Ahead of Tonight's "Donda 2" Concert and Listening Party, Kanye Told Apple To Take Their $100 Million Dollars And Shove It Up Their Ass
Complex - The artist formerly known as Kanye West took to social media on Thursday night to notify fans that his forthcoming album Donda 2, which is set to drop later this month, will be released exclusively on his own platform, the Stem Player. The device costs $200 and allows users to customize tracks by isolating the different instruments and vocals that are featured on a song.
“Donda 2 will only be available on my own platform, the Stem Player. Not on Apple Amazon Spotify or YouTube,” Ye wrote in a post made to Instagram. “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. Go to stemplayer.com now to order.”
Ye’s post, which you can view below, also featured a short clip of “City of Gods.”
Everybody's losing their minds over this announcement, like this is the first time Kanye has pulled one of these exclusive release ploys.
If you recall, back when he dropped Life of Pablo back in 2016 Kanye also claimed the album would exclusively be released to a streaming platform Tidal. Kanye was adamant in saying that the project would “never never never” be made available anywhere else. But the album was uploaded to other streaming services six weeks after its drop. That lead to a lawsuit that called the move a “deceptive marketing ploy.” The suit was eventually dismissed in 2019 after the parties involved came to an undisclosed agreement.
The real jaw-dropper about this whole thing was Kanye posting receipts that Apple had an offer of $100 million dollars to exclusively release the album that he told them to take and shove up their ass.
“I ain’t know what was gonna happen but I knew had to move. After 10 albums after being under 10 contracts,” his caption read. “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.”
Everybody is freaking out because 1- they have no idea what the fuck the "stem player" is, and 2- nobody wants to pay $200 to listen to an album. No matter how anticipated it is.
But calm down, read the fine print. You don't need the stem player to actually hear the album, just to manipulate it.
QUICK CRASH COURSE -
"Stems" are the different parts of an arrangement that make up a song. Think of it as vocals, bass, strings, drums. Kanye's stem player allows listeners to manipulate the song they're listening to in real-time.
Here's a demo-
If you wanna remix on the fly, get the stem player. I have one, there's not much you can do with it now, but Kanye is hell-bent on making music customizable for the listener so this might very well be the future.
You can call him crazy but he's sold a shit ton of them since the announcement.
For those of you who refuse to buy the stem player, you're still in luck. Just visit the website, stemplayer.com and you will be able to stream the album there. There's also rumor of a streaming service app independent of the player and website on the way.
So everybody calm down.
Kanye also shared what appeared to be a potential Donda 2 tracklist, suggesting that the new album is currently slated to run 22 songs in length. He also shouted out J. Cole in response to the Off-Season artist’s recent words of praise over the jeen-yuhs documentary.
(Here's the actual tracklist)
Miami’s LoanDepot Park stadium will play home to Kanye's Donda 2 listening party tonight.
Unlike the lame ones he did in Atlanta and Chicago where he just played the album over the speakers, he'll actually be performing it tonight along with featured guests.
It will also be simulcast at IMAX theatres across the country.
Episode 2 of the "jeen yuhs" documentary also drops late night tomorrow.
Say what you want about him, but the man is a showman.