DONDA may not be here yet — despite last night's listening event — but Yeezy's Demna Gvasalia-designed album merch is live on Kanye West's web store. Oh, and that red YEEZY GAP jacket went live.
It's pretty classic Gvasalia fare: all-black with a tonal typeface reading "DONDA 8/5/2021 Mercedes-Benz Stadium Atlanta." There's also a Star of David with a crucifix inside: either Kanye and Demna are referencing Messianic Judaism or it's just a typically envelope-pushing print from the Rammstein-obsessed Gvasalia. As usual, there seems to be no clear reading.
Regardless, a hundred bucks gets you one of the long-sleeved made-in-USA shirts, scheduled to ship in a whopping 10-12 weeks. They also dropped at the Atlanta event but ya had to be there. You can pre-order a digital version of DONDA on Kanye's web store, though there isn't any release date there. At least the shirts benefit the Dr. Donda West Foundation, or so the site says.
Given all the delays in DONDA's rollout — the album was scheduled to drop on August 7 instead of August 6 — there's a pretty good chance that it'll roll out by the time this merch actually ships four months from now.
Meanwhile, at the ticketed listening party held last month in Atlanta (and livestreamed by Apple), Kanye's merch was nearly as much of an event as the unreleased tunes.
First revealed by eager event guests on Reddit and Twitter, the merch table apparently only had a single piece on display: an earthy long-sleeved T-shirt laden with Mercedes-Benz's logo on the front and what appears to be a childhood image of Kanye's mother, Donda West, on the rear. Though it wasn't snapped by any of the attendees, there's also an accompanying DONDA poster.
Nearly every piece of DONDA merch is also available on eBay and other resale sites for vastly inflated prices. Now, whether or not people are coughing up the dough is anyone's guess but at least a few were bid up over a hundred dollars when the merch was first listed.
Retail on the Mercedes-Benz T-shirts was reportedly $120, though rumors were buzzing that they were initially going to be given free to seatholders.
Before you get up in arms over Kanye's stinginess, though, sharp-eyed Redditors noticed that merch payments went to DreamChasers Atlanta. It's not entirely clear but perhaps 'Ye was donating his merch profits to charity.
It's also worth noting the similarity between the new tee and an old piece of merch designed for Kanye's College Dropout.
I say "similarity," singular, because they really only have one thing in common: a big ol' Mercedes-Benz logo. Kanye is famously a big Mercedes fan, having gifted Kim Kardashian plenty of the company's pricey cars and sang the praises of Maybachs fairly frequently.
All that being said, DONDA's Mercedes-Benz reference has little to do with the cars: it's simply a nod to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium where the listening party was held.
