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Kanye West says his next album, Donda 2, will be exclusive to his own Stem Player device, and that it will not be available on “oppressive” streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music.
It is hard to see how Kanye personally can call Apple Music “oppressive.” As a piece from Apple Insider points out:
…he has seen both success and support from Apple Music.
Apple held not one but three launch events for "Donda," when West repeatedly failed to release the album on schedule.
That’s not completely fair on Apple Insider’s part. While I’ve not checked out any of the launch events, word was that the album changed significantly between the first listen and the final release. He may have missed the scheduled release, but he was working on it.
Whatever the case, the follow-up will apparently not be in Apple’s stream or the others. “In an Instagram post,” Apple Insider says West “decried how artists get just a fraction of the money that the Apple Music, Amazon, Spotify, and YouTube streaming services do.” And so, the piece says:
…“Donda 2" will not be streamed on any of the major services. Listeners will have to buy a $200 Stem Player device to play the music digitally.
There’s more to this story. Another piece from Apple Insider has Kanye saying that he turned down an offer from Apple Music that, the piece says, was worth something like $100 million. Personally, I just… can’t… with that part of the story. It’s out there if you want to, though. Also, it’s out there.
