Claiming to be brought on board for the 'Donda' sessions by 88-Keys, the veteran rocker and producer fumes that the rapper ditched his hours of work without getting much feedback from him.
- Sep 15, 2021
AceShowbiz - Todd Rundgren has dissed Kanye West as "just a shoe designer" after the rapper ditched hours of work the veteran rocker and producer created for his "Donda" album.
Jay-Z and Marilyn Manson do feature on the new album, but all of Todd's work was cut, and the "Hello It's Me" hitmaker isn't happy.
"I'm one of the few artists not on Kanye's album," Rundgren jokes to Ultimate Classic Rock. "I have three albums worth of Kanye stems on my computer, because I kept getting called by Kanye to add vocals onto the record."
"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."
"I'm still a producer, and I don't just want to be like driftwood in the process. If I can contribute something, fine. If I can't, just let me know. I'm out of here."
Rundgren tells the outlet producer pal 88-Keys brought him on board for the "Donda" sessions, and he was initially thrilled to be part of West's new record, but now he's heard the album, he's not a fan.
"There's so much junk in that record!" he adds. "[Kanye is] a shoe designer... 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."
"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."
And Todd insists the album was hurriedly released in the end, against Kanye's wishes, because record label bosses wanted to get it out before Drake's juggernaut new album "Certified Lover Boy", which is smashing chart and download records around the world.
"Drake was running the whole process," Rundgren adds. "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."
