KANYE West’s highly-anticipated new album will not be available on any major streaming service.
The rapper said on Thursday that his new album Donda 2 would only be available on his Stem player device, according to an Instagram post.
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Donda 2 is expected to drop on February 22 and if fans want to listen to it, they will need to dish out $200 to listen on Stem player, which was released at the end of 2021.
“[The album] will only be available on my own platform, the Stem Player. Not on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or YouTube,” West wrote on Instagram.
West also let fans know in a follow-up Instagram post that there are currently 67,000 Stem players available and Yeezy Technology is making around 3,000 a day.
West attempted to justify his decision to move his album to Stem player by noting that today’s artists “get just 12% of the money the industry makes.”
“It’s time to free music from this oppressive system,” West wrote.
However, it appeared that many of West’s fans did not share his point of view, taking to both Instagram and Twitter to express their discontent towards the rapper’s move.
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“Hi, I’m Kanye West! I currently have 1.8 Billion dollars to my name. I am releasing Donda 2 on 2/22/22! The only way to listen to Donda 2 however, is to pay a little fee of $200! (plus shipping, of course),” one user wrote on Twitter.
“‘Time to free music’, *tells you to buy his product to listen to his music* bruh haha,” another user added on Instagram.
“I love @kanyewest, but I’m sorry capitalism that I can’t afford to make rich people richer. I ain’t gonna buy the new Stem player just for DONDA2, even if he emailed it to me personally. If he wants to put it out on @Spotify, perfect, if not, then hope his album makes numbers,” another Twitter user chimed in.
This is not the first time that West has claimed one of his albums would be available on only one service immediately before its release.
Before The Life Of Pablo dropped in 2016, West said it would be exclusive to Jay-Z’s streaming service, Tidal, however, two months later, it became widely available on other platforms.
West’s announcement came just after part one of his new documentary jeen-yuhs was released on Netflix.
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