As fans and critics are starting to share their opinions on Kanye West’s Sunday-released album Donda, Questlove is reminding his Twitter followers that it’s important to take time with music, especially lengthy projects, before calling anything a “classic.”
In a Twitter thread, the musician and film director shared that taking in the 27-song project had him losing “steam after 8” songs, and reminded fans that “y’all gotta chill on this need to ‘DECLARE FIRST!’”
“Classics can’t be claimed 24 hours after some product comes out,” Quest wrote to his 3.3 million followers. “I’ve seen it backfire both ways… It’s like the timeline is tryna grab the rebound w :10 secs left in the game & y’all all hoping it’s your tweet that goes viral in declaring how amazing it is (or isn’t) time will tell.”
Mentioning his new book in the process titled Music is History, which drops on Oct. 12, Quest mentioned that Rolling Stone rated Prince’s Graffiti Bridge 4.5 stars in 1990, while Purple Rain and Controversy had initial 4-star reviews. He also mentioned that while he doesn’t have the same excitement he had in the Late Registration days or Graduation era, he’s still looking forward to seeing what Ye pulls from his collaborators and how things have moved engineering-wise, when he sits with the album.
“All I’m saying is this album is damn near The Clash Sandinista length so I know unless you sat there an absorbed it 10 times in a row—-there is no way y’all can start the positioning of the cannon on an lp not even 24 hrs old,” he wrote.
Check out Quest’s Twitter comments below.
