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Stem player website12/31/2023 ![]() Ye’s music is usually so well-protected and refined. We rolled out the products at the Yeezy Christian Academy, so the kids there were important co-designers. We worked very closely with the production engineers on both Jesus Is King and Donda to take the essence of music production and make it handheld and simple, even for a six year old. We looked at other pieces of hardware in the music industry. We looked at video games, arcade machines, and obviously the Kano products were a huge inspiration. We looked at stress balls, we looked at products that had been designed for people with autism. Some of the inspiration photos when the player launched were of literal rocks.įor sure. So not just these black screens, black boxes, squares that we feed through information on, but something more that feels like an extension of your body. We wanted to create emotional technology that’s also sensory, almost synesthesiac. We wanted it to be soft and circular and multicolored and with lights and they have to appeal to your senses. So, we iterated on the functionality and we shrunk it down. And that's funny you say “realized,” because James Turrell was an inspiration and his book is called Extraordinary Ideas Realized. It's almost like an open source concept, and yet the music is always so clean. I think Ye has that customizable, community-driven approach inherently, the way he did the astonishing listening parties, where the album was taking shape in front of people's eyes. ![]() They cracked my laptop on a concrete floor and I saw the inside of it were all these components.Īnd that was what first made me realize that this world around us-even the magic of digital technology-is something that can be deconstructed and something that can be understood. ![]() I fell in love with Apple products when I was a kid and then somebody destroyed my laptop in front of my eyes, someone near and dear to me. It’s really what I've been looking to build my whole life. What conversations did you have about the original intent behind it? I think that began a creative collaboration and friendship. And do something themselves with it rather than just take it for granted. It's about transparency, simplicity, and the fact that anyone can understand technology, not just use it. We sold them all over the world, and we had some success, but Ye really saw what it was at its core. So even six-year-olds could build these computers with their families. GQ: How did you get involved with creating the Stem Player?Īlex Klein: Ye discovered our Kano Computers, which are transparent, buildable computers that have colors to signify how each piece of the computer works, and a storybook in the box that shows you how to build it yourself. Instead, Donda 2 will only be available on a pocket-sized, literally rock-inspired device called the Stem Player, which first dropped alongside the original Donda last fall and lets people manipulate songs by isolating elements, allowing them to be sped up/slowed down, reversed, and even looped. So it’s certainly more than just good timing that, according to a press release sent out on Saturday, Donda 2 will be the first album of Ye’s to be released independently, and not under the umbrella of Def Jam/Universal Music Group.īut the endgame here isn’t West’s own version of a digital streaming service nothing Ye does is ever quite that obvious. This month he also hosted a brunch for prominent Black members of the media, while his new head of Donda Sports, NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown, made public pleas to buy the Denver Broncos. Ye kicked off February by announcing “Black Future Month,” a rebrand of the annual observance that he feels is an antiquated way of honoring the Black community. (It’s not clear what that $100 million was for exactly, though it's worth noting Apple Music had the exclusive streaming rights to last years’ Donda listening parties, which set streaming records for the platform.)ĭriving this decision is the idea of ownership, a recent theme in West’s ever-evolving mission statement. Last Thursday, Ye announced the new album will not be available on any streaming service: not Amazon, not Tidal, not Spotify, and most contentiously not Apple, which West says offered him $100 million dollars that he turned down. ![]() Just because Kanye West (mostly) stopped using all caps in his Instagram captions doesn’t mean he intends to make the release of Donda 2 any less noisy. ![]()
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