Kanye West Says ‘Donda 2’ Will Only Be Playable On $200 Stem Player

In a move to separate himself from music streaming sites, Kanye West has announced a bizarre new release plan for his upcoming album. Donda 2 will release Tuesday, exclusively on his $200 Stem Player speaker he initially launched last year along with the first album in the series.

In an Instagram post announcement, West also decried streaming giants like Spotify and Apple, writing “artists get just 12% of the money the industry makes. It’s time to free music from this oppressive system.” He added more details about the player in a follow-up, showing that it’s a little more than just a Bluetooth speaker.

According to West, you’ll be able to download music from the website, and “play 4 different elements of the track: vocals, drums, bass and music,” adding a DJ’ing and production element to a normal speaker. This certainly seems ambitious and interesting but does leave some murky questions about how much music will be available that can actually be split in this way. West also added that they “currently have 67,000 available and are making 3,000 a day.”

The FAQ page on the Stem Payer website also mentions the splitting feature and claims that “the platform can split any song into stems.” The player itself also has features for looping elements, adding effects to sounds, and all sorts of facets that aid in music production.

West has been a free agent in the streaming game since he publicly parted ways with the Jay-Z founded service Tidal in 2017. He initially released The Life Of Pablo exclusively on Tidal in early 2016 but took it to all platforms a few months later after illegal downloads of the album surged.