Kanye West is gearing up for the release of his new album, Donda 2--but not everyone will be able to hear it.
On Thursday, February 17, the musician announced that the sequel to his 2021 album Donda will be releasing exclusively on his own Stem Player device, which costs $200. That means fans who use Apple Music, Tidal, or Spotify are out of luck, unless they purchase (or have already purchased) Ye’s device.
He broke the news on Instagram, writing in his caption, “Donda 2 will only be available on my own platform, the Stem Player. Not on Apple Amazon Spotify or YouTube.”
“Today artists get just 12% of the money the industry makes,” the rapper explained. “It’s time to free music from this oppressive system. It’s time to take control and build our own. Go to stemplayer.com now to order.”
West went on to expand on his reasoning in another post, after he realized both “Donda 2” and “Stem Player” were trending on Twitter. As he briefly explained in the first upload, he’s only releasing the music on his own device in an effort to take control of his own art after years of being under contracts with other companies.
“Stem player trending Go to stemplayer.com to be a part of the revolution,” he wrote. “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. “
Kanye continued, “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,” Ye wrote. “I’m willing to die standing cause I ain’t living on my knees no more. God please cover me. I run this company 100% I don’t have to ask for permission. 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.”
Donda 2 drops on Tuesday.
