Alex Klein is Kanye West’s former friend who created the stem player for the musician. So, who is Ye’s ex-business partner? He has now spoken out and accused Kanye of antisemitic remarks. Kanye West and Alex were partners on a digital music player called Stem, but the relationship didn’t end well.

The stem player is a £200 device and is the only way fans will be able to listen to Ye’s new album, and Londoner Alex is behind making it. He is a tech entrepreneur who speaks in a new BBC Two documentary as the musician’s former friend. So, who is Alex Klein and what has he accused Kanye West of?

Alex Klein and Kanye West

Alex worked with Kanye on a stem player exclusive to the musician’s music. He recently spoke on a new BBC Two documentary, Trouble with KanYe, and accused the musician of making antisemitic remarks.

He claims the rapper used “offensive phrases” about Alex being Jewish towards him. Alex told host Mobeen Azhar, who fronts the documentary on Ye’s 2024 presidential campaign:

We turned down 10 million dollars. Kanye was very angry you know, he was saying ‘I feel like I wanna smack you’, and ‘You’re exactly like the other Jews’ – almost relishing and revelling in how offensive he could be, using these phrases hoping to hurt me. I asked him and I said, ‘Do you really think Jews are working together to hold you back?’

Alex, the stem player co-creator, continued: “And he said ‘Yes, yes I do, but it’s not even a statement that I need to take back because look at all the energy around me right now. Without that statement, I wouldn’t become president.’”

GRV Media and Reality Titbit have contacted Kanye West’s representative for comment.

Who is Alex Klein?

Alex is a London resident and tech entrepreneur who made a stem player with Kanye. He is the CEO and co-founder of Kano Computing, having graduated from Harvard and Cambridge philosophy graduate, and taught himself to code.

He launched the company over ten years ago after leaving his role as a reporter and writer for Newsweek and the Daily Beast in 2012. He was also a writer for New York Magazine the previous year.

Alex was also a writer for The New Republic in 2011, where he wrote on politics and economics and blogged for Jonathan Chait. His first journalism job was at The Times a year prior, in 2010.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Taylor 🫀 (@hi_from_taylor)

View Instagram Post

Inside the stem player made for Ye

Alex created a music streaming platform and remix device Stem Player in collaboration with Ye, which released the Donda 2 album. But Klein announced in November 2022 that Kano Computing had ended its relationship with Ye.

The device was launched in August 2021 in conjunction with the release of West’s 10th studio album Donda. With a storage limit of 8MB, it is worth $200, but Kanye claims he never made money from the stem player.

That was according to court docs, but the rapper claimed they earned $2.2 million on Instagram and said: “To earn the $2.2 million we made on the first day on the stem player the album would have had to stream 500 million times.”

As per Hip Hop DX, Kanye also said: “We did more revenue on stem player, without the album even being out, than we would have with the album being out on streaming.” His attorney claimed they made no profits on the stem player.