Kanye West has been teasing fans with a lengthy rollout for his highly anticipated album Donda. From his ongoing release date beef with Drake to two sold-out album listening parties for an incomplete album to highly-priced merch, Ye's third listening event is set to take place in his hometown of Chicago. The rapper's team is even reportedly building a replica of Ye's childhood home in the middle of Soldier Field.
By now, Yeezy fans are well aware that anything the rapper does is on a scale larger than grand. He broke an Apple Music record with the accompanying live stream of the second Donda event in Atlanta earlier this month. The event reportedly had over 5.4 million people tuned in concurrently to watch the rollout continue. Not to mention, his debut YeezyXGap collab hit $7 million in sales overnight, and the sales for his YEEZY brand surged by a massive 347% amidst the delay of Donda.
Kanye West is seen at ‘DONDA by Kanye West’ listening event at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on July 22, 2021 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images)
What we know is Kaney is a marketing genius. His album rollout for Donda may in fact go down as the most innovative hip-hop album rollout ever. A new Billboard report reveals that:
The listening parties in Atlanta grossed between $1.5 million and $2.7 million apiece for the rapper. (The shows did not report sales to Billboard Boxscore.) Meanwhile, all of the attention has driven interest in West's catalog: In the 22-day period between July 19 and Aug. 9, on-demand U.S. streams of his music rose 37% over the previous 22-day period, according to MRC Data, generating an additional $350,000 in income on top of what the prior period had brought in.
In short, Kanye's cultural capital is like no other.
Earlier this week, Yeezy Tech and Kano launched sales for the Donda Stem Player. As the name of the interactive device makes clear, it allows for users to cycle through the stems of each song while muting and mixing them as they see fit.
For now, Yeezy fans will have to patiently wait for the Chicago event and the actual release of the album.
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