Ye, the rapper, producer, and provocateur formerly known as Kanye West, has what will likely be the No. 1 album on next week’s Billboard chart, with “Vultures 1.” But on Thursday, the LP briefly disappeared from Apple Music, one of the world’s largest streaming platforms.
Apple did not explain the removal. But since its release, the album has been dogged by accusations of unauthorized samples, and earlier on Thursday an independent distribution outlet complained that its system had been used to publish the music in violation of its terms of service.
“Vultures 1,” a joint release with R&B singer Ty Dolla Sign, was to be Ye’s comeback after a series of anti-Semitic comments in 2022 turned him into a music and fashion pariah, with no record label or booking agent, and with his lucrative partnership with Adidas canceled. In December, he apologized for those comments in a social media post written in Hebrew.
After hearing events last week at stadiums in Chicago and Long Island, where young fans flocked to hear his new music and some ignored his past controversies, Ye released the 16-track “Vultures 1” last Friday.
It quickly became a hit on streaming platforms, despite issues such as another brief disappearance online shortly after its release and accusations of Ozzy Osbourne and Donna Summer’s estate that the songs on the album used those artists’ music without permission.
One song, “Good (Don’t Die),” used a portion of Summer’s 1977 song “I Feel Love,” a pulsating classic of early electronic dance music. That track was removed from Ye’s album on Spotify on Wednesday, according to reports.
But on Thursday, with high streaming numbers virtually guaranteeing that “Vultures 1” would become his 11th charting LP, the album was removed from Apple Music for a few hours, although it remained available elsewhere. An Apple representative did not respond to requests for comment.
Earlier on Thursday, Fuga, a distribution platform that works with independent record labels to place their music on streaming services, revealed a conflict behind the scenes of the release of “Vultures 1.”
In a statement, a company spokeswoman said that last year Fuga had passed up the opportunity to release “Buitres 1,” “exercising our judgment in the normal course of business,” but that on Feb. 9, a customer handed over the album to online services “through the platform’s automated processes, violating our service agreement.” Fuga said it sent takedown notices to streaming platforms.
Once the album was removed from Apple, Fuga’s spokeswoman said the removal was “unrelated to our distribution of the album” and referred questions to Apple. By the end of the day, distribution of the album had moved to a different independent service, Label Engine.
With the explosion of digital music in the streaming era, millions of songs are released each year through independent distribution platforms like Fuga that exist outside of the major label system.
For a modest fee, these companies often offer independent artists the opportunity to reach audiences around the world, although the sheer volume of content sometimes leads to problems such as hoaxes and unauthorized releases, as was the case in 2018, when it arrived a supposed new Beyoncé album hits stores. streaming services; It turned out to be a collection of old demos and other recordings released without authorization.
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