Goodbye Apple Music, Tidal, and Spotify. Hello...Stem Player?
On Thursday night, the artist formerly known as Kanye West announced that his upcoming sequel album, Donda 2, would not be available on the aforementioned popular streaming platforms. Instead, it will only be available on his new music service, Stem Player.
In a series of pictures posted to Instagram, West explained that they (??) are making 3,000 stem players a day, and that they have 67,000 more available for folks to buy. He also dropped what appeared to be a track list for the forthcoming album, which is great because now people have a clue as to what to expect—though I’m not sure how many people are going to pivot to his new platform.
Speaking on his new platform, Ye captioned in a post:
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. 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. I feel like how I felt in the first episode of the documentary.
He later added, “We did it Don’t matter what happens 2mrw This happened tonight For the first time in a long time I feel alive we did it kid we did lord lift me up things change let’s keep it burning.”
Donda 2 is expected to drop on Feb. 22.