Kanye West Is Spotify's Most Streamed Artist Without DONDA 2 On Streaming

Kanye West is Spotify’s most-streamed artist, even without DONDA 2 releasing on streaming services. Here’s how…

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Last week, Kanye West debuted the second installment of DONDA live in Miami. He promised the album would only be available on his device the STEM PLAYER by Kano Computing, which enhances the user experience with control of the playback.

Many doubted Kanye would really leave the album off of streaming services, but as of today, owners of the STEM PLAYER have had the album while those with just Spotify, Apple Music, or Tidal are DONDA 2-less. As of now, it seems Kanye will continue to update the album while sending updates to the device, letting fans have a close connection to the album process. While his move to play against music industry rules was shocking for some, it seems this move mixed with the release of his jeen-yuhs documentary has boomed his streaming numbers straight to the top.

Ye’s main reason for the STEM PLAYER was to take back control of his art. In an Instagram post announcing his album would only be on the device, he wrote:

“Donda 2 will only be available on my own platform, the Stem Player,” West wrote on Instagram. “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.”

In 24 hours of sales, Kanye made more than the 12% he would see from streaming, even while being Spotify’s top streamed artist two days in a row. Since last summer, it has been Yeezy Season and Kanye shows no signs of slowing down.