Kanye West Announces ‘DONDA 2’ Will Not Be on Streaming Services
On Thursday night, Kanye West shared a ‘DONDA 2’ snippet on Instagram and announced that the album will only be available on his stem player.
The artist formerly known as Kanye West wants artists to take back their power. Last August, Ye unveiled his $200 Donda Stem Player, a device where fans can remix and customize any song to their liking. While the stem player is available on Ye’s website, on Thursday night, he went to Instagram and shared that his forthcoming album DONDA 2 can only be heard on the handheld device.
“Donda 2 will only be available on my own platform, the Stem Player,” Ye wrote. “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.”
View this post on Instagram
In a follow-up post, Ye shared that the DONDA 2 and the stem player were trending on Twitter and that fans could visit his website 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 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,” he wrote. “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.”
View this post on Instagram
Ye went on to mention that releasing the stem player was similar to how he felt in the early makings of Netflix documentary Jeen-Yuhs. In another post, he also revealed his prospective DONDA 2 tracklist.
View this post on Instagram
Executive-produced by Future, DONDA 2 is slated to release on February 22nd