Kanye West has claimed that streaming is a new form of piracy and he won’t be releasing his anticipated project “Vultures 2” on to DSPs.
The project was initially slated to drop on March 8. However, the album was nowhere to be found on streaming platforms.
Over the weekend, Kanye was having a conversation with a fan page and in the message exchange, the Chicago rapper reportedly expressed his thoughts about streaming.
“Was talking with the team about how to release the next album. Like James Blake said streaming devalues our music. We sell albums on Yeezy.com,” Kanye said. “I got 20 million Instagram followers. When five percent of my followers buy an album. That’s one million albums sold That’s 300K more than the biggest album last year.”
Ye added, “We sold 1 million items on Yeezy.com on Super Bowl Sunday so we know it’s possible. How do you feel about us not streaming and only selling the album digitally.”
Ye: Was talking with the team about how to release the next album
Like James Blake said streaming devalues our music
We sell albums on https://t.co/KZ5lBI5zfMI got 20 million instagram followers
When 5% of my followers buy an album.That’s 1 million albums sold
That’s 300k… pic.twitter.com/oIFK89A9Ki— YEFANATICS (@yefanatics) March 10, 2024
It appears that Kanye is planning on only releasing the album through his website, selling it for $20 USD on Yeezy.com. It remains to be seen if he will follow through or if this will only be a work in progress.
“Vultures 1” debuted at the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart. It amassed 75,000 album-equivalent units for its second week in the U.S., with 72,000 of those coming from streams. Guest appearances included North West, Freddie Gibbs, Playboi Carti, Lil Durk and YG, among others.
