Photo by Kevin Mazur for Universal Music Group via Getty Images.
Kanye offers another glimpse at the windowless Mercedes-Benz Arena locker room he’s been calling home for the last few weeks.
Kanye West is pulling a Frank Ocean with the latest stunt in the DONDA album release campaign.
On the night of Wednesday, August 4th, the rapper launched a continuous live stream from his temporary locker room dwellings inside of Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Arena. But many hours into the broadcast, nothing has happened. The camera is fixed on the windowless room inside of the venue he’s currently calling home with the lone action being a digital clock seemingly counting down to the album’s arrival at 12:30am.
If you’re actually anticipating the eventual release of DONDA, it’s a confounding promotional strategy at best. But it’s also one we’ve seen before. Way back in 2016, Frank Ocean innovated the slow-build live rollout when he launched a monochrome stream of himself building a staircase in a warehouse (reportedly somewhere in Brooklyn.) before unveiling Endless, the first of two albums released that late August weekend. It’s important to note here, Ocean’s livestream went dark for two weeks before Endless (and later, blonde,) showed up. The Channel Orange artist quite literally had his fans glued to their screens watching paint dry.
The only real difference in the approaches of West and Ocean is that the Chicago rapper gave us (and himself, really) a deadline. DONDA, in whatever form it’s taken since the initial album preview on July 22nd, will be showcased once more tonight during another livestreamed event held at the stadium that’s been housing both Kanye and the final stages of the album he’s getting ready to release. The second DONDA listening party is slated to begin at some point this evening. However, a time for the event has yet to be announced. Tune into the nothingness of his ongoing live stream until then.
.@kanyewest prepares and presents his 10th album #Donda, live from Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta during an exclusive livestream event.
Watch it now, only on Apple Music:https://t.co/w5603YUviT pic.twitter.com/HR4tRd0YZC
— Apple Music (@AppleMusic) August 5, 2021
