Revisiting Kanye West’s ‘Donda’: The Stadium‑Scale Experiment Five Years On

INGLEWOOD, CALIFORNIA – MARCH 14: Rapper Kanye West performs onstage during the “Vultures 1” playback concert during Rolling Loud 2024 at Hollywood Park Grounds on March 14, 2024 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Scott Dudelson/Getty Images)

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During the summer of 2021, as global societies began to recover from pandemic restrictions, Kanye West re‑entered the spotlight in Atlanta’s Mercedes‑Benz Stadium, turning the venue into an impromptu creative hub. While crowds gathered outside and millions streamed the events, West was still shaping an album dedicated to his late mother. The project, titled Donda, quickly became a defining cultural moment—simultaneously a musical work, a live performance, and a social phenomenon.

The most remarkable aspect was that the performance space doubled as a recording studio. Five years on, collaborators who helped realize Donda share insights into its creation, illustrating how the lines between live show, studio session, and audience participation blurred.

When The Stadium Became The Studio

Before the stadium became its focal point, Donda was already in flux. West initially hinted at the record in March 2020, aiming for a summer release as the pandemic disrupted touring and live events. Over the following year, the album’s title, tracklist, and conceptual direction shifted repeatedly, with each delay pushing the release further away. By summer 2021, Donda had transformed from a conventional album into an ongoing, undefined experiment.

The turning point arrived in Atlanta. On July 19, 2021, Pusha T and Live Nation announced a Donda listening event scheduled for July 22 at Mercedes‑Benz Stadium. The announcement marked a pivotal moment; after a year dominated by canceled shows and virtual experiences, West was set to debut an unfinished work in one of the world’s most expansive venues, inviting the public directly into its creation.

Three days prior, West debuted “No Child Left Behind” in a Beats advertisement during the NBA Finals and revealed a July 23 release date. When he stepped onto the stadium field the next evening, the album was expected to be complete—yet it was still a work in progress.

Donda Took Shape In Public

A second major listening event took place at Mercedes‑Benz Stadium on August 5. As before, the album continued to evolve—tracks were revised, new songs emerged, and the track order changed. The Apple Music stream even captured West working from a makeshift studio inside the stadium prior to the show.

IRKO, a celebrated audio engineer and longtime collaborator of Ye, likens the process to software development. “What could be more intriguing than beta‑testing songs in front of a live audience, with millions watching the stream?” he says.

This approach defined the Donda process. Instead of withholding incomplete work, West continuously unveiled new versions to massive audiences, then retreated to refine them. The second event attracted an estimated 5.4 million Apple Music viewers, exceeding the attendance of the first.

A final listening party was held at Chicago’s Soldier Field on August 26, only three days before the album’s release. By that point, the traditional cycle of recording, finalizing, promoting, and releasing had been inverted. Listeners were not merely consuming Donda; they were witnessing its transformation in real time.

A Song Could Happen Anywhere, Anytime

Several of Donda’s most striking tracks emerged through unconventional means. The ethereal fan favorite “Moon,” which includes Don Toliver on the hook and Kid Cudi on the verse, was continually reshaped as West moved between different rooms in the stadium. It first appeared at the Atlanta listening event with Toliver, incorporated Cudi by the second show, and was altered again at the Chicago gathering before reaching its final form.

Recording engineer Roark Bailey recalls the rapid translation of ideas into music. After Toliver returned his vocal, West identified a moment he wanted to address. Without a formal session or complex setup, Bailey captured the thought on West’s phone and integrated it into the track.

“If I recall correctly, Don sent his part back to Ye,” Bailey says. “Ye was in the main locker room discussing styling choices. He heard an idea and we captured it as a voice note on the phone, then I placed it into Ableton and aligned it with the song.”

Sessions were dispersed throughout the venue. Bailey describes them as chaotic, noting he isn’t sure if Toliver was present or had sent his contribution remotely. Cudi, on the other hand, recorded his part in a separate location. “Cudi definitely cut his part in one of the other rooms,” Bailey confirms.

The Impossible Job: Making It Sound Like One Record

The album’s vast scope presented a unique challenge. With 27 tracks and a runtime approaching 109 minutes, Donda became the longest record to top the Billboard 200 in the 2020s.

For IRKO, the difficulty lay beyond simply ensuring each recording sounded polished; it was about unifying disparate elements into a cohesive sonic environment.

“My greatest challenge while mixing Donda was the sheer number of contributors—producers, musicians, and vocalists—each with distinct characteristics,” IRKO explains. “All had to blend seamlessly despite being recorded in different spaces, by different engineers, with varied equipment.”

IRKO emphasizes that the goal was to make the album feel like a single, unified piece. “The album needed to sound like one body of work, one movie,” he says. This required maintaining each artist’s individuality while crafting a shared sonic identity. “With so many high‑profile guests, I ensured each sounded like themselves, preserving their uniqueness while integrating them into the same record.”

This tension between individuality and unity permeates Donda. The record oscillates between sparse, drum‑free sections and massive, bass‑driven productions, traversing gospel, hip‑hop, trap, and ambient minimalism. IRKO deliberately shaped the album’s sonic landscape around these contrasts.

“I arranged the album’s sonics so that its scope would be felt through contrasts, frequency range, dynamic placement, and moments of silence,” he notes. In essence, the chaos still demanded careful structure.

The Numbers Were As Unprecedented As The Process

The album’s ambition extended beyond its sound; it encompassed an extensive roster of collaborators. Across 27 tracks, Donda brought together artists from multiple generations of hip‑hop and R&B, including Playboi Carti and Fivio Foreign on “Off the Grid,” and Lil Baby and The Weeknd on “Hurricane.”

Several collaborations were especially significant. Jay‑Z’s verse on “Jail” reunited the pair behind Watch the Throne, while Baby Keem’s feature on “Praise God” introduced an emerging talent alongside West and Scott.

However, the guest list also sparked controversy. “Jail Pt. 2” included DaBaby, who had recently faced intense criticism for homophobic remarks, and Marilyn Manson, who was under multiple sexual‑assault allegations. Their inclusion, coupled with West’s public revisions of the album, provoked widespread debate.

The outcome resembled a gathering more than a finished statement, with West’s long‑time associates, veteran artists, and a new wave of talent converging on a record that remained in flux.

Five Years Later, Donda Still Feels Like An Anomaly

Five years later, it’s tempting to reduce Donda to its mythology—the masks, the stadium setting, the repeated delays, the incomplete tracks, the star‑studded cameos, and the iconic image of West suspended above the stage.

Those involved recall something less tangible: an album coalescing from fragments, scattered across rooms, voices, and fleeting concepts. IRKO remembers disparate recordings from around the globe being drawn into a unified sound, while Bailey recalls an idea emerging in a locker room and being captured on a phone before it could vanish.

Today, Donda stands as a record of a time when the dividing lines between studio, stage, audience, and artist briefly dissolved. The stadium became the studio, the audience served as a testing ground, and incompleteness was the method—producing an album that remains uniquely its own.

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