Ty Dolla $ign has addressed Kanye West’s plan to sell Vultures 2 for $20 instead of putting it on streaming services.
In a text message exchange that was shared on YeFanatics’ Instagram Stories on Sunday (March 10), the California crooner explained to an unspecified recipient why selling the album is a frugal decision.
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Though the exact source of the message remains unclear, the YeFanatics page has been communicating with West online in recent days.
The initial message read: “Bro, don’t let Ye release the album on the website, you’d lose a lot more. and they will piracy the album and this will hinder you in an absurd way.”
Unconvinced by this argument, Ty responded with a six paragraph message, beginning with: “That’s what these streaming services want u to to believe so they can stay on top. Music cost us money and time to make but they don’r want us to get paid for it .
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“There selling the audience subscriptions and renting our music out while giving us a fraction of a penny [crying laughter emoji]. I hear what you’re saying but we’re already #1 with the first.”
He concluded: “It’s time to figure out the unlock on how to bring the music straight to our audience and cut the middle man out. Artists are getting raped and that has to stop.”
The idea to release Vultures 2 independent of streaming services emerged earlier this month when the Chicago rapper and producer told YeFanatics that he has been “talking with the team” about the method of release for his next album with Ty Dolla $ign.
“We sell albums on Yeezy.com. I got 20 million instagram followers,” he wrote in a text exchange. “When 5% of my followers buy an album [t]hat’s 1 million albums sold[.] That’s 300k more than the biggest album last year.
“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[?]”
The 46-year-old followed that up by asking YeFanatics if it was possible to sell a million copies of the album.
“When we do that we won’t have the streaming companies in control of the artist anymore,” he wrote.
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The fan account responded by sharing a poll it conducted about whether fans wanted the second and third parts of the Vultures trilogy to be exclusively for sale on West’s website — the tally ended with a resounding 88.2% of respondents having voted no.
YeFanatics then said that “it would be nice” if the album was available on streaming services since “many fans do not have the option to pay for the album and others are going to hack it.”
To that, Kanye responded: “It would be nice for our community to support the albums. Streaming is basically pirating.”
