Todd Rundgren Posts Frustrations Over Collaboration on Kanye West’s ‘Donda’
Todd Rundgren Criticizing Ye for rush-releasing his album so he could beat Drake’s ‘Certified Lover Boy.’
Todd Rundgren reportedly contributed to Kanye West‘s DONDA after they were initially put in touch through the rapper’s longtime collaborator, 88-Keys.
Rundgren recently spoke to Ultimate Classic Rock and revealed that he has “three albums worth of Kanye stems on [his] computer.” He continues to share details of their early sessions, “I didn’t mind working on his gospel stuff. If you want to sing about Jesus, go ahead, I don’t care. I’ll help ya do it, you know? If you want to sing about your troubles with your wife, go ahead and do it. I don’t care.”
However, over time, Rundgren seemed to continually grow frustrated with Kanye stating, “When it got into the homestretch in July, I just said, ‘That’s enough for me. I have no idea whether any of this is being used.’ You don’t get much feedback from him regarding what it is.” Rundgren even criticizes the artist on rushing the release of his album just so he could beat Drake’s Certified Lover Boy drop. He reveals that Kanye was “too afraid” that The Boy would “one-up him, so he hurried up and released the album the weekend before Drake could get his out…He’s just a dilettante at this point. Nobody would regularly make records like that unless they had stupid money to throw around. Nobody rents a stadium to make a record in. Nobody flies in the entire world of hip-hop just to croak one syllable, just so you can say that everybody was on it.”
The latest artist to show his public disapproval of the Yeezy Method is something of a curveball: legendary singer/producer Todd Rundgren, who has been an instrumental figure in music for over half a century now, working with everyone from Meat Loaf to the Isley Bros. In a new interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, Rundgren said he has “about three albums worth of Kanye stems on my computer” after sending Kanye material for the better part of a year.
Rundgren then went on to claim Kanye got too wrapped up in a competition/beef with Drake, which is the reason Rundgren (like the rest of us, honestly) believes Kanye rushed the final release. “My involvement went on for a year, and in the end I realized why they hurriedly wrapped the whole thing up and put out what is obviously really raw, unprocessed stuff. It’s because Drake was running the whole process. He was too afraid that Drake would one-up him, so he hurried up and released the album the weekend before Drake could get his out. And in the end, Drake ate his lunch anyway.”
Yikes. We’ve come a long way from Lou Reed’s glowing Yeezus dissertation. Hopefully Kanye and Rundgren can work it out; one imagines they could make some truly great music together. Or Rundgren can do like Chris Brown and Soulja did, and leak his collaborations.
