American rapper Kanye West’s much awaited album was released this week! Much to his disdain, and despite his displeasure with Universal Music Group, who released his album, “Donda,” it seems to have gone down well with Saudi fans as it tops charts there.
On Monday 30th August, West took to Instagram, on which he rarely posts, to rant, “Universal put my album out without my approval and they blocked ‘Jail 2’ from being on the album,” though the track, even though omitted from the 27 track album, is available to stream on platforms including Spotify and Apple Music.
Catching the interest of his Saudi Arabian fans, “Donda,” named after his mother, his tracks “Hurricane,” “Jail,” “Off The Grid” and “Praise God” became listed among the top 10 most streamed songs on Apple Music in Saudi Arabia within just a matter of hours of the album release. The songs “God Breathed,” “Ok Ok,” “Moon” and “Jonah” are ranked 11, 12, 14 and 15 respectively.
For this pretty major album, featuring 27 songs, the rapper, who recently filed court documents to have his name officially changed from Kanye to Ye, collaborated with a plethora of major artists including Lil Baby, Lil Yachty, Lil Durk, Young Thug, Baby Keem, Jay Z, Travis Scott, The Weeknd, Pusha T, Kid Cudi and more, to feature on several tracks and his Saudi fans were thrilled – especially on Twitter.
One fan shared an image of a screenshot from iTunes that shows “Donda” ranking at the number 1 spot in the kingdom, whilst another fan tweeted, “How come Ye has a gospel album that hit #1 on the music charts in the most Muslim country Saudi Arabia??? YE IS A GENIUS,” and another said “Thank you @kanyewest for creating ‘Donda.’ This album changed my life for the better.”
