Kanye West has announced that his new album Donda 2 will not be released on Apple Music, Amazon, Spotify, or YouTube, but only on his Stem Player which costs $200.
On Friday, February 18, the 44-year-old rapper, who has legally changed his name to Ye, posted a teaser of a new track on his Instagram account.
In the caption, Ye revealed that the second part of his album, which is set to release on 22 February, will “only” be released on his “own” platform Stem Player.
“Today artists get just 12 percent of the money the industry makes,” he said. “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.”
In August last year, Ye launched the Stem Player, a device created in partnership between Yeezy Tech and Kano Computing. The advanced tools of the device include the ability to create loops, raise and lower pitch, and even combine stems from different songs.
The Stem Player unit comes with a range of technological features, according to its website: a headphone jack and Bluetooth, both of which can work at once, as well as built-in speakers; a USB-C port; “touch-sensitive light sliders” that glow red and blue as they are used; 8 gigabytes of storage, and the ability to play a variety of different formats on it; and a haptic engine for precise vibrations.
