Over the past few weeks, there hasn’t been a day where we haven’t heard something new about Kanye West. One minute he’s in Paris with Julia Fox, the next he’s beefing with Kid Cudi, and then he’s harassing Kim Kardashian and her boyfriend Pete Davidson on social media.
In true Ye fashion, his antics usually follow a similar pattern – especially prior to an important release date. Remember DONDA? All that lead-up with all those listening parties, and all the Instagram posts, created enough buzz to take us through several versions of the same album.
With DONDA 2 set to release on February 22 (2.22.22), Kanye has just revealed that fans won’t be able to stream the album as usual. Instead, if you want to listen to it, you’ll have to purchase Ye’s own Stem Player which retails at $200.
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“You can download new music from stemplayer.com. You can play 4 different elements of the track: vocals, drums, bass and music. It also has a MP3 player available. We currently have 67,000 available and are making 3,000 a day,” Ye wrote in his Instagram announcement post, and later followed up with a longer post, diving into the problems with streaming sites.
“After 10 albums after being under 10 contracts. I turned down a hundred million dollar Apple deal. No one can pay me to be disrespected. We set our own price for our art. Tech companies made music practically free so if you don’t do merch sneakers and tours you don’t eat,” he wrote.”
“This is our 2nd generation stemplayer We have more things we working on. I feel like how I felt in the first episode of the documentary,” he concluded in the post.
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Ye also took to IG to share a hand-written note with the album’s tracklist, featuring a total of 22 songs. However, fans have been quick to let Yeezy know that they won’t be paying $200 for an album.
“L Kanye why been waiting on this album just to not be able to listen,” “please don’t do that we’re broke,” were some of the sentiments echoed in the comments, with most people telling Ye that they’ll be waiting for the album leaks. Fair enough.
At the end of the day, Kanye’s music has always been for the fans, and his current antics and decisions are leaving his most loyal supporters behind, making it harder to support him day-to-day.
Basically, it seems that paying $200 for Ye’s music is where most of the fans draw the line – not at the blatant misogyny, online harassment and bullying, and his ongoing support of alleged abusers including Marilyn Manson.
But, if you still want the Stem Player, it’s available on the label’s website.