At last, Kanye West’s “Donda” album has finally arrived. And in less than a day, it’s already managed to break streaming records on platforms like Spotify.
According to a report from Chart Data, the billionaire artist’s tenth studio album had one of the biggest first day debuts of all-time on Spotify’s global chart, raking in nearly 100 million streams within 24 hours of releasing. The record-breaking streaming numbers could be largely attributed to West’s extravagant Apple Music listening events and unorthodox methods of promoting the album via fans and social media.
While West’s latest Instagram post alleges that his record company, Universal Music Group — parent company of Def Jam Recordings (who the artist is currently signed to) — released his album without his approval, it still managed to have a wildly-successful Sunday morning release.
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News of West’s history-making debut arrives just days after his third and final Apple Music listening event that was held in his hometown of Chicago. Similar to the first two events, the third listening party amassed plenty of talk over social media for his elevated stunts and guest appearances from controversial figures like Marilyn Manson and DaBaby.
Even with all the fuss and confusion leading up to the album’s unconfirmed release date, “Donda” proved to be a multi-million dollar operation that only boosted West’s wealth and status as a one of music’s biggest icons. Unlike his previous album releases, West’s “Donda” gave fans an inside look at the final stages of the album and even recruited their help in making actual changes to the project.
As previously reported by AfroTech, prior to his last listening event, West announced the launch of a $200 stem player designed so any fan could have the ability to “customize any song” on “Donda.” The purpose of the device was to empower fans to add their own two cents into what they thought the album should sound like.
The entire rollout process behind “Donda” has been interesting to witness, but there’s no doubt that West exhausted every possible method to ensure the album was at least a financial success.
