Kanye West—who legally changed his name to Ye—charged fans $230 to listen to his new album, Donda 2, the follow-up to his 2021 album Donda. But there was just one problem: the record didn’t show up on time.
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West, who has a history of his albums not dropping when they’re supposed to, charged fans the sum of $230 to listen to his new LP on his new “Stem Player.” But when it was to due out at midnight on Tuesday (February 22), the record was nowhere to be found.
As of this writing, the record has yet to drop.
West’s Stem Player is not affiliated with Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or any other traditional streamer.
“Donda 2 will only be available on my own platform, the Stem Player,” West said on social media. “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.”
West, who has been embattled with his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, as of late, said he raised $2.2 million in a single day from Stem Player sales.
“To earn the $2.2 million we made on the first day on the stem player the album would have had to stream 500 million times,” West wrote. “We did more revenue on stem player, without the album even being out, than we would have done with the album being out on streaming.”
While the album is not out yet, fans are still hopeful. West also had a listening party slated for Donda 2 the night of Feb. 22 in Miami, Florida.
Donda 2 is also said to be part of an iMax showing.
Variety writer, Chris Willman, wrote on Twitter about his experience at the showing, saying sarcastically on the social media platform: “Now an hour and 18 minutes past showtime, and still no Kanye. We have now officially passed how long it would take to get through a round of trailers at an average AMC screening.”
Earlier this week, West wrote on Instagram, “Donda 2 will only be streaming on my own platform, the stem player. You can download new music from stemplayer.com. You can play 4 different elements of the track: vocals, drums, bass, and music. It also has an MP3 player available. We currently have 67,000 available and are making 3,000 a day. Go click the link in my bio to purchase”
He followed that up a few days later on the platform, writing, “DONDA2 Livestream go to stemplayer.com”
