What you need to know
- Kanye West will host a third listening session for his upcoming 'Donda' album.
- The second event pulled in over five million viewers.
- It is still unknown exactly when the album will be released.
Kanye West's "Donda" events aren't over yet.
As reported by Variety, the artist will hold a third public listening event for his upcoming album at Soldier Field stadium in Chicago. The event is set to kick off on Thursday, August 26 at 10 p.m. ET/ 9 p.m. CT/ 7 p.m. PT with tickets set to go on sale on Friday, August 20.
As with the first two events, it will most likely be available to stream through Apple Music.
If this third installment follows the structure of the first two, the album will have been dramatically overhauled in the days since the last public listening session, the event will be livestreamed on Apple Music, and the album will remain unreleased. While West has recorded and teased or even announced release dates for multiple unreleased albums over the years, "Donda" has had the most public gestation of them all — and of any album by a major artist in history. Some have speculated that he is setting up a release-date battle with Drake — who has said he's finally finished his long-awaited "Certified Lover Boy" album — similar to his release-date face-off with 50 Cent in 2007.
This will be the third listening session for "Donda," West's anticipated new album. All eyes are immediately on the highly anticipated event to see if it can surpass the audience size of the second one, which raked in 5.4 million viewers.
According to Billboard, the second livestream on Thursday, August 5, drew in 5.4 million viewers and generated a staggering $7 million from in-person merchandise sales at the event. As Billboard notes the viewing figures are more than double the current record for a Twitch live stream. Twitter hype was also reportedly at a massive high, generation 1.1 million during the event at its peak.
It is still unknown when "Donda" will actually be released and, for Apple Music listeners, if it will be released in Dolby Atmos to experience it in Spatial Audio.
