I stumbled on a 2017 article by Kaitlyn Tiffany of the Verge which discussed the old brawl between Taylor Swift and Spotify in a critical manner. While I do not share her stance on the issue, one paragraph stood out as a bitter truth. The paragraph reads, “there is no such thing as “rare” when you’re talking about content that’s distributed primarily via the internet.”
The common rule of thumb when it comes to upping the price of a product is to make it rare. That, of course, is the oldest trick in the book but it works like a charm even to this day. As Mark Twain puts it in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, “…in order to make a person covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.”
We see this rule play out when Nike releases a limited edition of a sneaker or when gas becomes scarce and we have to pay more to acquire less fuel. It can also be applied to music. In 2015, a single two-copy CD of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin created by the legendary hip-hop group, Wu-tang Clan, was sold for millions of dollars to Martin Shkreli in an open auction.
In today’s musical world, rarity is extinct. Gone are the days when people were “dying” to meet their icons, nowadays, it is very normal to sight a public figure across the street. These artists have no god-like aura around them, let alone their music. Apart from artists like Kendrick Lamar, Damian Marley, SZA, and Frank Ocean who are keen on self-preservation and making industry-defining albums, others are just
following popular trends and hopping on TikTok hashtags. To make up for the low payout from DSPs, artists are becoming internet freaks and clowns so they can attract the most attention and make money from merchandise and brand deals. This new culture is degrading the quality of the music consumed. For many boomers and Millenials who grew up in a completely different era, it’s a sad thing to behold. One artist who seems to care about making music creation a self-sustaining business is Ye (formerly known as Kanye Omari West). In his own way, he intends to defeat gigantic music distribution platforms and labels with a stem player – a device that looks more like an alien grenade than a music gadget. He recently released his Donda sequel album on the stem player and boldly rejected a 100 million Apple deal. In this guide, we will decide if the move was worth it.
More than a beef
Many hip-hop fans went from being skeptical to being angry when Kanye West announced that his 11th studio album, Donda 2, will not be accessible on DSPs like Spotify, Apple, Deezer, and Tidal.
In a now-deleted Instagram post, Ye ranted about how he passed on a 100 million dollars Apple deal in a bid to “set his own price for his art”. Hate him or love him, Mr. West has been one of the few forward-thinking artists to push the boundaries of what is accepted in the hip-hop community. This is greatly depicted in the recent Netflix documentary: jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy. In John Caramanica’s words, Ye has “widened the genre’s gates”. This time, he’s venturing into tech with a seemingly selfless goal – to revolutionize music and free musicians from the grip of music DSPs. Not many artists can pass on a 100 million dollars Apple deal let alone boycott the music streaming giants. For most artists, that’s basically career suicide. In one of his Instagram rants, he called out music tech companies for making music “practically free” and “not caring about the music”. I hate to admit it, but Ye is right.
Times without number, Spotify has shown the world that they would choose to dole out 100 million dollars to a single podcaster overpaying musicians their actual worth. According to multiple reports from established sources, they offered a football team, Barcelona, half a billion dollars in return for their title rights yet they claim they cannot increase their yearly payouts to musicians. The phrase – put your money where your mouth is – does not apply to Spotify. It is safe to assume that they no longer care about the primary purpose of their existence – music.
Kanye west’s feuds are as popular as his music. He has beefed with Drake, Taylor Swift, his label, Joe Biden, and now, every music streaming platform. Unlike his previous beefs, this recent one has a philanthropic tone.
The Stem Player Release: a failure or success
The stem player is a modern, disc-shaped mp3 player and handheld remixer that allows fans to load tracks and isolate various elements of the music like beats, vocals, and other audio components. It gives the end-user more control over the way they consume music. For a price of $200, you can get the Stem Player via its website. To promote the stem player, Kanye West offered his sequel album, Donda 2 exclusively on the device.
According to Ye, he sold 6,217 units in 25 hours and made $1,358,597.69 dollars. Although no proof was provided, there is no doubt that the number would have doubled since the post was made. Let’s assume Ye grossed roughly 5 million dollars from the sale of his stem players, would the move be considered a win? In my opinion, no. The profit from the sale can’t be up to 2% of the money Apple offered him. Plus, he would have made way more than that if Donda 2 was made available on all digital streaming platforms. He may have lost the battle against the money-hungry DSPs, but some Ls are worth taking. Ye took one for the hood and every voiceless artist out there.
Final Thoughts
Where Ye goes from here is only known to Ye. Will he release his next project on DSPs and let the stem player die a next aural death? Is he going to double down on his stance and keep releasing music on the stem player? In the words of the great philosopher formerly known as Kanye Omari West, we “ain’t got the answers”.