SLIPKNOT frontman Corey Taylor has blasted Kanye West for announcing that his new album, “Donda 2”, would be released exclusively on the rapper’s $200 proprietary hockey-puck-sized streaming devices, which allow users to remix songs as they listen.
Kanye released four “Donda 2” tracks to his Stem Player on February 23 following a listening party and live performance in Miami the night prior. The next day, he released 12 more songs, calling the 16-track collection the “Miami Version.”
Taylor, who made headlines back in 2015 after he slammed West for claiming to be “the greatest living rock star on the planet,” commented on Kanye‘s release strategy in a new interview with U.K.’s Metro. He said: “It’s like releasing all the parts for a car and sending them to people’s houses and going there, you got a free car, now you’ve got to figure out how to build the goddamn thing. You’re assuming that the audience has the access and same technology that you have but you’re a fucking moron for doing that. Are you serious? It doesn’t work that way. The thinking that that’s a smart thing to do just shows you how convoluted and off the fucking property Kanye West really is.”
He added: “When you’ve got that much money and that much people around you telling you exactly what you want to hear, your concept of reality just goes right out the fucking window.”
Addressing the steep “Donda 2” price, Corey noted that inflation is “fucking batshit” worldwide and added, “People can’t afford their fucking apartments for fuck’s sake. It’s not right. It’s just so pompous and ridiculous.
“If we [SLIPKNOT] did that, we would be fucking demonized but I guarantee people are looking at him like he’s a genius, and it’s, like, for fuck’s sake, pull your head out of your ass, put it on CDs and just fucking give it to people. If you want to do that, put it together in a way that people can actually listen to it. It’s such fucking horseshit.”
When Kanye first announced his new album more than three weeks ago, he wrote on his Instagram: “Donda 2 will only be available on my own platform, the Stem Player. Not on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or YouTube,” adding that his reason for making his new music exclusive to the gadget had to do with how artists are paid when their songs are streamed on those platforms.
“Today artists get just 12 percent of the money the industry makes,” he wrote alongside a clip from the new album. “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.”
Less than two years ago, Corey offered some surprising words of support to West, whose behavior had been increasingly erratic, including divulging deeply personal details about his family and marriage. In July 2020, West announced that he was running for president, and he delivered a lengthy monologue at a campaign event, during which he told the crowd he and his then-wife, Kim Kardashian, considered having an abortion when she was pregnant with their oldest daughter. The rapper then went on multiple Twitter tirades, alleging that Kardashian and her mom Kris Jenner had tried to “lock him up,” and claiming that he had been considering divorcing his wife.
Taylor later told “Loudwire Nights” that he was “worried” about West’s public comments, adding, “That’s not the normal behavior of someone who is… That seems like someone who’s having a mental break, to be honest. It sounds like someone who is borderline. I don’t wanna say it’s a borderline personality disorder, but it almost feels bipolar. When you exacerbate it with fame and money and all of these different things, people have a right to be concerned. He’s got a family; he’s got people who care about him and worry about him.
“It’s one thing to laugh about it from afar; it’s another thing to watch a breakdown happening in real time, especially with someone who is loved by so many people, and a lot of his actions are taken very seriously,” Taylor added. “So when he says some of that shit, people take him seriously. It’s like [then-President Donald] Trump — people take what he says very seriously, and that’s a danger. So we have to be very, very careful and watch what’s being said.
“I just hope that he gets the help that he needs, let’s put it that way.”
Four years ago, West told The New York Times that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2017.
West had previously compared himself to visionaries in the fields of art, fashion, technology, sports and business.
During a 2013 concert in Paris, the outspoken rapper called himself Picasso, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney and Basquiat.
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Tagged: Alternative Music, music blog