Azealia Banks is the latest entertainer to blast Kanye West over his $200 Stem Player.
On Friday (March 11), the Harlem rapper shared her thoughts on Kanye’s music player, which is the only way you can download his new album, Donda 2. Responding on Instagram to a user who said Ye was “on to something,” Banks strongly disagreed.
“He’s onto absolutely nothing,” Banks commented “He redesigned a portable speaker, there is no API (application programming interface) or appetizing UI/UX design and [it] ISN’T KANYES IDEA. It’s some start-up in London called Kano Technology. Kanye just slapped his name on it. All they are trying to do is sell you fancily decorated computer chips/ raspberry pi thingys you can buy on Alibaba for [$]2.70.”
Banks went on to call Black men naive when it comes to Kanye. “I wish Black men would stop being so quick to believe that this man has done anything revolutionary,” the Slay-Z rapper added. “He’s like the blind dumb deaf mascot put in place for Black folk to idolize and not do their own research. ITS A FUCKING PORTABLE SPEAKER/MP3 player. It literally should cost $30 and belongs in a Toys ‘R Us Christmas catalog that used to come in the newspaper. @teenageengineering is FAR BEYOND in this field. Nothing about the Stem Player generates income for anyone but Kanye. Another non-necessity. It’s complete bullshit.”
Back in February, Kanye announced he would be changing the game by only making his new album available via his Stem Player, which retails for $200. “Donda 2 will only be available on my own platform, the Stem Player,” he captioned a snippet of the new album on Instagram. “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. Go to stemplayer.com now to order.”
Ye later claimed he’d made $2 million in sales in 24 hours following the announcement. Banks isn’t the only person to call out the rapper for essentially charging $200 for his album. Slipknot vocalist Corey Taylor called Kanye “a fucking moron” for the stunt.
[via]
