Kanye West’sDonda was a star-studded affair, but at one point during the making of the album, he threatened to remove several artists from the project — including JAY-Z.
On Wednesday (June 7) a mini documentary on the making of Donda leaked online, with the five-minute film offering a behind-the-scenes look at Kanye’s unorthodox creative process — which involved turning Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium into a makeshift recording studio — and at times turbulent emotional state.
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Featuring never-before-seen footage, the documentary shows Ye reflecting on his late mother, Donda West, while visiting his childhood home in Chicago, tinkering with various songs in the studio, delivering impassioned speeches and prayers to his team, and linking with Pusha T, Playboi Carti, Fivio Foreign, Rick Rubin and Mike Dean, among others.
One particularly noteworthy scene captures the Chicago rap mogul on a phone call inside a locker room and threatening to take anybody who doesn’t attend his listening party off the album — JAY-Z included.
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“Everybody that’s not here, I’m taking their verses off,” he says. “I’m taking JAY-Z verse, I’m taking — if there’s anybody not here on the porch with me, they’re not on this version.”
After hanging up, Kanye looks to the camera and adds with a laugh: “How do you even describe these kind of conversations, bro?”
JAY-Z’s verse on “Jail” was in tact when Donda finally hit streaming services in August 2021, marking the Watch the Throne duo’s first collaboration in five years following Drake’s 2016 song “Pop Style.”
After playing the JAY-Z version during his first two listening sessions, though, Ye replaced Hov with DaBaby on the track during his third and final show — a decision that not only disappointed many fans, but was criticized due to the North Carolina’s homophobic comments at Rolling Loud Miami weeks prior.
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Pusha T and Kid Cudi — whose relationships with Kanye have soured in recent months — also saw their guest vocals (or entire collaborations) get cut as Kanye chopped and changed the album over the course of his three listening parties.
Soulja Boy and Chris Brown made no secret of their disappointment over being removed from Donda and took aim at the Yeezy founder on social media following the album’s release.
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In response to a fan asking him for his thoughts on the project, Soulja tweeted: “IDK how to feel, Kanye sent me that song ‘remote control’ and I don’t hear my verse on it…hmm fuck that n-gga.”
He later uploaded his scrapped verse to Instagram and doubled down on his disdain for West by writing: “Fuck Kanye.”
Breezy, meanwhile, labeled Kanye a “whole hoe” and claimed he was “tweakin” after his verse was axed from “New Again.”
During his explosive interview with Drink Champs later that year, Kanye fired back at Soulja Boy and offered a brutal explanation as to why he took him off the album.
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“You ain’t hear that verse?” he said when N.O.R.E. quizzed him about Soulja’s scrapped feature.
N.O.R.E. answered, “No,” before realizing seconds later what Kanye meant — at which point the room burst into laughter. “The verse wasn’t good?” N.O.R.E. followed up, to which Ye bluntly replied, “Nah,” sparking another chorus of laughter.
