Donda Vs. Certified Lover Boy: Which Is Better?

Amongs all the Drake and Kanye drama, which rapper made a better album?

by TJ Rothbauer, News Director

After months of anticipation, Kanye West’s Donda and Drake’s Certified Lover Boy (CLB) have been made available to hip hop fans worldwide, and with it comes a wave of drama and comparisons spurred by the rappers’ ongoing egotistical feud.

Both albums have been in the works for months. Kanye fans have waited eagerly for the release of Donda since its original announcement back in May 2020. After constant pushbacks, it was finally released on Aug. 29, 2021, and it did not disappoint. announced CLB release to be in Jan. 2021, but he too had to postpone the release due to “ issues,” according to WION News.

Donda Rating

Production:

How well put togeter were the beats and songs?

Lyrics:

Intricacy, flow, rhythm

Popularity:

Records sold, marketing, streams

Features:

How well did the Kanye integrate features in his album?

Certified Lover Boy was released eight months later on Sept. 3, 2021.

Kanye’s album is about the loss of his mother, Donda, and his attempt to communicate with her through their shared faith. Over the album’s one hour and 46 minute tracklist, Kanye brings listeners through a musical journey, starting with “Donda Chant.” The song’s only word is “Donda,” and is said 58 times, representing her last heartbeats the age at which she passed.

“Jail” is written in lines of six words and tells listeners that the only one who can save Kanye is God. Kanye brought Jay-Z onto the track after not featuring him on any of his songs for almost a decade, which showed that they still have tight lyrical chemistry.

The album transitions from gospel to a feature with Playboi Carti “Off the Grid” mixes upbeat instrumentals and flow from Carti with a repetitive hook from Kanye saying, “Everything we did for the crib,” showing everything that Kanye has done was for his family, friends, and hometown on the South Side of Chicago.

13 tracks in, Kanye gives fans “Moon.” West takes a step back and lets Don Toliver take over the interlude with a high-pitched hook and gives Kid Cudi the spotlight. With his melodic hums and lyrics that resonate with those from Cudi’s previous albums, such as Man on the Moon The song gives me a feeling of ascension, as if I’m actually rising to the moon myself.

“No Child Left Behind,” the final track on the album, wraps up the album with a beautiful piece on the organ and repeated lines saying, “He’s done miracles on me.” Kanye finishes the album on a good note, saying that he has been blessed by his God, and that he has grown as an individual. Throughout Kanye’s discography, there is a constant evolution of Kanye as an individual, coming from being egocentric in his earlier works towards a slow transition to his more gospel and family focused present day works.

Moving onto Certified Lover Boy, Drake comes out strong with “Champagne Poetry,” in which he presents his track like the title says: poetically. In it, he talks about the struggle of staying true to himself amongst scrutiny from the public.

Drake does well on his hook on “In the Bible,” but I feel like his bars could be better. The features are really what made the track stand out to me. Lil Durk elevated the track with his upbeat and faster flow, and Giveon slowed it down right after, which left me wanting to put it on replay.

“Love All” is another strong track from Drake. He dedicated this track to the people who had turned their back on him in the past, mainly addressing the 12 year feud between himself and Kanye. His beat, hook and lyrics on this track captivated me.

While “Way 2 Sexy” is somewhat ridiculous, the beat goes pretty hard and Future definitely redeemed himself on this feature after his previous flop on Life is Good . The song is currently Drake’s most popular track from the album on Spotify, reaching 118 million streams.

“Yebba’s Heartbreak” was such a well made interlude on the album, and similar to Kanye’s “Moon,” Drake lets Yebba take over the vocals on this song. Yebba gives off a candlelit dinner vibe for me, and I really enjoyed listening to this track.

“Knife Talk” ft. 21 Savage shows a transition from the romantic side of Drake to a more thuggish side. 21 Savage did a great job with his bars on this song, and solidified it as my second favorite track on CLB

Drake really stood out on “You Only Live Twice” (ft. Lil Wayne & Rick Ross). The drums and beat on this song brought it to my number one spot on the album. Drake had everything right on this track, between Lil Wayne and Rick Ross’ features, to his own bars, everything flowed perfectly.

Kid Cudi’s feature on “IMY2” brought the track to a new level for me. Drake let Cudi take most of the spotlight on this track and I feel like his choice was valid.

After listening to both albums, Donda resonates more with me personally. While I can understand why such a large amount of people prefer Certified Lover Boy, I think Kanye’s overall production, beats, and features went hard. Though it is somewhat similar to his album Jesus is King, Kanye integrates gospel elements into a more Hip-Hop style. On the other hand, I also have an appreciation for Drake’s CLB as well. Those eight songs on CLB really stood out to me, and Drake’s production, features, and streaming popularity made the decision extremely difficult to decide between the two.

I would rate Donda’s production 8/10, the lyrics 7/10, the popularity 9/10 , and the features 9/10 as well. The beats in this album were some of Kanye’s best. He also did a great job arranging his tracklist. I think the lyrics could’ve been a little better compared to previous albums, but the popularity and marketing that Kanye did to hype up the release of his album was unprecedented. As for his features, most of them were good, but I don’t think that Da Baby and Pop Smoke really needed to be on the album.

I gave Drake’s production 7/10 because while he had some good beats and a solid interlude, it wasn’t good compared to previous works such as Scorpion . His lyrics were 6/10 because they didn’t have much depth and a lot of his tracks sounded similar lyrically. Drake’s popularity deserved a 10/10 score. He shattered his own previous record of total streams in one day with the release of CLB and definitely earned it. His features were 9/10 as well because Tem’s

Clb Rating

Production:

How well put togeter were the beats and songs?

Lyrics:

Intricacy, flow, rhythm

Popularity:

Records sold, marketing, streams

Features:

How well did the Drake integrate features in his album?

7 6 10 9