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Kanye West announces his new album won’t be available on any streaming platform

Sounds like someone is absolutely fed up with music streaming platforms.

kanye west not selling nfts
Image: KnowTechie

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On February 22, Kanye West will drop his new album, Donda 2. The artist just announced that he has no plans to release it on music streaming platforms like Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, and Amazon Music.

Instead, West says fans can stream the album via stemplayer.com. Stem Player is a streaming service that also sells a $200 audio device used to create and remix songs.

West made the announcement through his Instagram account, stating: 

“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. Go to stemplayer.com now to order.”

As expected, music artists are coming to West’s defense. “donda 2 won’t be on spotify or amazon and that’s huge,” write Eve 6’s lead singer in a tweet. “it’s a win no matter what else he does with it imo. no one’s gonna pay 200 bux for it and he must know that. they’re gonna rip it and that’s great. this hurts spotify. hurting spotify is great.”

How are fans reacting to the Kanye West news?

It’s no surprise that fans are furious. “yeah im not buying that shit ill just wait for the files to drop online,” one comment reads. Another commenter writes, “We boutta be streaming Donda 2 on Pornhub the same way we did when Kanye dropped TLOP.”

On the flip side, tech-savvy fans know Stem Player’s exclusivity won’t last long, just as this Twitter user points out: “I wouldn’t be too concerned about Donda 2 being a stem player exclusive that shit is getting leaked onto the internet within the hour if it actually drops that way.” And truthfully, that may very well be the case.

So why the sudden announcement? According to his Instagram post, it sounds like Kanye is extremely bitter about how music streaming platforms like Spotify pay their artists.

He even goes as far as calling it an oppressive system. And to be fair, he’s right. According to numerous reports, other artists share the same criticism.

Kanye West wields a lot of power, and much of his loyal fanbase will go wherever he goes, regardless of which streaming platform he ends up streaming Donda 2 on. But again, $200 is a tough pill to swallow, and I’m sure there will eventually be other ways to listen to the album.

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Kevin is KnowTechie's founder and executive editor. With over 15 years of blogging experience in the tech industry, Kevin has transformed what was once a passion project into a full-blown tech news publication. Shoot him an email at kevin@knowtechie.com or find him on Mastodon or Post.

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