Kanye West’s tenth studio album Donda arrived unexpectedly on Sunday (August 29), clocking in at nearly two hours and 27 tracks.
While Kanye fans celebrated the long-awaited release, there were seemingly just as many who found the project underwhelming — including The Breakfast Club co-hosts Charlamagne Tha God and DJ Envy.
During Monday’s (August 30) “Rumor Report” with fellow co-host Angela Yee, Charlamagne admitted he wasn’t initially impressed.
“I listened to it yesterday,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s lackluster or too long, maybe both. Upon first listen, for me, it was kind of lackluster and long. An hour and 48 minutes is nuts.
“Even without all the part twos on there, it’s just still too long and it gets exhausting. And the music, to me, sounds kind of dated.”
But DJ Envy wasn’t as gentle and decided to directly address people such as Kanye West’s manager Bu Thiam and Pusha T who have to regularly deal with Kanye and his often dramatic antics.
“Kanye is a clown,” DJ Envy said matter-of-factly. “He is a clown and a circus. He is a clown and circus, and I’m ashamed of the people around him — Bu, Free, Pusha, Monopoly … he is a clown.
“And if you don’t get your guy together — like Charlamagne said seven years ago, when he came up here and said, ‘The people around you don’t love you.’ And Kanye, the people around you don’t love you. You are a clown.”
Charlamagne agreed Kanye was surrounded by “enablers” of his “toxic behavior.”
The Donda rollout was unsurprisingly a mess, which is likely what Envy was referring to when he made his comments. The project was originally promised on July 23, then August 6 and finally, August 27 — but it never materialized.
Kanye also held three public album listening parties — two at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium and one at Soldier Field in his hometown of Chicago — and simultaneously stirred up plenty of controversy.
On Thursday (August 26), Ye brought out DaBaby and shock rocker Marilyn Manson for the Solider Field event in attempt to make some kind of artistic statement about cancel culture, angering people in the process.
DaBaby was recently under fire for his perceived homophobic remarks at Rolling Loud Miami in July, while Marilyn Manson is currently facing several sexual assault lawsuits from 15 different women.
