Kanye West Fans Stream 'Hey Mama' to Thwart Taylor Swift

Kanye West and Taylor Swift’s feud has spawned a streaming war.

On Nov. 10, Swift released her latest album, Reputation. Coincidentally, the project arrived on the same date as the 10-year death anniversary of Kanye’s mother, Donda West.

In response, Yeezy fans launched “Hey Mama Day,” a streaming celebration of the Late Registration track, in hopes of knocking Swift off the daily Spotify charts.

The streaming effort was organized by 16-year-old Rhys Halkidis. “It just seemed like more a positive effort than being petty and fighting pettiness with pettiness,” Halkidis told The Ringer of his plan.

After advertising “Hey Mama Day” on Facebook, Halkidis put his plan in motion, launching a 30-hour playlist that only featured “Hey Mama” and The Life of Pablo’s “Siiiiiiiiilver Surffffeeeeer Intermission,” over and over.

Despite the effort, Swift’s new album is expected to top the Billboard 200 with more than one million units in its first week. However, it did boost Yeezy’s streams. “Hey Mama” managed to reach 24.3 million streams, about 700,000 more spins than it had the prior day (23.6 million). The song, however, did not reach the Spotify Top 200, likely due to the streaming service’s ability to detect irregular activity.

“We have multiple fraud-detection measures in place,” a Spotify spokesperson told Rolling Stone back in May. “The Spotify Content Operations team regularly monitors consumption on the service to look for fraud and any possible fraudulent activity is investigated and dealt with immediately.”

Hey Mama Day 2018 is already scheduled for next year. It is set to take place Nov. 9 through Nov. 11.