Two Kanye West listening events for his album Donda have come and gone with no album yet, but according to Billboard, perhaps the music wasn’t really the point of the events after all. Sources told Billboard that the official merchandise sales from the two events combined totaled $7 million — the same amount as the Yeezy x Gap down jacket Kanye dropped in the middle of the night on his birthday reportedly banked in that one night. Meanwhile, he’s likely set to double down — no pun intended — with a preorder link for the jacket he wore to the listening going live last week.
The listening event also broke Apple Music records for viewership, dragging in well over 5 million eyeballs, making it one of the most-watched livestream events within the past year. The album, which is tentatively set for release this Friday, was apparently recorded in the same venue in which Kanye held his listening events, as he had a room set up in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium where he slept, recorded, and streamed his activities leading up to the second listening event last week. That stream also featured a quick shot of Kanye in his underwear, prompting a minor frenzy among fans on Twitter.
The Donda era is already turning out to be both lucrative and expensive for Kanye, but will it pay off for fans as well? Hopefully, we’ll find out on Friday.
