Kanye West Announces "Donda 2" Will ONLY Be on His Own Stem Player

By Paige Boyd, Managing Editor

If you are looking to pre-add Kanye West's upcoming Donda 2 ahead of its scheduled Feb. 22 release, you will most likely be out of luck.

The rapper, now legally known as simply Ye, has announced on his social media that the follow-up to 2021's Donda will not be available on traditional streaming services like Apple Music, Tidal, and Spotify. Instead, the project will be exclusive to his own platform, the Stem Player, which he introduced last August. The player, which allows users to customize tracks by isolating vocals and instruments to their liking, is currently selling for $200 on stemplayer.com.

On Instagram, Ye explains his reasoning for this move. “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." In a subsequent post, he added that he turned a multi-million dollar deal with Apple for the project, criticizing tech companies for their subpar payouts to artists for their content. "No one can pay me to be disrespected. We set our own price for our art," he explains. "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."

The news comes as the first of a 3-part documentary on his life and career, Jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy, debuted on Netflix this week. This is far from new territory for the Chicago emcee. As Complex reminded, his Life of Pablo album was originally a Tidal exclusive upon its 2016 release. At the time, Ye said that the album would “never never never” be made available anywhere else. Ultimately, it would be released on all other platforms six weeks later, which lead to a lawsuit that called the move a “deceptive marketing ploy.” The suit was eventually dismissed in 2019 after the parties involved came to an undisclosed agreement.