On Friday, Kanye West released a deluxe version of Donda, the chart-topping studio album he dropped back in August. The expanded collection features five bonus tracks, including “Life of the Party,” a collaboration with André 3000 that shot into the Top 5 on the Genius Top Songs chart.
For hardcore Ye fans, “Life of the Party” isn’t exactly a new song. In early September, about a week after Donda arrived, longtime Kanye adversary Drake leaked the song on a SiriusXM radio broadcast. The next day, André 3000 released a statement about the track, explaining that it was left off Donda because Kanye was trying to make a cuss-free album. Andre didn’t know about the clean-language requirement when he recorded his verse, so the song had to be shelved.
The officially released version of “Life of the Party” opens with the previously heard André verse. Three Stacks imagines Kanye’s late mother, Donda, having a conversation with his own mother, Sharon Benjamin-Hodo, who died in 2013.
Hey, Miss Donda
You run into my mama, please tell her I said, “Say something”
I’m startin’ to believe ain’t no such thing as Heaven’s trumpets
No after-over, this is it, done
Toward the end of his heartfelt verse—which includes a confession about why he loved church so much as a youngster—André turns his attention to his father, who died in 2014.
Miss Donda, you see my father, please, ask him why he never married
Always smiled, but was he happy inside?
Because I carried my mother’s name, did he carry shame with him?
In the version of “Life of the Party” leaked by Drake, Kanye’s verse contains some disses aimed at Drizzy. But in the new official version, Ye delivers a verse that’s more focused on his own artistic genius, the encroachment of paparazzi, and the birth of his first daughter, North. He kicks things off by shouting out Rhonda Levy, the art teacher who recognized his talent early on.
I ain’t turn in homework for like four months and I bet she let me
She saw the vision
“Yeezy, you special, go make your own decisions then”
Man, that was a good choice, faith driving us like a Rolls Royce
In the hook, Kanye references Puff Daddy and the pre-fame pep talks the producer once gave the young Christopher Wallace, better known as the Notorious B.I.G. He even samples the “C’mon” from the chorus of the Biggie classic “Hypnotize.”
Listen, straight from Shibuya, on some zen
I’m on ten, it’s a marathon and look, we comin’ for the win
Just like Puff told Christopher, we gon’ win big (C’mon)
Reinforcing the theme of parent-child relationships, Kanye and his co-producers (Allday, BoogzDaBeast, The Twitter Tone, Federico Vindver, Ojivolta, Dem Jointz, and Derek “Fonzworth Bentley” Watkins) end “Life of the Party” by sampling a video of DMX comforting his young daughter as they blast off on the amusement park ride known as “The Slingshot.” The girl is terrified, but a tender X talks her through the ordeal and congratulates her on overcoming her fear.
It’s okay, stop cryin’, daddy got you, see, it’s over, you did it, P!
You already did it! See? It’s already over! Yay! You did it!
You can check out all the lyrics to “Life of the Party” on Genius now.
