August 31, 2021
Kanye West’s ‘Donda’ Becomes Second-Biggest Debut on the Global Spotify Chart
The hype and anticipation for Kanye West‘s Donda album release have finally subsided as the “surprise” recording belatedly appeared on Sunday, August 29.
Already breaking several records during the promotion of the LP, another one was set when the masses were ultimately “blessed” when it appeared on streaming platforms.
With the release of Donda, the album became the second-biggest debut of all time on the global Spotify chart, having earned nearly 100 million streams, Chart Data revealed early Monday via its Twitter account.
.@kanyewest’s ‘DONDA’ earned almost 100 million first day streams on the global Spotify chart, the second biggest album debut of all-time.
— chart data (@chartdata) August 30, 2021
The release caught almost everyone off-guard as West had five different release dates, with the latest being Friday, Sept. 3, which would have placed him head-to-head against Drake, who recently announced that his highly anticipated album, Certified Lover Boy, will be available on that date.
.@kanyewest earned the biggest single day Spotify streams for any artist this entire year on August 29 following ‘DONDA’ release.
— chart data (@chartdata) August 30, 2021
Kanye’s welcomed another streaming record at his latest listening event in his hometown of Chicago. More than 5 million viewers were recorded on Apple Music’s Livestream broadcast.
.@kanyewest’s final ‘DONDA’ listening party has broken Apple Music’s livestream record with 5.9 million viewers. The record was previously held by both the first and second events.
— chart data (@chartdata) August 30, 2021
Apparently, the release of Donda was also a surprise to Kanye as well! The controversial artist went on his Instagram account claiming that “Universal put my album out without my approval and they blocked Jail 2 from being on the album.”
View this post on Instagram
Chart Data also posted the actual numbers for the top 3 Global Spotify positions, with Kanye falling behind Drake’s record of 132 million streams. The anticipated showdown set for Sept. 3 could have created a master record between the two artists.
Biggest first day album debuts in global Spotify history:
#1 Scorpion, @Drake 132M
#2 DONDA, @kanyewest 95.1M
#3 folklore, @taylorswift13 80.6M— chart data (@chartdata) August 30, 2021