Kanye West Fans Have Only One Unanimous Problem With ‘Donda’: It's Censored

Whenever Kanye West drops an album, people pay attention. It doesn't matter if it's a widely-panned collection of gospel songs or an album with a cover that looks like it was conceived in MS paint, folks are always stoked to see what the rapper/producer/clothing mogul has cooked up in the lab.

It's why thousands of people flocked to listening parties for his forthcoming "Donda" album, which finally dropped on August 29, 2021. But there's one question fans have about the collection of songs: why is it clean?

Usually, whenever an album is released, it's either concurrently dropped with both clean and explicit versions, or the uncensored one comes out first and is shortly followed by a more radio-friendly iteration.

But it looks like the opposite is the case for "Donda" as fans have complained that they've only been able to get their hands on the clean version of Kanye West's 10th studio album.

There hasn't been any official word as to why the album is currently only available in a filtered version but that hasn't stopped a myriad of different theories on the internet as to why this is the case.

"Kanye West dropping a clean version of 'Donda' at 8 am on Sunday because church starts on Sunday morning is the most Kanye West thing ever," one person tweeted before another added, "Kanye is still trolling, he only released the clean version of 'Donda.'"

Generally speaking, Kanye West devotees believe the man is a genius and that even his "misses" were intentional acts of artistic expression.

Then there's the other camp of individuals with their particular ideas of Kanye West's artistic merits.

There could be a very simple explanation for why the clean version of Donda is out now. The first could be radio play: perhaps Kanye is looking to get his tracks blasted on the airwaves again so he can return to the pop-dominance he's enjoyed for so many years before he became more intrepid with his musical excursions.

Or it could be because Kanye said he would no longer be making "secular" music.

"Kanye also announced that he is no longer making secular music," Andrew Barber, owner of music media company Fake Shore Drive, said in 2019. "Only Gospel from here on out."

His wife at the time, Kim Kardashian West, also revealed that Kanye was shifting the direction of his music.

"Kanye started this to really heal himself and it was a really personal thing, and it was just friends and family,” she said on The View. "He has had an amazing evolution of being born again and being saved by Christ.

Seeing as "Donda" is named after Kanye's mother, perhaps he left out the cuss words in order to honor her memory.

Whatever the reason, if you wanted to hear an explicit version of "Donda," you won't be able to just yet.