Todd Rundgren has vented his frustration over working with Kanye West on his recent album ‘DONDA’.
According to Rundgren he contributed to the record over a year and amassed “three albums worth of Kanye stems on my computer.”
He said he was initially put in touch with West via the rapper’s longtime collaborator, 88-Keys.
“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,” he said of the early sessions.
But over time Rundgren said he grew frustrated with West. “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,” he told Ultimate Classic Rock.
“If I can contribute something, fine. If I can’t, just let me know. I’m out of here… There is a possibility that I’m actually in there somewhere. There’s so much junk in that record!”
He also criticised West for rush-releasing the album so he could release it before Drake‘s ‘Certified Lover Boy’.
“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,” Rundgren added. “And in the end, Drake ate his lunch anyway.” ‘Certified Lover Boy’ outstreamed ‘DONDA’ in just three days in the US.
He continued: “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.”
Read NME‘s three-star review of West’s ‘DONDA’ here.