Kanye West Continues Rant About Apple

[Aiden]

As noted by Appleinsider, rapper Kanye West has panned Apple for paying performers at its annual iTunes Festival with increased promotional space on its iTunes Store instead of cash. The hip-hop star made the comments during an interview at the ongoing Cannes Lions Festival, where he had also claimed that Apple’s Beats deal was an attempt at making a cultural connection following rival Samsung’s collaboration with Jay-Z last year.



The iTunes Festival is an annual music concert series sponsored by Apple, for which the company charges zero admission fees and streams live to users of Macs, iOS devices and Apple TV for free. Since its inception in 2007, the event has attracted a long list of big-name performers, including Usher, P!nk, OneRepublic and Lady Gaga.

West had previously rapped Apple on the matter, but had not revealed what the Cupertino company was offering performers in return for their presence at the festival.

“I know you might have heard about this thing where I was on stage, like calling Tim Cook out and saying why do you have these guys performing at South by Southwest and you don’t want to pay them,” West said in an interview at the Cannes Lions festival. “You just want to give us extra space on the iTunes page and stuff, you know.”

One might question the validity of the rapper’s concerns though, as iTunes Store placement has been known to be highly valuable for artists. As noted by Appleinsider, artists who received placement on the digital storefront had accounted for “more than 60 percent of the world’s digital music market and a correspondingly large portion of overall music sales”.

Add that to the fact that Apple charges nothing to consumers for attending the event and streaming it live, and it’s hard to imagine why the All Falls Down performer would be kicking up a ruckus.

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