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Happy Friday everyone from NPR music and all songs considered. I'm Robin Hilton. I'm here with Christina Lee. Hey, Christina.

Hey, Robin.

It's late Thursday night. We're recording this. Christina, you're in Atlanta. You've just come from a listening party for what is by far the biggest release of the week.

Kanye's new album, Donda. The listening party was live streamed on Apple and it was the only way that anyone was able to hear the head of its Friday release.

But what was it like being there? So the rumor was was that Kanye was still putting together versus backstage at Mercedes Ben Stadium by the time that we were actually in the venue.

So it did take a little bit of time to kick off, but it felt really surreal, first of all, to even just be inside of an arena period.

It was a sold out event. The venue did eventually fill up. And so I think people were ready to have a concert experience for something that ended up just being sort of completely different.

And Kanye was there for it, yeah?

You know, the joke between us, I tried to say that he was pulling off an MF Doom. And what I meant by that was he was dressed in a Kiri red.

He was masked up. You know, he had his face almost completely shrouded. And there was no way to tell at least from my vantage point anyway, whether this was actually Kanye or not.

Once upon a time, MF Doom used to send, I guess, like stand-ins to perform at his actual shows. And so people finally figured out, wait a minute, that's not actually MF Doom on stage.

But nobody could tell initially because the dude was masked.

Right. It looked like Kanye, right? I mean, so he's standing out there in the middle of the arena just sort of kind of dancing during these songs playing.

Right. So I think being in Mercedes-Benz Stadium, of course the expectation was that it was going to be more of a production in the sense that I think there was going to be more than just perhaps like this blinding white light.

And I think people were expecting to actually hear from the man himself, you know, this is somebody who was toured and was once upon a time infamous for his quote-unquote rants.

Or essentially whatever he had to say in between songs. And then, to be perfectly honest, the guy has had a lot to say.

Yeah. You know, since the last time he was on tour, you know, having previously run for president and obviously having divorced Kim Kardashian. But I think what was really interesting about this event was basically his refusal to let anything but the music speak for itself.

Well, and when we finally did hear the music, we heard a record that was at times very gospel inspired and it was a very powerful dedication to his mother.

Yeah, absolutely. So Donda, of course, is named after his mother, Donda West. And you know, Kanye is the rapper behind Hey, Mama, but essentially since she died in 2007.

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