At his best, Kanye West is the ultimate lyricist and musician of his age, but sadly, Donda isn’t entirely Kanye at his best.

There are lots of good ideas here but when he sings, “God’s not finished” we feel like Kanye wasn’t finished either.

Given we’ve been waiting longer for this than Guns N Roses fans waited for Chinese Democracy, we were expecting great things and for the first 23 tracks we got it, mostly.

Sure, he’s not always focused but that’s OK, we can live with a little meandering, particularly when you hit “Come to Life” and get “This is not about me, God is still alive, so I’m free.”

You feel what Kanye feels and it’s all good and godly.

Then it descends into a collection of 4 completely unnecessary remixes which just weren’t needed and spoils what is, without a doubt, a collection of true Kanye West brilliance.

An editor was what’s needed to turn Donda from great into a classic and all they had to say was “God may not be finished, but Kanye you should be.”

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Nicholas Barang

The first time Nicholas went to a live gig, 31 years ago, it turned out to be an Iron Maiden secret gig and he became hooked on the music scene. He was one of the founding writers for Astro Zombie a heavy metal and new world techno-inspired zine and his interview with Rob Caggiano of Anthrax brought in over 300,000 readers. He’s based out of Southeast Asia now, but his love of music is as strong and diverse as ever.