Kanye West Says ‘Streaming Is Basically Pirating,’ Plans to Sell ‘Vultures 2’ for $20 on His Website

Kanye West has claimed streaming is a new form of piracy and won’t be releasing Vultures 2 on to DSPs.

Over the weekend, clips of Kanye West having a conversation with the YEFANATICS fan page in his Instagram DMs surfaced online, and in the message exchange, the Chicago rap legend reportedly expressed his thoughts about streaming. 

“Was talking with the team about how to release the next album. Like James Blake said streaming devalues our music. We sell albums on Yeezy.com,” Kanye said. “I got 20 million Instagram followers. When five percent of my followers buy an album. That’s one million albums sold That’s 300K more than the biggest album last year.”

He added, “We sold 1 million items on Yeezy.com on Super Bowl Sunday so we know it’s possible. How do you feel about us not streaming and only selling the album digitally.”