Kanye West announces release of much-anticipated album Donda in latest Beats By Dre ad

Kanye West‘s much-anticipated album Donda is set to be released on Friday, July 23. 

The rapper, 44, confirmed the news in the latest ad for Beats By Dre starring track star Sha’Carri Richardson, which premiered during Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Tuesday.

The minute-long spot, which was scored and edited by West, features a snippet of his newest track No Child Left Behind.

West can be heard repeating the lyric ‘He’s done miracles on me’ atop a haunting organ, while Richardson, captured in slow-motion, prepares to complete a 100m sprint.

The 21-year-old athlete has become a household name in recent weeks following her controversial suspension from the Olympics’ Team USA, which occurred after she tested positive for marijuana.

At the start of the triumphant commercial spot, Richardson is seen getting herself into position on a starting block in a pair of Nike track shoes.

The ad then cuts to a clip of her jogging in place on a field in a black sports bra and bicycle shorts, highlighting the strength of her physique. 

Sha’Carri is then seen taking off from her starting block at great speed as the phrase ‘Live Your Truth’ appears on screen.

At the very end, it is revealed that West will be hosting a Donda listening event livestream on Apple Music the day before the album’s release at 8PM ET.

Earlier in the day, Kanye took to Instagram as part of the album’s promotional role out with a series of spooky, shadow-bathed images of himself wearing a black mask. 

He shared some closeups of a gold chain he wore around his neck featuring the names of his four children with his former wife Kim Kardashian, 40.

As was usual with Kanye’s cryptic and sparse social media posts, he didn’t both captioning the photos.

A figure that appeared to be him was seen crouching like Spider-Man on two silvery metal cylinders in an all-black outfit.

He wore leather pants with a black zip-up Bottega Veneta hoodie, plus gloves and a black mask that covered his entire head, which he augmented with goggles.

Another photo showed his blurry gloved hand reaching up to his throat, where he wore a gold Cuban links chain. 

The necklace included the names of his four children: North, eight, Saint, five, Chicago, three, and Psalm, two.

Some of the photos showed a second, more delicate chain that also had all of his children’s names written on it.

He kept the disconcerting black mask on in all of the photos and even gave a closeup of it in another photo done in profile.

He held his gray camouflage gloves up to his face to cover his exposed eye holes, revealing a gray bracelet.

Kanye capped off the photo set with an image of all of his clothing and jewelry from the photos laid out on a table, as if he was advertising it.

The necklaces appear to be a family gift, as his ex Kim shared photos of their son Saint wearing a gold chain with his name written in the same Old English text.

Donda is West’s tenth studio album and the highly-anticipated follow-up to 2019’s Jesus Is King.

The album is named after Kanye’s late-mother Donda West, who tragically passed away on November 10, 2007 after having liposuction and breast-reduction surgery.

Months later, the L.A. coroner revealed that Donda had died from ‘multiple post-operative factors’ relating to a pre-existing heart condition and ‘no evidence of a surgical or anesthetic misadventure’ was found, as reported by People.

Last year, Kanye first teased the release of his tenth studio album by unveiling a full-fledged track list, as well as a snippet of the title track.

He later deleted the track list, which consisted of a total of 20 songs. 

In conjunction with the Donda song snippet, West uploaded a home movie-laden music video featuring himself and his late-mother. 

‘In loving memory of my incredible mother on her birthday,’ he wrote at the time, while tweeting out a link to the visual to his massive fanbase.

Donda was originally set to be released on July 24, 2020, but the album’s release was unexpectedly postponed when it did not premiere on music streaming platforms at midnight.