As fans continue to anxiously anticipate the release of Kanye’s much-delayed studio album, Donda, it looks like legendary producer and frequent West collaborator Mike Dean has responded to rumors that he’s no longer working on the project.
“I haven’t quit anything,” Dean tweeted Sunday morning. “The album continues. Lol. People read too much into tweets. Lol”
Dean’s tweet confirms a few things. First, it confirms that Donda is still being worked on despite claims that it would drop August 15, and secondly it proves that Dean is still involved with the album despite a series of different tweets suggesting otherwise.
Dean has been a noticeable part of the making of Donda from the beginning, giving fans subtle updates via social media about the progress of the project as ‘Ye bunkered down in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta to finish it. Rumors began to swirl about him pulling out from the album when Dean had tweeted and deleted a series of comments about being in a “toxic” work environment.
“good to be at the house!!!” one tweet read. At the same time, he responded to another fan who wrote, “Mike Dean seems to have done all the best work on it though. this all feels toxic. It definitely isn’t healthy on either party to be stuck in a stadium for weeks. This is the weirdest rollout ever,” with “Toxic. That’s it.”
Kanye West has been noticeably and purposefully silent during the entire rollout of Donda. Most of the info about the album has been coming through collaborators like Mike Dean and other artists on the album. It’s still unclear when Donda is dropping, or what the work environment in Atlanta has been like, but it looks like Dean will be involved for the long haul.
