Kanye “It’s Really Just ‘Ye’ Now” West is celebrating a victory.
Though things definitely didn’t go his way in regard to his marital relationship to Kim Kardashian, it appears his musical rankings have taken a turn in a positive direction. But before I get to that, let me hit you with a bit of context.
OK, so boom. On Tuesday, Billboard magazine explained how Yeezy’s recently released Donda 2 would be “ineligible” for the award charts, citing the fact that the sequel album was released exclusively through his stem player device and therefore “in breach of Billboard charts’ merchandise bundle policy,” which disqualifies albums that come with merchandise.
Now while this news would probably come as a bummer to any artist who’s in the business of making music to climb all the way to the top of all the big name charts—for Ye, this was cause for celebration. No, really! The “Praise God” rapper took to Instagram to express his excitement about no longer being considered, captioning in a post:
“Big win for the kid. We can no longer be counted or judged. We won, we won, we won, we won. We make my own systems. We set our own value aaaand yesterdays price is not todays price baaaaabeeeee!!!!!”
If you’ll remember, Yeezus previously spoke on his desire to “set the price for his own art,” writing in a since-deleted Instagram post:
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. 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.
Hmm, well I guess this is just one small step for Billboard and one GIANT step for Kanye West.