How The LOX ended up on Kanye West’s ‘Donda’ album
Donda, Kanye West’s tenth album, is something of an odyssey, Ye’s longest ever album, and an unusual project in its entirety. Among other themes, it is largely concerned with Kanye’s Christian faith, which, clearly, is evident on the closing ‘Jesus Lord pt 2.’
An alternate version of ‘Jesus Lord,’ which appears earlier on Donda, ‘Jesus Lord pt 2’ adds an extra verse performed by Jay Electronica. Each group member of The Lox also gets a verse on this second version of the track, in which they express their own ideas about their faith. Sheek Louch, Jadakiss and Styles P all get their moment on the song.
The Lox members were brought on board in August 2021, around the time they were taking part in a Verzuz battle at Madison Square Garden. Verzuz is a series created by Timbaland and Swizz Beatz, in which musicians are invited to battle each other in a competitive showing of their performance skills and back catalogues.
The Lox, that August, were going up against Dipset, their fellow New York group. The Lox are generally considered to have been the winners, with even Dipset’s Juelz Santana conceding defeat. “My take on that night is [The LOX] are a better group than us because they are a group. [The Diplomats] is not a group,” he told Drink Champs following the battle. “We are individual artists that came together as a collective to form what we formed, which is called Dipset.”
The Lox, then, were on a high following their successful performance during the battle. But it was swiftly back to business from there. Literally the day after the battle, the group was summoned to go help Kanye on his new album.
Speaking to HipHopDX, Jadakiss explained how the collaboration came about. Someone from Kanye’s side tried to make contact with the Lox—but not directly. They actually went through Jadakiss’ son.
“Someone from Ye’s camp actually reached out to my older son,” Jada said. “Then Ye called us the next day after Verzuz, he hit me the next morning. We flew straight there and went straight to the studio and knocked the song out.”
For such a huge production, this approach to getting the Lox involved with Donda seems almost casual. Clearly it worked, with the Lox duly heading out to meet with Kanye and do their part on ‘Jesus Lord pt 2.’ But they weren’t quite done once the session had ended.
To promote Donda, Ye famously hosted a series of elaborate listening parties—and the Lox attended one of them. “It was ill,” Jada said of the event. “It was a different experience for us, but it was super dope.”