Sorry folks, but unless you purchase a Stem Player, Kanye West’s upcoming album, DONDA 2, will not be available for you listening pleasure. Unlike Kanye’s albums that came before, his next project will not be available on traditional streaming platforms, and will only be available exclusively via his own Stem Player.
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As he announced on Instagram, “Donda 2 will only be available on my own platform, the Stem Player,” West captioned his video post of the colorfully lit round object playing a snippet of a new song. “Not on Apple Amazon Spotify or YouTube. Today artists get just 12% of the money the industry makes. It’s time to free music from this oppressive system. It’s time to take control and build our own.”
To close out the caption, Ye provided the link to the site at which one could get their hands on a Stem Player, encouraging all to “Go to stemplayer.com now to order.”
Priced at $200, West originally released the Stem Player, a Yeezy Tech collaboration with Kano Computing, in August 2021. The pocket-size device allows users to remix pre-loaded recordings by manipulating various aspects of a track, including vocals, drums, bass, and samples.
As expected, the sudden decision (well at least to us), created an influx of questions and concerns, which Ye addressed in a follow-up post.
“I feel that same feeling like when I first moved to New York to make it in Music. I ain’t know what was gonna happen but I knew had to move. 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. Jay Z made Tidal and fake media attacked him. Well in the words of my big brother. Come and get me. I’m willing to die standing cause I ain’t living on my knees no more. God please cover me.”
Then, possibly in hopes to shift the mood and get people excited about the albums impending release, West followed up with another post of what appears to be the DONDA 2 tracklist, suggesting it’s slated to have 22 songs, which actually makes total sense.
West’s original DONDA 2 release plan was to drop the album on February 22, with plans to host a live event at Miami’s LoanDepot Park that evening. Which according to the post below still seems to be the plan. So for those bummed about not being able to stream Kanye’s soon to be released contribution… at least there’s that.
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