Kanye West Calls Apple Music ‘Oppressive’ and Insists You Buy This ‘Stem Player’ to Listen to ‘Donda 2’

It’s not uncommon for artists to come up with some weird ideas, but Kanye West’s forthcoming release of his latest hit album, Donda 2, could very well be the strangest one we’ve seen in a while.

In a statement on Instagram, West, who officially goes by the moniker Ye these days, explained that he’s standing up against the “oppressive system” of music streaming services by refusing to release his new album on any of them.

This includes not only Apple Music, but also Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, and presumably all the rest. Ye’s reasoning is that artists get only a fraction of the money that the industry makes, and so he’s decided to stand up against the system in protest.

Whether one feels that Ye is the appropriate person to make that stance is open to debate, but it’s not an unreasonable position.

Why Ye is targeting the streaming companies specifically is another matter, since there are many other players, like the publishing companies, that are just as much a part of the system, but that’s simply the politics of the music business.

Of course, Ye isn’t the first artist who has taken this kind of stand. In fact, others have built entire streaming services of their own in opposition to the dominant players. In Ye’s case, however, it gets considerably weirder.

Since Donda 2 won’t be streamed on any of the streaming services, he has to get it out into people’s hands some other way. Digital music sales are likely out of the question for the same reasons, and CDs are just so “last decade” at this point.

So, the solution Ye has come up with is asking fans to purchase his own “Stem Player.” This is a dedicated $200 music device that Ye launched last year in partnership with Kano Computing. It’s been around since the first Donda album arrived last year, but this time around it’s going to be the only way to get Donda 2.

To be fair, there’s more to the Stem Player than just listening to the music. Touch-sensitive light sliders in the shell allow you to manipulate different parts of a song while listening, but even so, it’s hard not to feel like this thing isn’t a twenty-year step back into the early days of the iPod.

The folks at The Verge put the Stem Player through its paces late last year, describing it as “a powerful and unconventional music device,” and it does feature USB-C, Bluetooth, a built-in speaker, and 8GB of storage to load in your own music. Still, at $200 it’s clearly a niche device that we imagine would only appeal to folks who are serious Ye fans, or simply those with large amounts of disposable income.

Ye also hasn’t offered up any details on how Donda 2 will be delivered to the Stem Player, or even how he plans to price the album. He does note in an Instagram post that he “turned down a hundred million dollar Apple deal,” presumably for the rights to stream Donda 2.

After 10 albums after being under 10 contracts. I turned down a hundred million dollar Apple deal. No one can pay me to be disrespected. We set our own price for our art. 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.Ye (@kanyewest) via Instagram

To be clear, Ye is no stranger to exclusive releases. In early 2016, he famously debuted The Life of Pablo solely on Tidal, swearing that it “will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale.”

Only a few weeks later, however, the album showed up on Apple Music, Spotify, and Google Play, and Ye was forced to settle a lawsuit with a fan who had signed up for Tidal based on Ye’s claims that his album would never show up anywhere else.

So, even if you’re a huge fan of Ye, you may not want to rush out and buy a Stem Player right away — at least not for the sole purpose of listening to Donda 2.