Posted by Yet another version of Kanye West’s Donda album has surfaced. As pointed out by Complex, the new iteration of the constantly evolving project began popping up on Spotify and Apple Music on Monday (September 27). It also appears on DSPs as an entirely separate album. Fans noticed among the changes to the album is the removal of Chris Brown’s feature on “New Again,” who likely will have something to say about it.
As Kanye fans may recall, Brown called Ye a “whole hoe” for allegedly not including all of his contributions to the track. He followed up with another Instagram Story that read, “Nah he tweakin,” creating meme gold in the process. Brown appeared to be bothered his verse on “New Again” had been cut from the final version of the album, while his background vocals on the song could still be heard.
What did Kanye do to Chris brown??? pic.twitter.com/usobemm58W
— 21 Tunaj ⁶????? (@Fishaloic21) August 29, 2021
Kanye West has tweaked Donda multiple times — and very publicly. Prior to its August 29 arrival, the eccentric rapper held three public listening parties, including two at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium and another at Soldier Field in Chicago. After each one, he’d go back and revise the project again, much to the chagrin of anxious fans.
Each revision inevitably delayed the album’s release, and people grew increasingly tired of waiting for it. Speaking to Apple Music, producer Mike Dean explained why the listening parties were crucial to finishing Donda.
“It was interesting,” he said of the album process. “It was grueling, lots of hours, lots of changes. Came out great though. For this album, it was… I mean, Kanye had three listening parties. So each listening party was like a test kind of. And after each one, I think he wanted … I can’t talk too much about his process.
No, Producer Mike Dean Didn’t ‘Quit’ Working On Kanye West’s ‘Donda’ Album
“He took all the information he got from everyone, including online reviews, personal friends’ reviews, and he just kind of digest it all and adjust the album the way he wants. I definitely looked at how the crowd moved to different songs … because I was up in the top of the stadium, deejaying the whole thing. I was up in a little circle. No, I was just up on a house, maybe four layers up, next to the top layer, running the songs off my computer.”
It turned out well for Kanye, though. Donda debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 after a five-day period of tracking, with over 309,000 total album-equivalent units consisting of 272,000 streaming-equivalent album units, 37,000 pure album sales and less than 1,000 track-equivalent units. It marked Ye’s ninth consecutive chart-topping debut.
Check out the latest version of Donda below — without Chris Brown.