Yeezy $53 Million In Debt? // Uriel Cruz, Period 6

  After a successful self promo and hilarious appearance on SNL, Kanye's album The Life of Pablo isn't doing so hot. The Life of Pablo is Kanye's most recent album featuring big names in the rap game. This sounds like it would drag in a lot of listeners right? Right. The only problem is that Kanye's decided to team up with Tidal and have it stream exclusively on their website.

  How's that a problem you may ask? Well Drake tried this with Apple and Hotline Bling peaked way earlier than it should have. Drake's deal with Apple meant that Hotline Bling would stream exclusively on Apple's music network for a week and then be posted on YouTube, etc. This threw the song off its course to the number 1 spot on the charts.

This will probably affect TLOP but in a worse way. I was able to stream Drake's track back when it was an Apple Music exclusive for free, but you need to pay a $20 sign up fee for Tidal and then possibly more to buy the album -- I'm not sure if the album is free on the website since I don't have a spare 20 lying around to do research.

This reminds me of the Gilded Age. Although Kanye's situation isn't as bad as situations got during the Gilded Age, it's really impacting his sales and career. TLOP was delayed because Chance The Rapper wanted the track Waves on the album. Fans were angered by the delay only to have the album be an exclusive on a music streaming website no one had heard of before. Kanye had made a deal with Tidal and it ended up hurting him and his album while making Tidal a household name for rap fans. Although the album isn't that bad, Kanye's releasing the "final version" this week since the album was a bit rushed. Hopefully he won't make the same mistake and actually give TLOP the release it deserves.

#TLOP

CNN Article on Kanye's Debt // http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/14/entertainment/kanye-west-life-of-pablo-snl-feat/index.html