American rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has announced that his upcoming album, Donda 2, will not be available on streaming platforms such as Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, or YouTube.
On Friday, the rapper stated via his Instagram page that the album will only be available on his newly launched platform, Stem Player.
“Donda 2 will only be streaming on my own platform, the stem player. You can download new music from stemplayer.com.
“You can play four different elements of the track: vocals, drums, bass and music. It also has an MP3 player available. We currently have 67,000 available and are making 3,000 a day,” he wrote.
West also slammed streaming platforms for their unfair treatment of musicians, claiming that artistes have to go on tours and sell merch to make money from their craft.
He said, “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. It’s time to free music from this oppressive system. It’s time to take control and build our own.”
Sharing a screenshot of his new initiative trending on Twitter, the business mogul wrote in the caption “Go to stemplayer.com to be a part of the revolution.”
“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 I 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,” he wrote.
Ye also shared a handwritten tracklist of the upcoming album, which was set to be released on the 22nd of February, 2022.
