Kanye West Says He Never Made Any Money From ‘Donda’ Stem Player, Despite Claiming $2.2M Revenue, Amid Lawsuit For Unauthorized Song Sample Featured On Music Device

Kanye West

Kanye West Says He Never Made Any Money From ‘Donda’ Stem Player, Despite Claiming $2.2M Revenue, Amid Lawsuit For Unauthorized Song Sample Featured On Music Device

Did Kanye “Ye” West lie about how much money he earned for his “Donda” Stem Player?

Kanye West is currently involved in a lawsuit with musician Marshall Jefferson’s publisher, Ultra International Music Publishing (UIMP). As previously reported, UIMP is claiming that Kanye West acknowledged that he sampled Jefferson’s 1986 house hit “Move Your Body” on his “Donda 2” track “Flowers” without authorization, yet he “continue[d] to willfully infringe in blatant disregard of UIMP’s rights of ownership.”

You may recall that “Donda 2” was dropped exclusively via Kanye’s Stem Player in February 2022, which was sold for $200 per unit. Reportedly, the publisher also claims Kanye profited from the sale of the Stem Players. It may come as no surprise that UIMP is accusing Kanye of making a huge profit from his music device as the rapper previously said he earned over $2 million in sales.

Last year, in a now-deleted Instagram post, Kanye claimed,

“We’ve made $2,227,012.05 in 24 hours. God is good Thank you guys for taking this journey.”

However, it seems that the “Heartless” rapper is now singing a different tune. In court documents obtained by AllHipHop, Kanye denied making a profit from the Stem Players.

His newly obtained attorney, Peter Hawke, wrote,

“[Kanye] specifically denies that he has received any profits from the sale of Stem Players. [Kanye] admits that there were sales of Stem Players after February 19, 2022, some of which came with Donda 2 preloaded on them. Ye denies that he received any revenue from those sales.”

In the legal documents, Kanye also confessed to sampling “Move Your Body,” but argued his work constituted fair use.

“Ye denies that he personally acknowledged in discussions with representatives for Mr. Jefferson and UIMP that ‘Move Your Body’ was sampled in Flowers’ without authorization or payment. Ye further denies that he personally has not ceased distribution of ‘Flowers.’”

Kanye is asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice. However, UIMP is seeking $150,000 for each copyright infringement in its lawsuit.

Reportedly, Judge Analisa Torres has referred the case for mediation.

What are your thoughts on this entire situation? Tell us in the comments below!