Kanye West's 'Vultures 1' briefly pulled from Apple Music after distributor drama

Kanye West's new "Vultures 1" was pulled from Apple Music, after the artist abused automated systems to have it posted to streaming services without the distributor's blessing.

West has been working with digital music distribution service Fuga for some time to distribute his music. Fuga's service takes artists' music, and does the heavy lifting in distributing the tracks to services like Apple Music, Spotify, and others.

It appears West uploaded the album to the distributor anyway, knowing that automated services would do the uploading on behalf of Fuga anyway.

"Late last year, Fuga was presented with the opportunity to release Vultures 1. Exercising our judgment in the ordinary course of business, we declined to do so," Fuga shared in a statement to Variety on Thursday. "On Friday, February 9, 2024, a long-standing Fuga client delivered the album Vultures 1 through the platform's automated processes, violating our service agreement."

"Therefore, Fuga is actively working with its DSP partners and the client to remove Vultures 1 from our systems," the service added.

We have not been able to find responses from West's publicists to the matter, to any venue. For the moment, the album remains on Spotify, but removal seems imminent.

Some singles from the album remain on Apple Music. They were uploaded by Label Engine, another music distribution service.

The removal from Apple Music is the second action taken against "Vultures 1." Previously, "Good (Don't Die)" was removed after the Donna Summer estate complained about West using a Summer track without permission, and infringing on copyright.

That track was pulled on February 14.

West has come under fire lately for antisemitic remarks. He's also previously wrestled with technology with him complaining that the FCC should look into things after Apple Pay was disabled when it was a bank action instead, and revealed to a camera in the Oval Office that his iPhone password was "000000."

On the other hand, West broke records on Apple Music. "Donda" set records in 2021 with more than 60 million streams by Apple Music users.

Update February 16, 6:47 AM ET "Vultures 1" has been restored to Apple Music. The album is now being distributed by Label Engine.