When the Chicago native announced his upcoming album, Donda 2, would only be available via the Stem Player, an in-house proprietary gadget that works as an MP3 player, people took to social media with turbulent opinions. However, Kanye’s reasoning isn’t as ridiculous as it seems at first.

The artist’s desire and struggle to be paid fairly for the music they create is nothing new, in fact, it’s a well-documented strife. Prince battled Warner Bros in the ‘90s for a better contract and ended up having to re-record his entire catalog in order to own his masters. After having gone public with how her label bullied her over ownership and subsequent payment for her albums, Taylor Swift is having to do the same thing. 

Jay-Z’s approach to this issue was to create his own streaming service entirely, dubbed Tidal, in which artists are paid a fairer share per stream. However, the flow of money between Tidal and the artist remains convoluted. 

The traditional flow of money is as follows: A streaming service tallies the total amount of an artist’s streams per song, paying somewhere between $0.03 – $0.005 per stream. This payment is first handed to the rights holder, followed next by the distributor. The remainder of the money is finally trickled down to the artist. 

Kanye’s relationship with his rights holders is no different than his peers.

Kanye’s method of protesting the music industry, in undermining his music’s rights holders and collecting his rightful coin, is genius. The stem player itself is worth $200 and is sold by Yeezy Tech, a brand he is co-owner of. Assuming he doesn’t fold on this announcement, the only way to listen to his next album will be by purchasing this product. Music listened to through the Stem Player does not generate money, therefore the middle-manning rights holders have no money to collect. 

All the money instead funnels to Kanye’s company.

Kanye seems to have doubled down on this plan, announcing on Instagram his decision to turn down a $100 million deal to exclusively host Donda 2 on Apple Music.

Although Kanye’s decision to release his next album exclusively on the Stem Player comes at a great inconvenience to his fans, the reason behind the decision justifies the means. The music industry needs a reality check.