After postponing the release date of his scrapped album Yandhi twice, West started hosting choir sessions in early 2019, enlisting Jason White with arranging a choir and Nikki Grier to help with re-writing lyrics to create gospel renditions of songs in his discography. American singer-songwriter Ant Clemons recalled that the sessions eventually "morphed" into West's group the Sunday Service Choir, who toured around the world with West. West recorded with the Sunday Service Choir for their debut studio album Jesus Is Born (2019), which is credited solely to the group. Shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic started, West's musical input mostly involved him assembling and directing live performances of the Sunday Service Choir. West contributing vocals to the performances became a rarity, as did him releasing his own music. He worked with the group on their EP Emmanuel, which was released in December 2020. The Sunday Service Choir were one of the guest appearances on Donda to be revealed at the public listening parties, while they contributed additional vocals to six of the album's tracks outside of "24".
