He may have rejected Spotify as his streaming platform of choice for his new album, but that hasn't stopped Kanye West from being named as Spotify's most-streamed artist over the weekend. According to Chart Data, Kanye was the most streamed artist on U.S. Spotify for three consecutive days from February 25-27. Ye famously announced that his latest record, Donda 2, would not be available on the traditional streaming platforms - rather exclusively on his own platform, Stem Player. Many Spotify members who were unable to pay for the $200 Stem Player device were left in the dark and unable to listen to the record. So how did Kanye manage to sweep this title? There seems to be a few factors working together in his favor. Here's what we know.
Last Wednesday, Netflix blessed us all with the second installment of Kanye's docuseries Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy, which was met by rave reviews. This success, as well as viewers being taken back to his 'good old days' in the docuseries, meant Kanye fans across the country were running to Spotify to replay their old favorite tunes from albums such as The College Dropout and Late Registration - as well as songs from the original Donda which was released in 2021 and is available on Spotify.
.@kanyewest was the #1 most streamed artist on US Spotify on February 27.
— chart data (@chartdata) February 28, 2022
Ye's rise to the top of the Spotify streaming charts came the same week as his Donda 2 Listening Experience event in Miami, which took place on February 22. The star-studded event featured surprise appearances from The Game, Migos, Jack Harlow, Playboi Carti, Fivio Foreign, Alicia Keys, Marilyn Manson, DaBaby, and Pusha T. This highly publicized event likely brought Kanye to the minds of many Spotify members, who began listening to his old music as well as select songs from the Donda original which he also performed at this listening event.
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Immediately after the listening event, songs from Donda 2 became available on his Stem Player. Days later, on February 24, sixteen additional songs were added. This release, of course, contributed to the general rise in interest in Ye's music catalog as people who were enjoying the Donda sequal were encouraged to go back and replay their favorites from the original. Is this all a magical coincidence or the work of Kanye's artistic mastermind calculations? Knowing what we know about the artist, we're thinking it's probably the latter...
