Marilyn Manson Works With Kanye West on Donda 2 Album Every Day, Says Digital Nas
Marilyn Manson is reportedly working with Kanye West on his upcoming Donda 2 project every day.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, published on Monday (Jan. 31), Kanye’s collaborator and producer Digital Nas revealed that controversial rock singer Marilyn Manson has been in the studio writing and producing songs for the follow-up to Ye’s Donda album.
“I see Marilyn a lot in the studio,” Digital Nas told the publication. “Like, every day I go to the studio, Marilyn is there working on Donda 2.”
Digital Nas, who is among a bevy of producers who worked on the Donda album, said Marilyn comes in the studio—without his trademark makeup—and works with Ye in the role of songwriter and producer.
“[Kanye] doesn’t want Marilyn to play rap beats,” he explained. “He wants Marilyn to play what he makes, and then Ye will take parts of that and sample parts of that and use parts of that, like he did [generally when making] Yeezus. ...He has some producers from Yeezus working on Donda 2 this time around, [as well as] Marilyn, me, a bunch of producers from Donda 1.”
News of this in-studio collaboration will certainly raise eyebrows. Marilyn, born Brian Warner, has been accused of rape, physical assault and mental cruelty by over a dozen women including actress Evan Rachel Wood over the last few years. The 53-year-old rocker has denied the allegations against him. Nevertheless, Marilyn’s manager, record label, booking agent and others have dissociated themselves from him.
The only artist that has publicly supported Marilyn has been Kanye. The Chicago rapper featured him on the Donda track “Jail, Pt. 2” with DaBaby and invited him to his Sunday Service events.
Digital Nas also said Kanye and Marilyn's collaborative partnership may stem from Kanye’s religious sympathy towards the singer.
“I think it’s more so that Ye is coming from a standpoint of like, ‘We all make mistakes,'” he stated. “I think that’s maybe why he had DaBaby [who received backlash last year for his homophobic remarks at the 2021 Rolling Loud Miami Festival] and Marilyn at that one show. “
“I’m just assuming it is from a standpoint of like, ‘We’re all sinners. We all make mistakes. We shouldn’t point the finger at someone for the mistakes they’ve made or something like that,’” Nas concluded.
Last week, Kanye hopped on his Instagram page to announce that Donda 2 will be executive produced by Future and arrive on Feb. 22. In his IG post, Ye shared an image of his childhood Chicago home burning up in flames along with the typographic numbers of the date "2 22 22."
There’s no word on who will be featured on the project. One song that might be on the album is "Eazy" featuring The Game and produced by Hit-Boy, Mike Dean, Big Duke, DJ Premier and Cash Jones. Also, Moneybagg Yo posted a screenshot of himself and Kanye talking about a verse that might appear on Donda 2.