Jay Z has long described himself as the boss of the Big Apple, but right now it seems the Tidal CEO is butting heads with Apple and other music companies over an alleged multimillion-dollar “smear campaign.”
In a string of tweets over the weekend, Jay Z took issue with tech giants trying to make him out to be the bad guy — acknowledging that, “We may not be perfect – but we are determined” and that “We are here for the long haul.”
Although perhaps not if Apple has anything to say about it!
Jay Z purchased the technology behind Tidal for $56 million back in January. He launched the service in March, alongside co-founders such as Kanye West, Rihanna and Madonna, with an eye toward creating a streaming music service that would garner a bigger slice of the revenue pie for artists.
However, the tactic has backfired somewhat as the not-exactly-humble rapper has been criticized for creating a music platform that’s more about making millionaire artists richer than it is about, you know, making music accessible to customers.
According to speculation on the website Page Six, Apple is also taking subtle shots at Tidal by taking a long time to approve updates for the service’s iOS app. Last week, Tidal fell out of the top 700 iPhone apps for the first time since its March 30 launch.
Robert Kondrk, vice president of iTunes Content, has reportedly told executives at Universal Music Group that Tidal artists who put out exclusive music on Jay Z’s service won’t be promoted as featured artists on iTunes. Given how much of a boost Apple can give artists (such as Jay Z’s wife Beyonce) with the right promotion, that’s certainly no idle threat, if true.
The article further claims that after Rihanna’s song “American Oxygen” debuted on Tidal, technical problems affected her music on iTunes, meaning that songs were “scrambled and were out of commission for periods of time.”
Apple has denied that this is the case.
Given that Cupertino is said to be launching its refreshed Beats Music service this June’s Worldwide Developers conference, it would be hard to blame Tim Cook and pals for not wanting to aid a direct competitor, though.
Via: Daily Mail
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
4 responses to “Jay Z’s got 99 problems, and Apple might be one”
Who is this Mr. Carter? Is that Jay Z’s real name? The idiot is not a founder of Tidal, neither are any of the celebrities he dragged on stage. Tidal was around before they bought the company. Mr. Carter OBVIOUSLY doesn’t know the definition of the word “FOUNDER”.
And his unequal comparisons to these other companies is just ridiculous.
Message to Jay Z. There were two major reasons why I didn’t want to use Tidal. #1. It stopped to buffer too often and if I’m paying to stream audio or video, I don’t want to sit around waiting for the content to buffer, which is more of an ISP issue on my end, which I can’t always change. #2, I don’t like rappers. That’s a conscious decision, I just personally don’t think rap music is good for society, especially when the so-called artist can’t actually play a musical instrument, which just tells me they don’t want to study the very thing that would make them a musician. Rapping is just an excuse not to learn how to sing.
WOW!!! how ignorant is this statement! “Rap music isn’t good for society” PLEASE enlighten me on that perfect, unproblematic genre that is great for society!? “Artist that can’t play instruments” That is like saying a glass blower isn’t an artist because they can’t paint. There is more than one way to be an artist. Secondly you have NO IDEA WHAT THESE RAPPERS CAN DO! You don’t know these people personally, you have no idea if Jay-Z can play the piano, guitar,flute , trumpet, drum etc or any other instrument for that matter. Nor can you speak on other rappers as well. It’s VERY telling that you would single out Rappers specifically. You aren’t very good using coded language.
Man…. Really? “#2, I don’t like rappers.” This is just foolishness. Really man what are you even talking about. Music is Music. And it will always be music, no matter the format. A musical Artist does not have to know how to play an instrument, to make life changing music. Man….Your statement was sadly ignorant bro.
I’m a big fan of Rihanna, and in my opinion messing with her sales is messed up. I understand that they don’t like Tidal, but messing with the artist alone is not right. Rihanna brings sales to iTunes (she the most digitally downloaded artist). I love but if this “rumor” is true then I’d be very disappointed.