Never say never when it comes to Kanye West — even if he said it three times.
After the hip-hop megastar vowed his latest album would only be available on Jay Z’s Tidal streaming service in which he’s part owner, West quietly made one of its most high-profile singles available on Apple Music and Spotify Monday.
Last month, West took to Twitter to swear off other streaming music services
My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale… You can only get it on Tidal.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016
While the whole album “The Life of Pablo” remains solely on Tidal, the track “Famous” — in which West lashes out at pop star Taylor Swift, saying he made her famous — cropped up Monday on both Apple Music and Spotify.
Even West’s proclamation last month was an about face from tweet rants just days earlier, when he indicated “The Life of Pablo” would be for sale conventionally a week after it launched on Tidal exclusively.
Among the other head-scratching disclosures in his rants that week were an admission he’s $53 million in debt and a plea to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for a $1 billion investment.
Though West’s decision to release his album only on Tidal rocketed the app to the top of Apple’s App Store charts, it also stoked a field day of piracy. After its first day of availability, piracy blog TorrentFreak estimated that 500,000 people had downloaded the record.