to Japanese fashion designer Junya Watanabe and features a skeletal arrangement of handclaps , organs, and heavy bass. It contains a Drake diss from West, with him alluding to Certified Lover Boy ' s delayed release. On " Believe What I Say ", described as hip house , R&B, and soul , West offers a reminder to not let fame drag him down and references Kardashian. West and
12906-486: Is also aware "people are talking about it today when they wouldn't have been otherwise". Marilyn Manson's former partner Evan Rachel Wood , who had accused him of sexual assault, "seem[ed] to respond" to his inclusion on Donda a few hours after its release, according to NME ' s Daly. She did this by posting a video of her covering New Radicals ' " You Get What You Give " to Instagram, quoting its title and encouraging recent alleged fellow survivors "who got slapped in
13145-495: Is an American rapper and record producer. One of the most prominent figures in hip hop , he is known for his varying musical style and polarizing cultural and political commentary. After dropping out of college to pursue a career in music, West began producing for regional artists in the Chicago area. As an in-house producer for Roc-A-Fella Records , he co-produced albums including Jay-Z 's The Blueprint (2001) before signing with
13384-401: Is both minimalist and maximalist , with darker lyrical content and production in comparison to West's prior efforts, in addition to a reduced use of drums and complete absence of profanity . Themes explored include the convergence of West's Christian faith, righteousness , West's estrangement from his then-wife Kim Kardashian , and his late mother Donda West , to whom the album's namesake
13623-410: Is considered to have had a significant effect on hip-hop music, encouraging other rappers to take more creative risks with their productions. While Taylor Swift was accepting her award for Best Female Video at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards , West went on stage and grabbed the microphone from her to proclaim that Beyoncé deserved the award instead. He was subsequently removed from the remainder of
13862-591: Is dedicated. Upon its release, West accused Universal Music Group of having released Donda without his approval, which the label denied. " Hurricane " was released as its lead single in September 2021, and was followed by both " Believe What I Say " and " Off the Grid " in November. The album polarized and divided music critics , particularly for its cohesiveness. Some noted an improvement from West's previous album and praised
14101-403: Is divided by 1000 and added to the pure sales of the album. This calculation was designed to ensure that the chart rundown continues to reflect the popularity of the albums themselves, rather than just the performance of one or two smash hit singles. The final number one album on the UK Albums Chart to be based purely on sales alone was Smoke + Mirrors by Imagine Dragons . On 1 March 2015, In
14340-598: Is notoriously secretive about the company's operations, maintaining neither an official website nor a social media presence. Contemporary critics have noted the consistent minimalistic aesthetic exhibited throughout Donda creative projects. West expressed interest in starting an architecture firm in May 2013, saying "I want to do product, I am a product person, not just clothing but water bottle design, architecture ... I make music but I shouldn't be limited to one place of creativity" and then later in November 2013, delivering
14579-461: Is the first full track, featuring Kanye West and Jay-Z combining metaphors about crime with details of marriage and sin. The track is a fusion of "maximalist hip hop", pop, and alternative rock , incorporating auto-tuned vocals and arena rock guitar riffs. The song contains almost no drums, until the last segment of the track brings a "brief, stilted drum pattern", described as industrial percussion. "God Breathed" has an abrasive, industrial sound that
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#173287675383614818-541: Is what you have to do.'" West recorded the remainder of the album in Los Angeles while recovering from the car accident. It was leaked months before its release date, and West used the opportunity to remix, remaster, and revise the album before its release; West added new verses, string arrangements , gospel choirs , and improved drum programming. The album was postponed three times from its initial date in August 2003, and
15057-555: The Billboard 200 , the latter becoming West's most commercially successful to date. Three of his subsequent albums, 808s & Heartbreak (2008), My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010), and The Life of Pablo (2016), were certified triple platinum , and Yeezus (2013) was certified double platinum. While not as well-received critically as his previous efforts, Ye (2018), Jesus Is King (2019), and Donda (2021) continued West's series of consecutive number one debuts on
15296-608: The Record Retailer chart from 1960 to 1969; and the Official Albums Chart from 1969 on. For eight weeks in February and March 1971 no Official Albums Chart was compiled due to a postal strike – for this period, the OCC uses the chart compiled by Melody Maker instead. In the 1970s the new album chart was revealed at 12:45 pm on Thursdays on BBC Radio 1 , and then moved to 6:05 pm (later 6:30 pm) on Wednesday evenings during
15535-565: The ARIA Albums chart in Australia, standing as West's fourth number-one release on the chart. This led to him joining 5 Seconds of Summer , Justin Bieber , Keith Urban , Kings of Leon , and Lady Gaga as one of the acts to achieve their fourth number-one album in the 2020s decade. The debut increased West's number of chart-topping weeks to five, alongside giving the rapper his ninth top-10 release on
15774-498: The Billboard 200. West has also released the collaborative albums Watch the Throne (2011) with Jay-Z , Kids See Ghosts (2018) with Kid Cudi , as well as Vultures 1 and Vultures 2 (2024) with Ty Dolla Sign . In fashion design, he has collaborated with Nike, Inc. , Louis Vuitton , and Gap Inc. on clothing and footwear, and led the Yeezy collaboration with Adidas . One of
16013-762: The COVID-19 pandemic . That same month, GOOD Music president Pusha T stated in a Discord interview that he had been recording with West recently. Pusha T was planning to meet with West on March 16, 2020, to complete a project, but cited "flights slowing down" due to COVID travel restrictions as the reason for a delay. On March 12, 2020, rappers Westside Gunn and Conway the Machine were spotted in Wyoming recording material with West. Westside Gunn would later confirm his collaboration with West in an interview for Elliot Wilson on Tidal , alongside recalling that they were set to travel to Cabo San Lucas after recording in Wyoming, until
16252-588: The College Football Playoff National Championship game on January 10, 2022. The visual has a night setting and shows people wearing new Yeezy Gap hoodies wandering around a city; it concludes with floating bodies spiralling through the skies. On July 25, 2020, West tweeted out an album cover, showing an infrared scheme of orange and red mirroring the shape of the people, sun, and moon in the sky, backed by green mountains alongside purple and white clouds designed by Pierre-Louis Auvray. In
16491-719: The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum . On January 5, 2022, West was announced as one of the 2022 headliners of Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival . Later that month on January 15, West released the first single for his upcoming album Donda 2 , " Eazy " featuring The Game , to be executive produced by American rapper Future . West hosted a listening event for the album at LoanDepot Park in Miami, Florida, on February 22. In April, shortly before Coachella, West pulled out as headlining act, then proceeded to pull out of headlining Rolling Loud . West and The Game performed
16730-495: The Now That's What I Call Music series was launched by EMI/Virgin, followed by CBS/WEA's rival Hits Album series a year later and Chrysalis/MCA's Out Now! in 1985. From this point in the 1980s, every regular edition of Now That's What I Call Music topped the albums chart (apart from Now 4 which was kept of the number one spot by the first ever Hits Album ), with these albums from the three major-label joint-ventures joined in
16969-599: The Peter Powell and Bruno Brookes shows. In October 1987 it moved to Monday lunchtimes, during the Gary Davies show, and from April to October 1993 it briefly had its show from 7:00–8:00 pm on Sunday evenings, introduced by Lynn Parsons . Since October 1993 it has been included in The Official Chart show from 4:00–5:45 pm on Fridays (previously from 4:00–7:00 pm on Sundays). A weekly 'Album Chart' show
17208-654: The Recorded Music NZ (RMNZ) for shipments of 15,000 units in New Zealand. Donda ranked at number one on the midweek album sales chart in the United Kingdom, before debuting at the same position on the UK Albums Chart . It gave West his third chart-topper in the UK and stood as his first since Yeezus in 2013. The album pushed 19,617 chart sales, 91 percent of which came from 17,921 streaming-equivalent units, while
17447-451: The chorus , originally included a verse performed by the singer that he later leaked, after publicly calling West a "whole hoe". Several critics expressed negative responses to West's choice to remove the verse, including the co-host of The Breakfast Club , Charlamagne tha God , that defined the verse discard as a "poor choice musically". On September 28, 2021, the song was updated on streaming services, with Brown being replaced by West and
17686-438: The " church-organ gospel" of West's previous studio album Jesus Is King (2019), the "gothic swagger" of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010), and the "bleeping" electropop of 808s & Heartbreak (2008). Spencer Kornhaber of The Atlantic perceived that "stylistic innovation has driven West's career" continuously, but he possibly "conceives of Donda as the album of his life—a capstone, an anthology". However,
17925-404: The 2000s, marks the first album by a male artist and solo act to do it. Blunt was the only performer in history to top the decade chart with a debut album. The first female solo artist to achieve this feat was Adele in the 2010s, with 21 . Dua Lipa 's Future Nostalgia holds the record for having the lowest one-week sales while at the top of the chart in the modern era, when it was number one
18164-404: The 3,889 downloaded copies it sold out of 51,510 sales. Also on 16 September 2022, Columbia became the first record label to take the Top 3 chart positions with three different acts with releases by Robbie Williams, Ozzy Osbourne and Harry Styles occupying number 1, 2 and 3 (with parent company Sony Music also having the number 4 with a re-issue of Manic Street Preachers' Know Your Enemy ). In
18403-623: The ARIA Albums chart. 19 of Donda ' s tracks debuted within the top-50 of the ARIA Singles chart; "Hurricane" charted the highest at number four. The entries surpassed Taylor Swift 's milestone of 16 debuts in the top-50, as well as the record held by both Post Malone and Michael Jackson for 17 tracks present within this ranking. The album also topped the New Zealand Albums chart, and by March 27, 2022, it had been certified platinum by
18642-456: The Albums Chart, but this total does not include 2014's Gold – 40th Anniversary Edition (which like Queen's The Platinum Collection is a 3-CD set also including More ABBA Gold: More ABBA Hits and The Golden B-sides ) or additional weeks inside the Top 100 missing from the OCC's database before February 1994 (as with the singles chart, Music Week only published the Top 75 as this
18881-556: The Blood" were added in an update. In February 2022, West announced that the sequel to Donda would be exclusively released onto the Stem Player. On November 5, 2021, in an interview with N.O.R.E. on Drink Champs, West announced that a deluxe version of Donda was set to be released, teasing a song called "Let Go". Eight days later, billboards advertising the deluxe edition appeared around Los Angeles. On November 14, 2021, Donda (Deluxe)
19120-455: The British album charts than any other musical act, followed by the Beatles , Elvis Presley , U2 and ABBA . By most weeks at number one, the Beatles lead with a total of 176 weeks, and the most number one albums of all with 16, followed by The Rolling Stones and Robbie Williams with 14 number ones each. Similar to the situation regarding Elvis Presley's record-breaking tally of number ones on
19359-664: The COVID-19 pandemic canceled their plans. West held further recording sessions at Bighorn Mountain Ranch in Greybull, Wyoming , which he bought for $ 14.5 million. The ranch spans over 6,700 acres, covering a larger area than the Monster Lake Ranch property in Wyoming that West previously bought. West flew Lil Baby out to Wyoming to record for Donda on July 22, 2020, following on from him tweeting, "Lil Baby my favorite rapper but won't do
19598-661: The Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. On May 3, 2022, it was awarded a platinum certiifcation by IFPI Danmark for shipments of 20,000 units in Denmark. Donda peaked within the top five in Germany, Slovakia, Spain, and Switzerland. Notes Kanye West Ye ( / j eɪ / YAY ; born Kanye Omari West / ˈ k ɑː n j eɪ / KAHN -yay ; June 8, 1977)
19837-649: The Donda Stem Player was made available by West, with three extra songs being included. The new songs are a censored edit of "Life of the Party", " Up from the Ashes ", and an updated version of "Never Abandon Your Family". In addition, the player contains a version of "Remote Control" that re-adds Kid Cudi's original contribution. On November 17, 2021, the Donda Stem Player website was updated to include downloadable stems for Jesus Is King . On December 10, 2021, stems for "Wash Us in
20076-555: The Grid" were released as singles to US rhythmic and urban contemporary radio stations, respectively, through Good Music and Def Jam. On the Hot 100, the former charted at number 28. "Off the Grid" debuted at number 11 on the chart, alongside reaching number 15 on the UK Singles Chart. On November 8, 2021, the song was awarded a gold certification by the RIAA for pushing 500,000 certified units in
20315-617: The Kanye West Foundation in Chicago in 2003, tasked with a mission to battle dropout and illiteracy rates, while partnering with community organizations to provide underprivileged youth access to music education. In 2007, West and the Foundation partnered with Strong American Schools as part of their "Ed in '08" campaign. As spokesman for the campaign, West appeared in a series of PSAs for the organization, and hosted an inaugural benefit concert in August of that year. In 2008, following
20554-477: The Kardashians, Charlie Wilson , and Kid Cudi. West previewed a new song, " Water " at his "Sunday Service" orchestration performance at Coachella 2019, which was later revealed to feature on his upcoming album Jesus Is King ; West released the album on October 25, 2019. It became the first to ever top the Billboard 200, Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, Top Rap Albums, Top Christian Albums and Top Gospel Albums at
20793-655: The Lonely Hour by Sam Smith became the first album to top the new streaming-incorporated Official Albums Chart. The weekly Top 75 UK Albums Chart (albums described as hits in the case of British Hit Singles & Albums or The Virgin Book of British Hit Albums) were published in Music Week magazine until 2021. In 2018 Future (publisher of 'Louder Sound' publications such as Metal Hammer and Classic Rock ) acquired Music Week publisher NewBay Media. Future decided that
21032-518: The Lox , Shenseea , Westside Gunn , Conway the Machine , and Young Thug , among others; as well as vocals from Chris Brown were also included prior to the album being updated. Its deluxe version features guest vocals from André 3000 , Tyler, the Creator , and KayCyy . West himself, as well as BoogzDaBeast, Dem Jointz , Mike Dean , and Ojivolta primarily helmed the album's production. West recorded much of
21271-448: The Lox , with them opening up about their connections to different gods. On June 26, 2020, West unveiled a collaboration between his fashion company Yeezy and clothing retailer Gap , and also launched the #WestDayEver promotional campaign on Twitter that accompanied announcements of different projects. One of the projects was a music video for the track " Wash Us in the Blood " that features fellow rapper Travis Scott , directed by Jafa;
21510-609: The Simulation , later clarifying that he was sharing the book "in real time" on Twitter and began posting content that was likened to " life coaching ". Later that month, he also announced two new albums, a solo album and self-titled collaboration with Kid Cudi under the name Kids See Ghosts , both of which would be released in June. Additionally, he revealed he would produce upcoming albums by GOOD Music label-mates Pusha T and Teyana Taylor , as well as Nas . Shortly thereafter, West released
21749-620: The Sky " failed to win Best Video at the 2006 MTV Europe Music Awards , West went onto the stage as the award was being presented to Justice and Simian for " We Are Your Friends " and argued that he should have won the award instead. Hundreds of news outlets worldwide criticized the outburst. On November 7, 2006, West apologized for this outburst publicly during his performance as support act for U2 for their Vertigo concert in Brisbane . He later spoofed
21988-527: The Sunday Service Choir provide worship on " 24 ", which features him delivering a message of hope in relation to God, backed by a discordant organ played by Cory Henry . "Remote Control" has an instrumental with a whistling hook over which West comments on technology and its infiltration of life, while Young Thug boasts about his property. On " Moon ", rapper Kid Cudi provides a wistful performance. Throughout "Heaven and Hell", West lets out his thoughts on Jeff Bezos , vinyl , and modern culture. "Donda" contains
22227-415: The Sunday Service Choir. Rapper Soulja Boy originally recorded a verse for the track " Remote Control ", although he was not included on the final version of the song, being replaced with fellow rapper Young Thug . Following the album's release, Soulja Boy shared a snippet of his verse to Twitter, with the caption of the post reading, "Fuck Kanye". In November 2021, West apologized to Soulja Boy for removing
22466-536: The Thanksgiving weekend because of a temporary psychosis stemming from sleep deprivation and extreme dehydration. Following this episode West took an 11-month break from posting on Twitter and the public in general. It was reported in May 2017 that West was recording new music in Jackson Hole, Wyoming , with a wide range of collaborators. In April 2018, West announced plans to write a philosophy book entitled Break
22705-806: The Top 100 albums chart and given their own Top 20 chart (found in Music Week and Record Mirror ), with the main albums chart reformatted as a top 75 (as far as hit albums are concerned) to equal the singles chart. As of 2022, the OCC publishes the Official Compilations Chart Top 100 on their website, which as well as listing the chart places of all the various Now That's What I Call Music! , Hits Albums and Ministry of Sound Annuals that have been released, now include Motion Picture Cast Recordings such as The Greatest Showman or A Star Is Born and Original Broadway/West End cast albums such as Hamilton , all three of which were included in
22944-427: The UK. In February 2015, it was announced that due to the falling sales of albums and rise in popularity of audio streaming, the Official Albums Chart would begin including streaming data from March 2015. Under the revised methodology, the Official Charts Company takes the 12 most streamed tracks from one album, with the top-two songs being down-weighted in line with the average of the rest. The total of these streams
23183-756: The US Billboard 200 , tying the record set by Eminem . It reached the summit in 18 other regions including France, Australia, and the United Kingdom , becoming West's first number-one album in the former country. It has platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and received gold certification in Canada and New Zealand by Music Canada (MC) and Recorded Music NZ (RMNZ), respectively. The appearances of DaBaby and Marilyn Manson generated controversy amongst audiences as
23422-525: The US Top R&;B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, on which it was the rapper's 10th chart-topper. 23 of Donda ' s tracks debuted on the Billboard Hot 100, leading to West joining Drake as one of the two artists to have 23 or more songs chart simultaneously. This also increased West's Hot 100 entries to 133, the fifth most of any act, a ranking he attained for top-40 hits as well by having scored 68. "Hurricane"
23661-533: The US. West purchased many large billboards to advertise Donda in Drake's hometown of Toronto during September 2021, outnumbering the ones used for Certified Lover Boy on the day of its release. A music video for "Come to Life" was released on September 2, 2021. The visual features footage from the album's third listening event at Soldier Field , showing West setting on fire then reuniting with Kardashian. A music video for "24"
23900-420: The album Be Here Now by Oasis is a controversial second place, this is due to the fact its release date was irregular, being released on a Thursday instead of the usual Monday. The record was released on 21 August 1997 and sold around 813,000 in its first seven days, which surpasses the current claimant to the title, though this topic is still highly contested. In September 2020, The Rolling Stones became
24139-451: The album from Swish to Waves . In the weeks leading up to the album's release, West became embroiled in several Twitter controversies. Several days ahead of its release, West again changed the title, this time to The Life of Pablo . On February 11, West premiered the album at Madison Square Garden as part of the presentation of his Yeezy Season 3 clothing line. Following the preview, West announced that he would be modifying
24378-452: The album is a maximalist hip hop record that follows a "more is more" philosophy through its "gleaming, swooping grooves and several kitchen sinks worth of production"; he noted how the grooves "go off" similarly to monster trucks moving loudly around a stadium. In contrast, Craig Jenkins of Vulture said that Donda ' s "unifying quality is a subtle minimalism ", with prominent silence. Fred Thomas of AllMusic similarly opined that
24617-506: The album is built on "minimal arrangements that linger while feeling eerily unfinished". Jenkins also noticed West's diminished presence on the record, where he felt his "raps and hooks take up significantly less real estate" than any releases of his since Cruel Summer . In The Sydney Morning Herald , Michael Dwyer wrote that the "gospel flourishes of organ and voices" on Donda are elevated by "passionate yearning". According to TheGrio , its length of 1 hour and 48 minutes (1:48), follows
24856-528: The album is unusual in his catalog due to its lack of drums, outside of a light amount of snares and occasional synth basses that imitate rhythm sections. Donda ' s integration of gospel music is more subtle than that of its predecessor, instead favoring the usage of trap beats and Auto-Tune . At Pitchfork , Dylan Green noted the production "jumps" from trap and drill to boom-bap and gospel, invoking GOOD Music's compilation album Cruel Summer (2012). According to Ed Power of The Daily Telegraph ,
25095-555: The album must be the correct length and price. It must be more than three tracks or 20 minutes long and not be classed as a budget album. A budget album costs between £0.50 and £3.75. Full details of the rules can be found on the OCC website. According to the canon of the OCC, the official British albums chart was the Record Mirror chart from 22 July 1956 to 1 November 1958; the Melody Maker chart from 8 November 1958 to March 1960;
25334-576: The album was released through several other competing services starting in April. In February 2016, West stated on Twitter that he was planning to release another album in the summer of 2016, tentatively called Turbo Grafx 16 in reference to the 1990s video game console of the same name . In June 2016, West released the collaborative lead single " Champions " off the GOOD Music album Cruel Winter , which has yet to be released. Later that month, West released
25573-411: The album without West's approval or blocked the release of "Jail pt 2", with an anonymous source at the company calling his claims "preposterous". On September 3, 2021, "Hurricane" was playlisted by Swedish mainstream station Sveriges Radio P3 . The song was sent to American rhythmic contemporary radio stations by GOOD Music and Def Jam as the lead single from Donda on September 14, 2021. Following
25812-489: The album's Soldier Field listening event that shows the replica of Kanye West's childhood home, on which flashes of old pictures of Donda are projected. On October 16, 2021, West performed a four-song set for Tiffany & Co. executive Alexandre Arnault and D'estree founder Geralde Guyot after their wedding in Venice, Italy, which included "Come to Life" and "Believe What I Say". He debuted a music video for "Heaven and Hell" during
26051-429: The album's music and live television performances. Yeezus , West's sixth album, was released June 18, 2013, to rave reviews from critics. It became his sixth consecutive number one debut, but also marked his lowest solo opening week sales. In September 2013, West announced he would be headlining his first solo tour in five years , to support Yeezus , with fellow American rapper Kendrick Lamar accompanying him as
26290-410: The album's release, noting that Marilyn Manson's appearance "speaks volumes of society's apathy towards rape survivors ". On Complex ' s list of the best albums of 2021, Donda was placed sixth. Similarly, Time ranked the album at number seven on their list for the year. On Caramanica's list of the best albums of 2021, the deluxe edition was placed at number 10. Caramanica said it "lives at
26529-640: The album's release, the song entered the US Billboard Hot 100 at number six, giving West his 19th top-10 hit on the chart. It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for amassing 1,000,000 certified units in the US on January 10, 2022. "Hurricane" reached number 12 on the Swedish Singles Chart , with it debuting five places higher on the UK Singles Chart . On November 30, 2021, "Believe What I Say" and "Off
26768-463: The album's unreleased material. Donda covers the stylistic groundwork of West's previous albums; it has been described as a hip hop , gospel , progressive rap , and pop record, while the album also includes elements of trap , drill , boom bap , hip house , and rock . Writing for the Los Angeles Times , Mikael Wood described it as a blend of Yeezus ' s rough industrial hip hop ,
27007-481: The album, making him one of seven artists to have gathered this amount of number-ones on the chart. It also marked West's 10th consecutive album to debut at the summit, tying him with Eminem 's record. It also reached the summit of the US Top Christian Albums and Top Gospel Albums charts, becoming West's second album to top the two charts and achieving the biggest unit week for both. The album entered atop
27246-573: The album. Donda amassed 60 million first day streams in the United States on Apple, setting a streaming record for 2021 in the country. After eight days of streaming, it had reached around 423 million on-demand audio streams in the US. 25 of the tracks debuted with the top-40 of Spotify's U.S. chart, with 10 of them occupying the top-10. The album's 2021 record for first day Spotify streams was broken by Certified Lover Boy , which also surpassed its eight-day total of US on-demand audio streams within three days, amassing over 430 million streams. By October 26,
27485-551: The all-time number 1 album record holders just two behind The Beatles. As of October 2023, The Rolling Stones join Williams in joint second place for overall artists with most number ones when they released their 14th No.1 album Hackney Diamonds . With Williams and Presley, the record was broken on a technicality, as many Presley's albums have been kept off the top spot by movie soundtracks, while with Williams such albums are now in their own chart. Taylor Swift and Madonna tie for
27724-400: The band's tenth number one album, Voyage . With that album, ABBA also became the artist with the longest gap between number one studio albums, with 40 years (since The Visitors in 1981). The longest number one by a group is Simon and Garfunkel 's Bridge Over Troubled Water which was number one for 33 weeks (13 of which were consecutive). The longest consecutive number one by a group
27963-412: The best-selling studio album in UK chart history. Queen's Greatest Hits has sold over 7 million copies (including downloads and equivalent streams) as of July 2022. ABBA's Gold has sold over 6 million, and Sgt. Pepper has sold in excess of 5.4 million copies. The longest-running number one album, both consecutively and non-consecutively, is the soundtrack of the film South Pacific . It had
28202-532: The chart, but those billed as 'official soundtracks' (to films such as A Clockwork Orange and Cabaret ) were kept in. As the Ronco-released tie-in to the 1973 film That'll Be the Day was listed as a various artist album and not as a soundtrack, it disappeared from the chart after its seventh week at number one alongside EMI's former number one Pure Gold and Phillip's 20 Original Chart Hits . In 1983,
28441-480: The chart. It was the ninth best-selling digital album of 2021 in the United States. On March 9, 2022, Donda was certified platinum by the RIAA for pushing 1,000,000 certified units in the US. In Canada, Donda topped the Canadian Albums Chart , and on January 7, 2022, it was certified platinum by Music Canada (MC) for shelving 80,000 album-equivalent units in the country. Elsewhere, the album entered atop
28680-404: The charts by many albums from all the regular compilation specialists like K-Tel, Telstar and Stylus. As the amount of compilations in the chart were keeping out artists from reaching number one or charting at all, it was decided that all the various artist albums would be removed from the Official Albums Chart Top 100. In January 1989, all the various artist compilation albums were removed from
28919-539: The chorus, though the update replaced him with West and the Sunday Service Choir. " Tell the Vision " serves as an interlude and is an alternate take on the song of the same name from the 2021 album Faith by rapper Pop Smoke , who is the sole performer on the interlude. On "Lord I Need You", West goes in detail about divorcing Kardashian and at one point, he begs God to "wrap your arms around me in mercy". Within "Pure Souls", religious ideas are expressed and West declares there
29158-454: The collapse of his marriage with Kardashian and thoughts about Donda. Themes of hope, rebirth, and salvation are also present. Jon Caramanica wrote for The New York Times that in Donda , West continues to trade off the lyrical focus on self-awareness and wordplay of his earlier material for a more "terse and immediate approach, one that complements his musical shifts toward the industrial and
29397-536: The composition, though numerous reviewers criticized the long runtime. Nonetheless, Donda was named by several publications as among the best albums of 2021, and became a nominee for both Album of the Year and Best Rap Album at the 64th Grammy Awards , while " Jail " and " Hurricane " won for Best Rap Song and Best Melodic Rap Performance , respectively. Donda initially scored the most first-day streams for an album in 2021 on both Apple Music and Spotify . It stood as West's tenth consecutive number one release on
29636-487: The contracts. Since his tweet that announces his 2024 's run for presidency on November 4, 2020, West went radio silent for the entirety of the album's promotion; not saying anything on social media and wearing a full face mask in public. Information about the album and its listening events was relayed through fellow collaborators such as Consequence, Malik Yusef, Justin LaBoy, and Pusha T. West's manager Abou "Bu" Thiam teased
29875-507: The creative content company Donda , named after his late mother. In his announcement, West proclaimed that the company would "pick up where Steve Jobs left off"; Donda would operate as a "design company" with a goal to "make products and experiences that people want and can afford". In stating Donda's creative philosophy, West articulated the need to "put creatives in a room together with like minds" in order to "simplify and aesthetically improve everything we see, taste, touch, and feel." West
30114-508: The day, it cannot always be night." Lyrically, the song features Baby Keem mixing "worship with the dark carnality of the mosh pit" and Kanye West connecting his issues to God's mysterious behavior. " Jonah " sees him rapping about his relationship with God, alongside fellow rappers Vory and Lil Durk opening up about their pain of losing friends and family members, respectively. " Ok Ok " includes West commanding his status, while fellow rapper Lil Yachty boasts about sexual action. " Junya "
30353-517: The death of West's mother, the foundation was rechristened The Dr. Donda West Foundation. The foundation ceased operations in 2011. In 2013, Kanye West and friend Rhymefest founded Donda's House, Inc., a program aimed at helping at-risk Chicago youth. West has contributed to hurricane relief in 2005 by participating in a Hurricane Katrina benefit concert after the storm had ravaged black communities in New Orleans and in 2012 when he performed at
30592-414: The disorganized themes. He went on to praise how the album takes from West's various eras of the past, such as Yeezus , Jesus Is King , My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy , and 808s & Heartbreak . Paul Thompson of Rolling Stone saw that the album is "more considered and musically coherent" than any of West's projects over the preceding five years, though considered it to be uneven and too long, with
30831-501: The end of the month and a collaborative album with fellow Chicagoan rapper Chance the Rapper titled Good Ass Job . That same month, West announced that he would be changing his stage name to "Ye". Yandhi was originally set for release in September 2018 but was postponed multiple times. In January 2019, West pulled out of headlining that year's Coachella festival after negotiations broke down due to discord regarding stage design. In July, it
31070-407: The face" to not give up. Aaron Loose of Christianity Today slammed West's decision to work with Marilyn Manson and DaBaby as "an unforgivable insult to marginalised rap fans". Roisin O'Connor of The Independent criticized the presence of the former two, whom she describes as "two of music's most despised figures", finding their inclusion inexcusable. She condemned Universal Music for approving
31309-456: The features on songs. Speaking with Apple Music's Zane Lowe , Dean depicted the process as "interesting" and "gruelling", remembering "lots of hours" and changes, from which the album "came out great". He elaborated by explaining that "each listening party was like a test" of sorts, with West succeeding each one by taking all "the information he got from everyone, including online reviews [and] personal friends' reviews", then "digest[ing] it all" in
31548-488: The first British female solo artist to have a number-one album in the UK with Never for Ever , as well as being the first album by any female solo artist to enter the chart at number 1. In August 2014 she became the first female artist to have eight albums in the Official UK Top 40 Albums Chart simultaneously, (altogether she had eleven albums in the Top 50 in one week). She is currently in fourth place for artists having
31787-548: The first act to have reached number one in the album chart during six different decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2010s and 2020s). For solo artists, Elvis Presley was the first artist to score UK number-one albums in five different decades (the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 2000s and 2010s). In 2020, Bruce Springsteen became the first solo artist to score UK number-one albums in five consecutive decades (the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s) with his twelfth number-one album Letter to You . Just two weeks later, Kylie Minogue became
32026-463: The first artist to chart with an album released in a NFT format when Close to Home debuted at number 2 (with Steps beating the rapper to number one and becoming the first mixed-gender British act to get chart topping albums in four consecutive decades). A week later, Will of the People by Muse became the first NFT-listed album to top the charts, with the limited edition NFT listed as part of
32265-452: The first female solo artist to have UK number-one albums in five different decades (all consecutively, the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s), with her eighth UK number-one album Disco . In November 2021, ABBA became the third group (after The Rolling Stones and The Beatles) to score a UK number one album in five different decades (in ABBA's case, the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2020s) with
32504-430: The former had amassed over a billion streams on Spotify, becoming West's fastest album to achieve this milestone. On September 28, 2021, West released an updated version of Donda separately from the original on streaming services. The changes included the removal of KayCyy and Brown from "Keep My Spirit Alive" and "New Again", respectively; Brown's writing credits were also removed from the latter. West replaced KayCyy on
32743-526: The former, while he and the Sunday Service Choir appeared in place of Brown on "New Again". On August 25, 2021, West announced the Donda Stem Player via his website, a standalone music player allowing users to remix the album's songs using their stems . Users are also given the ability to control vocals, drums, bass, and samples, isolate parts, and add effects. The player was announced as being set to be released by West's brand Yeezy Tech in collaboration with Kano Computing and sold for $ 200. On October 27, 2021,
32982-406: The gospel elements to those on Jesus Is King . For Consequence , Marchus Shorter hailed Donda as the rapper's best album since Yeezus , describing it as "ambitious, raw, indulgent, and, after several revisions, a cohesive vision". Wallace regarded the album as "[West's] best body of work in recent memory" and appreciated the narrative behind it, though was mixed about the features and criticized
33221-584: The guidance and strength that he has received from God. The last four tracks on Donda are either alternate or extended versions of preceding songs. " Jail pt 2 " features an additional verse from DaBaby, who confirms his stance on gay people, complains about financial issues, and references his daughters. Singer Marilyn Manson also appears on the version, singing along with West at a few points. " Ok Ok pt 2 " and "Junya pt 2" include further contributions from Shenseea and Ty Dolla Sign, respectively. Extra verses are performed on " Jesus Lord pt 2 " by each member of
33460-496: The highlights for being "pretty good". The revelation of DaBaby and Marilyn Manson as guest artists during Donda ' s August 26 listening event was met with intense disapproval from critics due to the respective allegations of homophobia and sexual abuse against them. According to Jem Aswad of Variety , "West was widely accused of trolling the public, among other things, after [the] event." In response, as Ellen Durney of BuzzFeed News wrote, "some fans" suggested that
33699-449: The highly publicized incident, West took a brief break from music and threw himself into fashion, only to hole up in Hawaii for the next few months writing and recording his next album. Importing his favorite producers and artists to work on and inspire his recording, West kept engineers behind the boards 24 hours a day and slept only in increments. Noah Callahan-Bever, a writer for Complex ,
33938-579: The hip-hop fold is a complex act that challenges the dominant white notions of what constitutes true 'art' music ." West's rhymes have been described as funny, provocative and articulate, capable of seamlessly segueing from shrewd commentary to comical braggadocio to introspective sensitivity. West imparts that he strives to speak in an inclusive manner so groups from different racial and gender backgrounds can comprehend his lyrics, saying he desired to sound "just as ill as Jadakiss and just as understandable as Will Smith ". Early in his career, West pioneered
34177-562: The hospital, he recorded " Through the Wire " at the Record Plant Studios with his jaw still wired shut. The song was first included on West's debut mixtape Get Well Soon... , which was released in December 2002. At the same time, West announced that he was working on an album titled The College Dropout , whose overall theme was to "make your own decisions. Don't let society tell you, 'This
34416-464: The incident on the 33rd-season premiere of Saturday Night Live in September 2007. West's third studio album, Graduation , garnered major publicity when its release date pitted West in a sales competition against rapper 50 Cent 's Curtis . Upon their September 2007 releases, Graduation outsold Curtis by a large margin, debuting at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart and selling 957,000 copies in its first week. Graduation continued
34655-617: The inclusion of DaBaby and Manson might have been West's "attempt at commentary on ' cancel culture ' ", and Consequence writer Alex Young provided a similar presumption. West defended DaBaby's presence, recalling him being "the only person who said he would vote for me in public". An unspecified source told People about West's decision to work with the rapper and Marilyn Manson: "He knows that having controversial figures around will be provocative and will get people to talking." The source continued by opening up that West knows "people are going to be upset" and he will experience "backlash", and
34894-519: The intersection" of West's Yeezus and Jesus eras, commenting that the "scabrous, churning production that sets a chaotic mood" is accompanied by "moments of intense searching, gasps for air amid the unrest". Associated Press listed Donda as among the top 10 albums of the year. Billboard placed it at number 39 on their "The 50 Best Albums of 2021: Staff List", with Heran Mamo declaring that West confronts his inner demons and "yearns for mercy without two key women" in his mother and Kardashian. Donda
35133-487: The joint record (with Bob Dylan ) for most albums (4) topping the annual Pazz & Jop critic poll. Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2005 and 2015. West's first six solo albums were included on Rolling Stone ' s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list in 2020, with the same publication naming him one of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time . West's outspoken views have received significant media coverage. He has been
35372-531: The label as a recording artist. West's debut studio album, The College Dropout (2004), was met with critical acclaim and yielded the Billboard Hot 100 -number one single " Slow Jamz ". He peaked the chart on four other occasions with the singles " Gold Digger " (2005), " Stronger " (2007), " E.T. " (2011, as a featured artist), and " Carnival " (2024). West's second and third studio albums, Late Registration (2005) and Graduation (2007), both debuted atop
35611-462: The label's inaugural artists. The label houses artists including West, Big Sean , Pusha T, Teyana Taylor, Yasiin Bey / Mos Def, D'banj and John Legend, and producers including Hudson Mohawke , Q-Tip, Travis Scott , No I.D., Jeff Bhasker , and S1. GOOD Music has released ten albums certified gold or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In November 2015, West appointed Pusha T
35850-528: The language, although he has since forgotten most of it. When asked about his grades in high school, West replied, "I got A's and B's." West demonstrated an affinity for the arts at an early age; he began writing poetry when he was five years old. West started rapping in the third grade and began making musical compositions in the seventh grade, eventually selling them to other artists. West crossed paths with producer No I.D. , who became West's friend and mentor. After graduating from high school, West received
36089-782: The late 1990s further producing for several musical acts. He produced the third track on Foxy Brown 's second studio album Chyna Doll (1999), which became the second hip-hop album by a female rapper to peak atop the US Billboard 200 chart. In 2000, West began producing for artists on Roc-A-Fella Records as an in-house producer. West is often credited with revitalizing Jay-Z's career with extensive contributions to his 2001 album The Blueprint , which Rolling Stone ranked among their list of greatest hip-hop albums. West produced songs for label cohorts such as Beanie Sigel and Freeway , but also produced beats which were used by artists on other labels including Ludacris , Alicia Keys , and Janet Jackson . Meanwhile, West struggled to attain
36328-545: The late 2000s. His mother's death in November 2007 and the end of his engagement to Alexis Phifer profoundly affected West, who set off for his 2008 Glow in the Dark Tour shortly thereafter. Recorded mostly in Honolulu, Hawaii in three weeks, West announced his fourth album, 808s & Heartbreak , at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards , where he performed its lead single, " Love Lockdown ". Music audiences were taken aback by
36567-438: The latter of which accompanied a 35-minute film of the same name directed by and starring West. During this time, West initiated the free music program GOOD Fridays through his website, offering a free download of previously unreleased songs each Friday, a portion of which were included on the album. This promotion ran from August to December 2010. Dark Fantasy went on to go platinum in the United States, but its omission as
36806-458: The lead up to the first Donda listening event on July 22, 2021, a possible replacement cover was used as the promo artwork. The cover was an adaptation of a Louise Bourgeois gouache painting that had been created in 2007, the same year as Donda West's death, and included in Bourgeois' series Les têtes bleues et les femmes rouges (2015). In the painting, a woman is shown in monochromatic red and
37045-481: The length. Rhian Daly of NME felt assured the album "isn't a rushed job", although believed it could have been improved by West wasting less time and "learning when to let things go", finding there to be a large amount of filler alongside "enough gems" to make the album worthwhile. Wood asserted that Donda registers more as a way "of maintaining Kanye's powerful social standing" than "an organized aesthetic experience", characterizing it as feeling "slapdash" due to
37284-453: The listening event, Revolt host Justin LaBoy posted a photo of himself with West and referred to Donda as album of the year. On July 19, 2021, it was announced that West would hold a public listening event for Donda , titled "Kanye West Presents: A Donda Listening Event", at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on July 22, 2021. It was set to start at 8 p.m. on the date, though the livestream began nearly two hours behind schedule on Apple Music. West
37523-570: The locker rooms, converting it into a studio for finishing the recording and mixing with producer Mike Dean . Playboi Carti, Jay-Z and 2 Chainz joined West for recording in the room, with West posting a photo to Instagram of himself and the former there a day before the event. Jay-Z reportedly recorded his verse for "Jail" mere hours prior to the listening event. After failing to meet the album's scheduled release date of July 23, West continued to record and live in Mercedes-Benz Stadium up until
37762-531: The main album chart or excluded. In August 1971, the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) allowed low-priced budget albums to chart as well as standard compilations. This decision gave a number one to Music For Pleasure's Hot Hits 6 , which went straight in at the top of the chart and was joined at number 6 by a new entry for Hallmark's Top of the Pops Volume 18 , another album featuring
38001-480: The main artist albums chart before 2020. In addition to the main Compilations chart, all the 'Motion Picture Cast Recordings' and cast albums get their own Official Soundtrack Albums Chart Top 50, but are still classed as artist albums as far as the singles chart is concerned with, for example, only three tracks from early 2022 chart topper Encanto (a Disney soundtrack which sold 13,855 units to be at number one for
38240-400: The majority owning a 3% equity stake. In October 2022, in direct response to bans he received on Twitter and Instagram stemming from his antisemitic comments, West reached an agreement in principle to acquire the alt-tech social network Parler for an undisclosed amount. Parler and West mutually agreed to terminate the proposed deal in mid-November. West, alongside his mother, founded
38479-587: The material at multiple locations in the summer of 2021, including Bighorn Mountain Ranch in Wyoming and Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta . The initial version of Donda was initially set for release on July 24, 2020, under the title of God's Country , but experienced multiple delays and continuous alterations to its songs and tracklist prior to its final release. The album's style has been described as an amalgamation of hip hop , gospel , progressive rap , and pop , and incorporates elements of trap and drill . It
38718-515: The men's collection. In March 2011, West collaborated with M/M Paris for a series of silk scarves featuring artwork from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy . In October 2011, West premiered his women's fashion label at Paris Fashion Week. His debut fashion show received mixed-to-negative reviews. In March 2012, West premiered a second fashion line at Paris Fashion Week. Critics deemed the sophomore effort "much improved" compared to his first show. On December 3, 2013, Adidas officially confirmed
38957-433: The mid-1990s, creating beats primarily for burgeoning local artists in the Chicago area. He received his first official production credits at age nineteen, when he produced eight tracks on Down to Earth , the 1996 debut album of Chicago-based underground rapper Grav. In 1998, West was the first producer signed to the management-production company Hip Hop Since 1978 , founded by Gee Roberson and Kyambo "Hip-Hop" Joshua. For
39196-552: The most number one albums by a female artist in the UK, with 12 each, though in Madonna's case this includes the Evita film soundtrack which was a cast recording and not strictly a Madonna album as she does not perform on every track (of the album's 31 tracks, she performs on 22 songs but only on 8 songs by herself). Swift also holds the record for the most consecutive number one albums by a female artist with 9, just one behind Eminem who holds
39435-472: The most simultaneous UK Top 40 albums, behind Elvis Presley and David Bowie who both tie for the most simultaneous Top 40 albums (twelve each, both immediately following their deaths in 1977 and 2016 respectively), and The Beatles who had eleven in 2009 when remastered versions of their albums were released. The fastest selling album (first chart week sales) is 25 by Adele . Released in November 2015, it sold over 800,000 copies in its first week. However,
39674-404: The most vulnerable and broken that [he] has allowed himself to appear on record". Lyons-Burt also praised the themes and production, and concluded by labeling the album West's "most unforgiving self-portrait yet". Chris Willman from Variety saw its music as "close to unassailable" and praised the pacing, besides "those last four completely superfluous remixes", while he preferred the structure of
39913-488: The new president of GOOD Music. In August 2008, West revealed plans to open 10 Fatburger restaurants in the Chicago area after his company, KW Foods LLC, bought the rights to the chain in Chicago. The first location opened in September 2008 in Orland Park and a second followed in January 2009. The Orland Park location closed in early 2011 due to poor sales performance. In January 2012, West announced his establishment of
40152-491: The non-album singles " Lift Yourself " and " Ye vs. the People ", in which he and T.I. discussed West's support of Donald Trump. Pusha T's Daytona , "the first project out of Wyoming", was released in May to critical acclaim, although the album's artwork—a photograph of deceased singer Whitney Houston 's bathroom that West paid $ 85,000 to license—attracted some controversy. The following week, West released his eighth studio album, Ye . West has suggested that he scrapped
40391-543: The oldest artist to top the charts is Vera Lynn , who was 92 years old when she was at number one with We'll Meet Again: The Very Best of Vera Lynn , released in 2009 (though the album only contains material she recorded between 1936 and 1959). Lynn, who died in 2020 at the age of 103, also leads the list for the oldest artist to have a chart album, when the 2017 release of Vera Lynn 100 , released to mark her 100th birthday (though again, this only contains material she recorded decades earlier), peaked at number 3. Currently,
40630-447: The oldest living male artist to have the topped the UK albums chart is Tom Jones , who reached the top in 2021 with new studio album Surrounded By Time at the age of 80, while 95 year old Tony Bennett charted at number 6 on the chart of 8–14 October 2021 with his Lady Gaga duets album Love For Sale , becoming recognised by Guinness World Records as the oldest person to release an album of new material. In 1980, Kate Bush became
40869-416: The original recordings of the album and re-recorded it within a month. The week after, West released a collaborative album with Kid Cudi, titled Kids See Ghosts , named after their group of the same name. West also completed production work on Nas' Nasir and Teyana Taylor's K.T.S.E. , which were released in June 2018. In September, West announced his ninth studio album Yandhi to be released by
41108-520: The other nine percent consisted of 1,696 paid downloads. In total, Donda accumulated 33.4 million streams in the UK across its 27 tracks. Three of the tracks debuted on the UK Singles Chart, with "Hurricane" attaining the highest position of number seven. The album entered atop the Irish Albums Chart , standing as West's second number-one album in Ireland and his ninth to reach the top-10. West had
41347-507: The partnership with West in October 2022 due to his antisemitic remarks. In May 2021, West signed a 10-year deal linking Yeezy with GAP to create Yeezy Gap , however, in September 2022, West announced that he was ending the deal. West founded the record label and production company GOOD Music in 2004, in conjunction with Sony BMG , shortly after releasing his debut album, The College Dropout . West, alongside then-unknown Ohio singer John Legend and fellow Chicago rapper Common were
41586-407: The previous 66 years of the chart, this occurrence where one label has had the Top 3 has only happened twice before with Parlophone taking the Top 3 positions in 1964 with two albums by The Beatles and Stay With The Hollies and K-Tel having three TV-advertised compilations at number 1, 2 and 3 on the chart of 31 December 1972. The fastest-selling debut albums (first-week sales): Sam Smith holds
41825-547: The producer clarified that they were mostly unfinished ideas. Of those 166 ideas, West freestyled over 99 of them in what the producer calls "That One Night in Wyoming". Songs such as " Wash Us in the Blood "–which was originally set for release on Donda in 2020, but was left off the final album–and "Lord I Need You" were originally conceived during said session. In March 2020, West recorded new music in Cabo San Lucas , Mexico, before returning to Wyoming with his family due to
42064-407: The publication would go monthly from March 2021, and so a bespoke monthly Official Albums Chart Top 75 (similar to album charts used by Top of the Pops in the early 1990s and Absolute 80s on Sundays) started to be published from this date alongside monthly singles charts and specialist/genre charts. By 2022, the weekly album chart had started to regularly feature a pattern of acts getting
42303-429: The record for most weeks spent in the Top 10 by a debut album with In the Lonely Hour , with 76, surpassing a record previously held by Emeli Sandé . Over more than sixty years of compiling album sales, the various chart compiling firms have had a problem with the success of multi-artist compilation albums, with these albums (mostly TV-advertised collections featuring a number of hits) either being allowed to chart in
42542-411: The record for the most consecutive number one albums in Official Albums Chart history with 10. Adele is the female solo artist with the most weeks at number one, with a total of 37 weeks. Spice Girls are the female group with the most weeks at number one, with a total of 18 weeks (15 of which were for their debut album Spice ). In March 2018, Little Mix 's fourth studio album Glory Days , set
42781-457: The record for the steepest drop from number one when their album Anxiety Replacement Therapy fell out of the Top 200 altogether with second week sales of 880 copies. This occurrence of number one albums dropping out of the top 100 in their second week of release prompted an article in The Guardian newspaper wondering whether the UK album chart was broken. On 26 August 2022, Aitch became
43020-493: The record's highest-charting single, peaking at number five on the Billboard Hot 100. The co-headlining Watch the Throne Tour kicked off in October 2011 and concluded in June 2012. In 2012, West released the compilation album Cruel Summer , a collection of tracks by artists from West's record label GOOD Music. Sessions for West's sixth solo effort begin to take shape in early 2013 in his own personal loft's living room at
43259-410: The release date for Donda as July 23, 2021, and marked one of the first snippets of the music. French producer Gesaffelstein later revealed that he produced the song, marking his second time working with West after having previously contributed to the rapper's sixth studio album Yeezus (2013). Directly after the commercial's debut, Def Jam reaffirmed the album's release date. In late July 2021,
43498-414: The release date to be August 15, before one set for five days later appeared on the service. On August 20, 2021, the service listed a release date of August 28, one day after Donda ' s third listening party; Thiam reaffirmed that the release would come after the event. A day before the scheduled release, Donda ' s release date experienced another pushback on Apple Music, setting it to coincide with
43737-555: The release of Donda on June 8, 2021, commenting on Gap's Instagram post announcing their jacket with Yeezy, "WestDayEver. Album OTW!" On July 17, Consequence posted a video of West in the studio with Tyler, the Creator on Instagram, suggesting a summer 2021 album release in the caption. On July 19, Pusha T announced on Instagram that West would be holding a listening event for the album at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on July 22. On July 21, West reinstated his Instagram account to share
43976-427: The release of Drake's sixth studio album Certified Lover Boy on September 3, 2021. It was speculated across social media that the delay was intentional to increase competition between the two artists. On August 29, 2021, Donda was released by GOOD Music, distributed by Def Jam, succeeding several delays during that month. It stood as West's last release with the latter label, after his contract expired. "Jail pt 2"
44215-505: The same time. On December 25, 2019, West and Sunday Service released Jesus Is Born , containing 19 songs, including several re-workings of older West songs. West released a single titled " Wash Us in the Blood " on June 30, 2020, featuring fellow American rapper and singer Travis Scott , along with the music video, which was set to serve as the lead single from his tenth studio album Donda . However, in September 2020, West stated that he would not be releasing any further music until he
44454-410: The second listening party held there on August 5, 2021. 24 hours before the second listening event commenced, West and several other artists could be seen recording among doing numerous other activities during an Apple Music livestream . "Hurricane" was originally previewed via Instagram by West in September 2018 and also leaked online , initially being intended for his scrapped album Yandhi . After
44693-418: The service that was set by Olivia Rodrigo 's Sour . The album also set a new record by reaching number one on Apple Music 's top albums chart in 152 countries in its first day, and earned the third-biggest first day debut streams for an album. Donda broke the 2021 record for the most-streamed album in one day on Apple Music, while 19 of the top-20 tracks on the service's Top 100 Global songs chart were from
44932-439: The show for his actions. West was criticized by various celebrities for the outburst, and by President Barack Obama , who called West a "jackass". The incident sparked a large influx of Internet photo memes . West subsequently apologized, including personally to Swift. However, in a November 2010 interview, he seemed to recant his past apologies, describing the act at the 2009 awards show as "selfless". Following
45171-430: The single on July 22, marking West's first performance in five months following the low profile he had been keeping since Donda 2 remained unfinished. A day later, despite cancelling as headliner, he appeared at Rolling Loud during Lil Durk 's set. In December 2022, after weeks of controversial antisemitic statements , West released a new song, "Someday We'll All Be Free", on his Instagram. On August 25, 2023, West
45410-480: The singles chart , The Official Charts Company has classed re-issues of The Beatles' Abbey Road , and The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street and Goats Head Soup , as brand new hits/number 1s due to the amount of bonus material available, formats released and the fact that the issuing record label had changed. As of September 2022, Elvis Presley is still the male solo artist with the most weeks at number one with
45649-406: The song was first previewed, it went through various iterations, with contributions from artists such as KayCyy, Big Sean , and American musician Ty Dolla Sign , of which the latter would feature on " Junya pt 2 ". However, none of their contributions made the final cut of "Hurricane", and they would be replaced with Lil Baby and Canadian singer the Weeknd . A song titled "Never Abandon Your Family"
45888-417: The spiritual", which he started to do in the 2010s. In the same vein as Jesus Is King , Donda features no explicit language, with all expletives being edited out. The album's opening track, "Donda Chant", consists of Syleena Johnson chanting Donda West's forename repeatedly for nearly a minute. It has been theorized by fans that the rhythm represents that of Donda West's heart beating. " Jail " follows and
46127-410: The string of critical and commercial successes by West, and the album's lead single, " Stronger ", garnered his third number-one hit. "Stronger", which samples French house duo Daft Punk , has been accredited to not only encouraging other hip-hop artists to incorporate house and electronica elements into their music, but also for playing a part in the revival of disco and electro -infused music in
46366-452: The tendency of lengthier albums in the music streaming era started by Chris Brown 's 2017 album Heartbreak on a Full Moon . Green said Donda contains "euphoric highs" with a lack of "connective tissue", observing "a data dump of songs searching for a higher calling". Gigwise writer Charlie Brock depicted that the album "ebbs and flows", being "melancholic and subversive" at some points, and "outlandish and snarling" at others. Donda
46605-794: The then-dominant gangster persona in hip hop in favor of more diverse, topical lyrical subjects, including higher education, materialism, self-consciousness , minimum-wage labor, institutional prejudice , class struggle , family, sexuality, his struggles in the music industry, and middle-class upbringing. Over time, West has explored a variety of music genres , encompassing and taking inspiration from chamber pop on his second studio album, Late Registration (2005), arena rock and europop on his third album, Graduation (2007), synth -driven electropop on his fourth album, 808s & Heartbreak (2008), acid-house , drill , industrial rap and trap on Yeezus (2013), gospel and Christian rap on The Life of Pablo (2016), Jesus
46844-615: The three highest new entries on the Irish Singles Chart with the tracks that debuted; "Hurricane" was the most successful, reaching number seven. Donda opened at the summit of the French Albums chart, becoming West's first number-one album in France and selling 9,476 copies over a five-day tracking period. The album also topped the charts in Austria, Belgium's Flanders and Wallonia regions,
47083-438: The tracklist once more before its release to the public. He released the album exclusively on Tidal on February 14, 2016, following a performance on SNL . Following its release, West continued to tinker with mixes of several tracks, describing the work as "a living breathing changing creative expression" and proclaiming the end of the album as a dominant release form. Despite West's earlier comments, in addition to Tidal,
47322-433: The uncharacteristic production style and the presence of Auto-Tune, which typified the pre-release response to the record. 808s & Heartbreak was released by Island Def Jam in November 2008. Upon its release, the lead single " Love Lockdown " debuted at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, while follow-up single " Heartless " debuted at number four. While it was criticized prior to release, 808s & Heartbreak
47561-463: The vacant property" while it was also in Demolition Court. Donda received mixed reviews from music critics . At Metacritic , the album received an weighted mean score of 53, based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it a 5.4 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus. Charles Lyons-Burt of Slant Magazine felt impressed with Donda , believing it to feature West at "arguably
47800-425: The verse without informing him, though insisted he did so because it was bad. Fellow rapper André 3000 also recorded a verse for an unreleased track entitled " Life of the Party ", which had been previewed at a listening event for Donda in Las Vegas. In the song, West disses Canadian musician Drake , who leaked the song in retaliation amidst a feud between them. André 3000 lamented the feud, stating that his verse
48039-424: The video was released simultaneously with the song on June 30, following a teaser in which West officially announced the album's title as God's Country . The track was set to be included on Donda , but did not appear on the final track listing. On July 13, 2020, Kanye shared a snippet on Twitter of a song titled "Donda", which featured his late mother Donda West reciting KRS-One 's " Sound of da Police " (1993) and
48278-528: The week beginning 15 May 2020 with sales of only 7,317, while in 2021 You Me At Six ( Suckapunch ) and Ben Howard ( Collections from the Whiteout ) became the first artists to have a number one album exit the Top 100 with only one week on the chart (though when The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums did their list of number one albums with the fewest weeks on the chart, it was based on the Top 75 countdown and featured acts such as Little Angels with their 1993 album Jam ). In 2023, The Lottery Winners made
48517-407: The world's best-selling music artists with 160 million records sold, West has won 24 Grammy Awards , the joint 11th-most of all time and most awarded for any hip hop artist along with Jay-Z. His other accolades include a Billboard Artist Achievement Award , a joint-record three Brit Awards for Best International Male Solo Artist , and the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award . West holds
48756-404: The year by American Music Awards and Billboard , and has consistently been ranked among the great hip-hop works and debut albums by artists. " Jesus Walks ", the album's fourth single, reached the top 20 of the Billboard pop charts, despite industry executives' predictions that a song containing such blatant declarations of faith would never make it to the radio. The College Dropout
48995-408: Was Songs for Swingin' Lovers! by Frank Sinatra for the week ending 22 July 1956. As of the week ending 21 November 2024, the UK Albums Chart has had 1381 different number one albums. The current number one album is Together at Home by From Zero and Linkin Park . The most successful artists in the charts depend on the criteria used. As of February 2016, Queen albums have spent more time on
49234-479: Was accompanied by archival footage, including the Wests rapping together. The song was replaced with another track also titled "Donda" on the final track listing. On September 26, 2020, West shared a 39-second snippet of the track " Believe What I Say " to Twitter. West later released a song entitled " Nah Nah Nah " on October 26, calling the song his 2020 presidential campaign's theme music ; it includes him referencing his candidacy. On November 13, 2020, West released
49473-443: Was certified triple platinum in the U.S., and garnered West 10 Grammy nominations, including Album of the Year , and Best Rap Album (which it received). During this period, West founded GOOD Music, a record label and management company that housed affiliate artists and producers, such as No I.D. and John Legend , and produced singles for Brandy , Common , Legend, and Slum Village . West invested $ 2 million and took over
49712-496: Was compared to Yeezus , and features West offering redemption, reaffirming his trust in God before a wordless choir performs the outro. Playboi Carti and fellow rapper Fivio Foreign attempt to find a balance between faith in themselves and faith in God within their verses on " Off the Grid ", later being followed by West providing a revelation of his religious mission statement in the closing verse and at one point, he dubs God "my bestie". The song has an intense drill beat, featuring
49951-481: Was completely silent throughout and paced the length of the stage at points, where he was unaccompanied. The listening event sold out Mercedes-Benz Stadium's 2021 capacity of 42,000, alongside setting a record for the biggest Apple Music livestream worldwide, with over 3.3 million viewers. Live Nation Entertainment confirmed at the end of July 2021 that the album's second listening event in Mercedes-Benz Stadium, titled "Kanye West Presents: The Donda Album Release",
50190-410: Was described by The Hollywood Reporter as "one of greatest hip-hop sets of all time", West released the collaborative album Watch the Throne with Jay-Z in August 2011. By employing a sales strategy that released the album digitally weeks before its physical counterpart, Watch the Throne became one of the few major label albums in the Internet age to avoid a leak . " Niggas in Paris " became
50429-411: Was eventually released in February 2004, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard 200 as his debut single, " Through the Wire " peaked at No. 15 while on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for five weeks. " Slow Jamz ", his second single, featuring Twista and Jamie Foxx , became the three musicians' first No. 1 hit. The College Dropout received critical acclaim, was nominated for the top album of
50668-442: Was inspired by religion, being themed around West's faith across much of the material. Some critics have described the album as sombre, with darker lyrical content than West's previous works. For Exclaim! , Riley Wallace asserted that it is a lot less clumsy than Jesus Is King and also a "more accessible body of work". References to addiction and mental instability are prominent, as well as Kanye West's ego and his family, including
50907-405: Was joined in the studio by fellow rapper Playboi Carti . On June 14, 2021, court documents were obtained revealing that West was recording for the album in Honolulu, Hawaii , where he held sessions at Island Sound Studio, after reportedly "freaking out" during his deposition in an ongoing lawsuit with tech company MyChannel. Singer-songwriter Syleena Johnson worked on music in San Francisco around
51146-453: Was joined on the porch of the home by Marilyn Manson and DaBaby. For the event's conclusion, West came out of the replica home wearing a stunt suit after having been set on fire inside earlier and was quickly extinguished, unmasking himself to reunite with Kardashian. Soldier Field was limited from its standard capacity of 63,000 due to COVID-19 restrictions , with the listening event having an attendance of around 38,000. On August 31, 2021, it
51385-574: Was later reversed. West announced a release date of July 24, and posted a track listing for the album. In the following days, West continued to post track listings, only to subsequently delete them. Ultimately, the album missed its planned release date. In September 2020, West sent out a series of tweets about his relationship with Universal Music , mostly addressing his desire to buy his master recordings back from them. The rapper asserted that these efforts were obstructed by his signed contracts, succeeding this by tweeting multiple images that supposedly showed
51624-437: Was licensed out to BBC Radio 2 and presented by Simon Mayo , until it ended on 2 April 2007. Though album sales tend to produce more revenue and, over time, act as a greater measure of an artist's success, this chart receives less media attention than the UK Singles Chart , because overall sales of an album are more important than its peak position. 2005 saw a record number of artist album sales with 126.2 million sold in
51863-414: Was nominated for Album of the Year at the 2022 Grammy Awards , standing as one of the last two albums to be selected in the category. In the same ceremony, the album was nominated in the category of Best Rap Album . "Jail" and "Hurricane" won the awards of Best Rap Song and Best Melodic Rap Performance , respectively, at the 2022 Grammys. Donda debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 after
52102-455: Was only included on the final version of the former on Donda . However, the deluxe edition of the album included "Remote Control pt. 2" which contained Kid Cudi's verse. On August 18, 2021, West announced a third listening event for the album entitled "Kanye West Presents: The Donda Album Experience", which was scheduled to be hosted at Soldier Field in Chicago on August 26; the stadium's Twitter account simultaneously gave confirmation. The event
52341-473: Was originally not able to be played, showing up on the Spotify version of the album as an "unavailable" track, after DaBaby's manager had not cleared his verse prior to release. Hours after its official release, West claimed that Universal Music had released Donda without his approval and blocked "Jail pt 2" from appearing on the album. The song later became available on streaming services, including Tidal and Spotify. Universal Music denied having either released
52580-496: Was present during the sessions and described the "communal" atmosphere as thus: "With the right songs and the right album, he can overcome any and all controversy, and we are here to contribute, challenge, and inspire." A variety of artists contributed to the project, including close friends Jay-Z, Kid Cudi and Pusha T , as well as collaborations with artists including Justin Vernon of Bon Iver and Gil Scott Heron . My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy , West's fifth studio album,
52819-556: Was previewed at the first two listening events for Donda on July 22 and August 6, 2021. Although the song was not included on the first version of the album, it later appeared on the deluxe edition. "Donda", which was initially titled "South Carolina" when previewed at the aforementioned listening parties, originally featured a verse where West traded bars with Pusha T. The verse contained references to West's South Carolina rally from his 2020 presidential campaign. The song " New Again ", featuring vocals from R&B singer Chris Brown on
53058-404: Was raised in a middle-class environment, attending Polaris School for Individual Education in suburban Oak Lawn, Illinois , after living in Chicago. At the age of 10, West moved with his mother to Nanjing, China , where she was teaching at Nanjing University as a Fulbright Scholar . According to his mother, West was the only foreigner in his class, but he settled in well and quickly picked up
53297-442: Was released in November 2010 to widespread acclaim from critics, many of whom considered it his best work and said it solidified his comeback. In stark contrast to his previous effort, which featured a minimalist sound, Dark Fantasy adopts a maximalist philosophy and deals with themes of celebrity and excess. The record included the international hit " All of the Lights ", and Billboard hits " Power ", " Monster ", and " Runaway ",
53536-438: Was released on August 29, 2021. West claimed the album was released early without his approval and alleged that Universal had altered the tracklist. He released a deluxe edition of Donda , including five new songs, to streaming services on November 14, 2021. On November 20, days after ending their long-running feud, West and rapper Drake confirmed that they would stage the "Free Larry Hoover " benefit concert on December 9 at
53775-421: Was released to streaming services. Simultaneously, an explicit version of "Life of the Party" was released as a single from the deluxe edition. The song charted at number 13 on the US Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart. A 2xCD physical version of the deluxe edition was released on February 11, 2022. A 4xLP deluxe gatefold version was released on vinyl on June 24, 2022. To promote Donda prior to its release, West held
54014-401: Was released two weeks after the one for "Come to Life", and begins with footage from Donda ' s second Mercedes-Benz Stadium listening event of West ascending towards the sky, before he rises above the stadium and floats around among clouds. A clip for "Donda Chant" was shared exclusively to Instagram by West on September 19, 2021. The black-and-white visual incorporates aerial footage from
54253-557: Was released, a special-edition Bapesta from A Bathing Ape . In 2009, West collaborated with Nike to release his own shoe, the Air Yeezys , becoming the first non-athlete to be given a shoe deal with the company. In January 2009, he introduced his first shoe line designed for Louis Vuitton during Paris Fashion Week . The line was released in summer 2009. West has additionally designed shoewear for Italian shoemaker Giuseppe Zanotti . In fall 2009, West moved to Rome , where he interned at Italian fashion brand Fendi , giving ideas for
54492-462: Was reported by the Chicago Sun-Times that the replica was used because Chicago's Buildings Department did not allow West to move his home from the street address, as originally intended. The department explained how moving a home in the city "is a very technical process that requires structural engineer reports and multiple city permits", revealing the denial of West's request was due to "no permit application ha[ving] been received to excavate and move
54731-523: Was reported that songs from West's unreleased album Yandhi were leaked online. The following month, Kim Kardashian announced that West's next album would be titled Jesus Is King , effectively scrapping Yandhi . By October, the entire unfinished album was available for a short time on streaming services Spotify and Tidal. On January 6, 2019, West started his weekly " Sunday Service " events, which included soul variations of both West's and others' songs and were attended by multiple celebrities, including
54970-426: Was reported to be in the process of recording his eleventh studio album, with two sources close to him stating that the release of new music was "imminent". On October 13, Billboard reported that West had finished recording a collaborative studio album with Ty Dolla Sign and was in the process of shopping the album to distributors, adding that the album was originally intended for an official release that day but
55209-446: Was set to take place on August 5. It was scheduled to start at 9 p.m. on the date. An Apple Music livestream commenced from West's room inside the stadium on the morning of August 5, 2021, leading up to the event, which later began at 9:30 p.m. The event was a grander presentation than its predecessor and on the circular stage, West's room was re-created. West was positioned in the center throughout, wearing an all-black outfit and
55448-446: Was slated to begin at 9 p.m. On August 24, 2021, Chopper 7HD flew over Soldier Field, capturing the construction of a replica of West's childhood home at the stadium's center. The event was livestreamed on Apple Music and started nearly two hours behind schedule, beginning at 10:49 p.m. Kanye West appeared by coming out from the replica home while wearing an all-black outfit, accompanied by footage and photo collages of Donda. West
55687-406: Was the Beatles' Please Please Me , which held the top spot for a straight 30 weeks. The longest number one by a male solo artist was Elvis Presley with G.I. Blues which stayed at the top for 22 weeks (his Blue Hawaii album was also the longest consecutive number one album for a male artist with 17 weeks). Adele 's album 21 has the most weeks at number one by a female solo artist (and by
55926-438: Was the highest charting track, reaching number six and becoming West's 19th top-20 hit. The 23 tracks took up the top-23 spots on both the US Christian Songs and Gospel Songs charts, exceeding West's record of all top-10 positions on the former chart and the top-11 on the latter. As a result of the album and its tracks, West went up from number 67 to the top position on the Billboard Artist 100 , giving him his third week atop
56165-441: Was the public chart for store owners to use in their record shops with the Top 150 Artist Albums Chart being for industry insiders/ChartsPlus subscribers). For many years, The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the best-selling album in UK chart history, but is now in third place after being supplanted by Queen's Greatest Hits and then also by ABBA's Gold: Greatest Hits . However, Sgt. Pepper still remains
56404-542: Was titled Y3 , while also stating that he had contributed to the album in 2023. West has since denied working on an album titled Y3 . On February 10, 2024, hours after West held a listening party at UBS Arena, the first volume of the Vultures trilogy, entitled Vultures 1 , was officially released. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, becoming West's eleventh consecutive and Ty Dolla Sign's first number one album, respectively. Vultures 2 released later that year on August 3. On September 28, during
56643-599: Was tolerant of West delving into different subjects, but became frustrated with the rapper after a lack of feedback about his material. Rundgren also assumed it should be made clear if he can contribute or not and saw "a possibility" he is "actually in there somewhere" among the album's "junk", concluding by branding West "a dilettante ". On September 24, 2021, after multiple artists had revealed that contributions to Donda from them were scrapped, West's sound engineer Nikolai Skrobat revealed that an upcoming playlist consisting of "forgotten tracks" from West's discography may include
56882-400: Was ultimately pushed back for unknown reasons and expected to drop within the coming weeks. The eponymous lead single for the album, " Vultures " featuring Bump J , was released on November 22, 2023. Throughout late 2023 and early 2024, West and Ty Dolla $ ign held several concerts previewing songs from the album. In a trailer for the album, West announced that Vultures would be released as
57121-498: Was written before West's diss. The song was later released on the deluxe version of the album, with the Drake diss replaced by an alternate verse from West. On September 7, 2021, DJ Akademiks shared a screenshot of a conversation between West and an unnamed engineer that worked on Donda , showing West firing the engineer after no response to his morning message to start work. On September 14, 2021, American multi-instrumentalist Todd Rundgren revealed he had recorded heavily for it and
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