Passing up a $100 million Apple deal, Kanye West has announced his latest album, Donda 2, will only be available on his Stem Player. Get the full details here.

Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, announced on Instagram on Friday (18th Feb) that Donda 2 will not be available for streaming. Instead, fans will need to purchase his Stem Player in order to listen to the new album. Donda 2 is scheduled for release on the 22nd of February (tomorrow).

The motivation for this move, according to Ye, come from disdain for the current music streaming landscape and unfair pay for artists. Aiming at platforms like Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and YouTube, Ye captioned his post saying, “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.”

Donda 2 & Ye’s Stem Player

The Stem Player, which is available for $200, launched last year in partnership with tech company Kano. It arrived to its owners with the Donda album already included, enabling people to manipulate the song in any way they liked. The device features touch sliders that let you control vocals, drums, bass, and samples. There is also the ability to isolate parts, add effects, as well as play with loops and speed control.

At the moment, there are apparently 67,000 Stem Players available, with 3000 being made a day, according to Ye. So, if you want to be able to listen to Donda 2, it’s wise to act quickly. Details around the album’s exclusivity are a little thin on the ground. It’s unclear whether the Stem Players will arrive with the album preloaded, as was the case with Donda.

In the past, Ye has claimed works would be exclusive, and shortly backtracked. In 2016, he stated that The Life of Pablo would “never never never be on Apple”, instead opting for exclusivity with Tidal. A couple of months later, the album was available on multiple major streaming platforms, including Apple. In 2017, Ye said that he would be “done with exclusives”, after cancelling his contract with Tidal.