Kanye “Donda” Listening Party 3: Lights Himself on Fire, Replaces Jay Z with DaBaby, Features Marilyn Manson, Remarries Kim in Mock Ceremony



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Kanye West’s third listening party for his unreleased album, “Donda,” was a strange affair, of course.

In Chicago, Kanye put on a show, a spectacle that was simultaneously meaningless and weird, offensive and bizarre.

With a replica of his childhood home topped by a cross set in the center of the stage, Kanye welcomed recent alleged rapist Marilyn Manson. Then he replaced a verse of one of his new songs originally sung by Jay Z with Da Baby, the rapper currently cancelled for making anti-gay remarks in public.

Later in the show, Kanye set himself on fire, had to be extinguished, then participated in what looked like a wedding ceremony with someone who looked like his ex-wife Kim Kardashian.

I am not a “Donda” expert, but online people who watched said they didn’t care for this version of the album, and preferred the last listening session in Atlanta.

What Kanye has become is a circus master. It’s all flash and show, there’s very little substance. Limousines circled the house, there were armies of extras marching around on stage. No one who was watching had any idea what was going on.

Did Kanye?

There were many references to Jesus, God, and Christ. But it’s all just a collage, like spin art religion, sound and fury signifying nothing.

And no “Donda” released followed. Of course.

Author

Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. He wrote the Intelligencer column for NY Magazine in the mid 90s, reporting on the OJ Simpson trial, as well as for the real Parade magazine (when it was owned by Conde Nast), and has written for the New York Observer, Details, Vogue, Spin, the New York Times, NY Post, Washington Post, and NY Daily News among many publications. He is the writer and co-producer of “Only the Strong Survive,” a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.

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