Kanye West celebrates his latest album, Donda 2’s, ineligibility from the Billboard charts.
As mentioned on Monsters & Critics, Billboard said the album bundled with the $200 Stem Player goes against Billboard’s latest merch bundle policy, where albums sold with merchandise are not chart counted.
Ye initially was met with backlash due to the price of the Stem Player, his latest work being exclusive to the device.
Shortly after the announcement, the Yeezy designer celebrated the device earning $2.2 million of revenue in 24 hours.
Kanye West says Billboard ineligibility is a ‘big win’
Mr. West responded to Billboard’s announcement on Instagram writing the following, along with a photo of the headline:
“Big win for the kid We can no longer be counted or judged We won we won we won we won We make my own systems We set our own value aaaand yesterdays price is not todays price baaaaabeeeee!!!!!”
West premiered Donda 2 at a Miami event on February 22, featuring appearances from Pusha T, Migos, Jack Harlow, Playboi Carti, Alicia Keys, and Marilyn Manson.
The following day after the live event, he shared four songs from the album on his Stem Player website.
Then, on February 25, he made available 12 more songs, naming the 16 track project as V2.22.22 Miami.
Last year, West’s Donda debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 309,000 equivalent album units in its first week.
Donda initially garnered the most first-day streams for an album in 2021 on Apple Music and Spotify.
Donda 2 tops the charts of most pirated albums
Kanye’s latest album leaked online shortly after release and quickly topped the charts of torrent websites.
The album overtook Avril Lavigne’s seventh album Love Sux as the most pirated record worldwide in February 2022.
It is unclear how many units Kanye’s Stem Player has sold since he gave figures of its sales in 24 hours after he advertised the device on social media.
In a deleted Instagram post, Kanye explained why he turned down an Apple deal and is not adding the Donda sequel to streaming platforms
“Donda 2 will only be available on my own platform, the Stem Player. 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.”