Kanye West’s stem player has taken the internet by the storm. The rapper has decided to release his album Donda 2 exclusively through $200 USD Stem Players, while rejecting deals with major music platforms like Apple Music ($100M USD) and Spotify. It was reported that Ye sold 11,000 units of the Stem player within the first 24 hours of launch — a revenue of $2.2 Million USD.
By making his album exclusive to Stem owners, Kanye is going straight to his superfans, who represent his most valuable fan cohort both culturally and financially. The biggest Kanye fans are willing to buy the $200 player, not just for access to the album, but as a keepsake — evidence that “I was there” for this specific Kanye era (this is why even superfans who are not music makers themselves will probably still purchase the player). It does not matter that these fans represent only a small segment of Kanye’s total listener base; their purchases add up to make Kanye more money than streaming royalties would probably generate – and faster. $2 million from Stem Player sales, that equates to roughly 10,000 units sold – a relatively small number of fans, but a huge financial impact. Call it the “10,000 True Fans” theory.
