Kanye West’s New Album Donda 2 Ruled Ineligible for Billboard Charts

Music

Kanye West’s New Album Donda 2 Ruled Ineligible for Billboard Charts

Because it’s sold exclusively with the Stem Player, the album violates Billboard’s merchandise bundle policy

Kanye West

Kanye West, March 2020 (Marc Piasecki/GC Images)

Kanye West’s new album Donda 2 will not appear on any Billboard charts, Billboard reports. West has been selling the album exclusively via his Stem Player, so it violates Billboard’s merchandise bundle policy, which deems ineligible albums that are sold with merchandise. Pitchfork has reached out to Kanye West’s representatives for comment and more information.

West premiered Donda 2 at a Miami event on February 22. The next day, he shared four songs from the record on his Stem Player website. And, on February 24, he made available 12 more songs, billing the 16 total tracks as V2.22.22 Miami.

Last year, West’s Donda debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, moving 309,000 equivalent album units in its first week. At the time, it was the biggest week for any album release of 2021. The achievement also tied West with Eminem for the the record of most No. 1 debuts in a row on the albums chart. In addition, West became one of only seven artists in chart history to release 10 chart-topping albums

Find “5 Takeaways from Kanye West’s Donda” on the Pitch.

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