Kanye West On The ‘Piracy’ Of Streaming, Reveals Where You’ll Likely Find ‘Vultures 2’
Kanye West now plans to release his and Ty Dolla $ign‘s Vultures 2 album via his official website, as the rapper recently deemed music being released on streaming services as piracy.
This past weekend, screenshots of direct messages between Ye and a Kanye West fan account surfaced on social media, in which the rapper said that the Vultures 2 album would be sold for $20 on Yeezy.com. In the messages, West seconded songwriter and producer James Blake’s opinion that the rise of streaming services has negatively impacted artists in the music industry.
“Was talking with the team about how to release the next album,” Ye wrote in his conversation with the fan account, named YEFANATICS. “Like James Blake said streaming devalues our music. We sell albums on Yeezy.com,” he added.
Kanye West attends the the Versace fall 2019 fashion show at the American Stock Exchange Building in lower Manhattan on December 02, 2018 in New York City.
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The Chicago native also predicted that at least five percent of his followers on Instagram would purchase Vultures 2, thus outselling all albums released in 2023 by a wide margin. “I got 20 million Instagram followers,” West noted.
“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.” The hitmaker continued, adding, “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.”
When the user behind the fan account notified West that he had conducted a poll in which the overwhelming majority preferred Vultures 2 being released on streaming services, Yeezy responded by voicing his hope that the public would purchase the album rather than stream it. “It would be nice for our community to support the albums,” he wrote. “Streaming is basically pirating.”
Kanye West attends the 2019 FGI Night Of Stars Gala at Cipriani Wall Street on October 24, 2019 in New York City.
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Vultures 2 was initially scheduled to be released last Friday (March 8), but was ultimately delayed, continuing a trend for recent Kanye West releases. Vultures 1, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, was first slated to be released in 2023, but suffered several pushbacks before being made available on Feb. 10. Vultures 2 is slated to include appearances by Young Thug, Future, Offset, Playboi Carti, Kid Cudi, Lil Durk, Lil Wayne and Don Toliver.
See Kanye West’s discuss the release of Vultures 2 below.