Ye (formerly Kanye West) rarely responds to chatter surrounding his name on social media these days. However, the rapper had time on Wednesday (April 29) when he responded to a fan on X to defend his release strategy for Donda 2.
Donda 2 arrived in February 2022, but instead of landing on DSPs, West went an alternate route and uploaded the project strictly onto a STEM Player, which he sold for $200 and challenged the dominance of streaming services.
“Donda 2 was released on the Stem Player and sold over 100 thousand units at 200 dollars each,” he wrote in defense of the hockey puck-sized device.
Yeezy’s reply came in response to a fan who appeared to be disappointed that Donda 2 flew a bit under the radar due to its non-traditional release. “I’ll never forget what they did to my favorite unreleased Ye album,” the fan wrote alongside a recording of Ye’s “Burn Everything.”
West — who in recent years has faced backlash for his repeated antisemitic hate speech — hosted a release party for the album in 2022 at LoanDepot Park in Miami prior to its release. The LP ended up featuring a plethora of stars, including the late XXXTentacion, Don Toliver, Baby Keem, Migos, Travis Scott, Future, Jack Harlow and Playboi Carti.
Within 24 hours of announcing that Donda 2 would be exclusively on the STEM Player, West claimed that he sold 6,200 STEM devices, with sales allegedly totaling more than $1.3 million in just a day.
The STEM Player allowed fans to tweak and remix various elements of Donda 2 songs and contained a USB-C cable, so fans could upload the album to their computers. Those who purchased STEM Players also received access to an online version of the album to play the project on their devices in May 2022.
At the time of Donda 2‘s arrival in February 2022, Billboard clarified that the LP was ineligible to chart as it violated Billboard’s merch bundle policy since the album was being sold with a STEM Player.
West didn’t take issue with the ineligibility; in fact, he looked at shaking up the traditional model as a victory. “Big win for the kid We can no longer be counted or judged We won we won we won we won,” he wrote on Instagram at the time. “We make my own systems We set our own value aaaand yesterdays price is not todays price baaaaabeeeee!!!!!”
Eventually, West released an alternate version of Donda 2 to streaming services in 2025.
