When Kanye West ascended above the crowd during his third DONDA listening party in Atlanta, thousands wondered where exactly the icon went. Now, we know exactly where he flew off to thanks to his newest video for one of Donda’s marquee tracks “24”.
The video, directed by Nick Knight opens with footage of Kanye floating upward from the listening party while the outro to “No Child Left Behind” plays. The majority of the video is shot through a small circular lens — much like how Ye’s previous Sunday Service performances were shot. Just as the song ends and Kanye is gone from view in the stadium, the video cuts to the rap legend flying above the clouds.
He soars through the sky appearing to float over the heavens. As the lyrics repeat “God’s not finished,” he suddenly falls back to Earth. Perhaps it’s to symbolize Kanye still wanting to create more music and to deliver it to the world.
Besides his Sunday Service visuals, “24” captures a similar essence to Kanye’s announcement in 2016 for a video game based on his mother’s life. In the trailer, his mother, Donda West, flies through the sky until she ascends to heaven.
It was reportedly supposed to be about her life’s journey, however, nothing has materialized since Ye’s initial announcement for it. With this in mind, it looks as if Ye took plenty of inspiration from the announcement trailer to make “24’s” visual component.
“24” comes a few weeks after the visual release of “Come to Life” — a compilation of footage from the Chicago listening party — including Kim (allegedly) in a wedding dress and Kanye setting himself on fire in a house modeled after his childhood home.
This newly released video marks the first time since Donda has been announced that Kanye hasn’t obscured his face with his Balenciaga mask. Hopefully, this trend will continue if more videos are delivered.
With the dust from Donda’s rollout and it’s overall release still settling, it’ll be interesting to see how Kanye continues to promote his latest project. His live-streamed listening parties were almost immediately sold out and broke Apple Music records with hundreds of thousands of fans tuned in to each stream.
The album itself earned a No. 1 debut on the Billboard Top 200 as “24” charted at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100. He still is in a highly public beef with Drake, who just recently released his own music video. Time will only tell if this beef will lead to more competing music and visuals in the near future for hip-hop’s enflamed icons.
Listen to “24” and the rest of ‘Donda’ below!
