Ye is once again fighting for successful independence by making his albums exclusive to YZY for $20. While I respect the choice and can understand the unfairness of payouts within the industry, there’s very clearly a lot of backlash, much of it coming from our own GAS - which I feel is the nexus of Ye fans on the internet.

I believe Ye should do what Radiohead did in 2007 when they released “In Rainbows” without a label. They implemented a “Pay What You Want” system where fans could choose to pay in prices ranging from a single cent to $50 or more. The goal of this experiment was to see what the audience thinks a new Radiohead album is worth. This made loads of fans happy as those who could afford, paid for the work that so many artists and engineers put their time and energy into and those who couldn’t, didn’t feel guilty because the band was okay with it. In the end, this brought massive amounts of publicity to Radiohead and it led to even more sales than they would’ve gotten through a typical distribution model. Combining this model with the normal upload to streaming services would be the absolute best case scenario.

Lastly, to my fellow goons acting like the world is ending if the album will cost money, it’s really not that big of a deal. We pay for food, clothes, and drugs all of the time for the same amount. Why not support the artist you’re constantly begging for scraps of music for? Unfortunately, making music and art that helps people get through their lives has become a thankless business. Ye has inspired me to be a better version of myself everyday and I definitely feel like a lot of gratitude is owed to him. We already got a new album! And now we’re getting 2 more?! If there was a poll six months ago that said would you pay $20 for a new Ye album, the answer would’ve been majority yes. I think the bigger question is, what is Ye’s music worth to you?

TLDR: Ye should use a “Pay What You Want” model for Vultures 2. This will drive sales as it will be good marketing and fans will be able to enjoy the album regardless of price because they will be in control of it.