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Kanye West finally released his “lost” 2022 album Donda 2 to streaming services on Wednesday, but within hours, the record had been taken down after the controversial rapper was threatened with legal action.
The 47-year-old rapper, also known as Ye, initially released the album via his own platform, Stem Player. Earlier today, it belatedly arrived on services such as Spotify, Tidal, and YouTube Music.
However, West then posted on social media that DeAndre “Free” Maiden, who manages the producers Jahmal “Boogz Da Beast” Gwin and Brian “AllDay” Miller, had contacted him to request the album be taken down over his failure to pay them for their work.
Gwin and Miller were responsible for producing eight of Donda 2’s 18 tracks.
West’s post showed a screenshot of a message from Maiden, reading: “We did not & do not consent to the usage of our work for Donda 2 or ANY Ye project! He’s owed us $ for almost 3 years now, has refused to pay, yet keeps stealing our work.”
After detailing the songs his artists worked on, Maiden added: “The Lawyers are getting this taken down within the hour.”
In the caption of his post, West commented: “Free Maiden tried to charge me 3 million dollars for these beats from people I showed how to make beats to.
“Now he going to take down Donda 2.”
He added: “Managers” with a shrugging emoji.
West is familiar with being removed from internet services over legal issues. Last week, he joined the Twitch streaming platform and was banned just seven minutes into his first stream.
He has become well-known for making offensive and antisemitic remarks, and his first appearance on Twitch was no different.
West appeared on the stream wearing a black jacket and Prada sunglasses before launching into a speech that included slurs about Jewish people and the LGBT+ community. He also threw a Nazi salute while proclaiming: “Heil Hitler.”
West added that X owner Elon Musk had given him “free passes” to post discriminatory messages on social media. He also made a series of disparaging comments about his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian.
Within minutes, his Twitch page had been replaced with a message that read: “This channel is temporarily unavailable due to a violation of Twitch’s Community Guidelines or Terms of Service.”
West had not even reached 220 followers before being banned.
In February, Friends actor David Schwimmer called on Musk to ban Kanye West from X after he made a series of antisemitic posts.
The actor pointed to a number of posts by West in a lengthy post to his own eight million followers on Instagram.
Schwimmer called on Musk to remove West from X.
“This is so 2022,” said Schwimmer. “We can’t stop a deranged bigot from spewing hate-filled, ignorant bile… but we CAN stop giving him a megaphone, Mr Musk.”
English (US) ·