When Jay-Z first acquired Tidal & presented it to the Hip-Hop culture & entertainment world, there was much anticipation surrounding the new streaming service. What was most important about it was the fact that artists would have ownership to the monies alloted from their music being streamed, contrary to streaming services like Spotify that absorbs most of the money that should be put back into the artists pockets.
It’s exclusivity kept it thriving for a while, that is until Apple came about with their Apple Music service & the exclusives from Tidal weren’t all that “exclusive” anymore.
Rumors are now circulating that HOV wants to ditch the company because its costing him more money now than it’s earning. After Lil Wayne exclusively dropped is Free Weezy Album through the app & Tidal copped a big fat lawsuit from Baby, it’s obvious where the loss begins.
As reported by Hits Double Daily:
Tidal has gone eerily quiet of late, apart from statements of support from Nicki Minaj andMadonna, and the word is that Jay Z is looking to get out. This ambitious undertaking has cost him millions of his own money because he never got the expected funding, he still hasn’t paid the licensing fees to the rights holders and no one is likely to throw him a life preserver and bail him out, so he has little choice at this point except to stop the bleeding. What will his exit strategy look like? Interesting to note that it’s not Apple, Sony, UMG or WMG that could be putting the final nail in the Tidal coffin, but Cash Money’s Slim and Baby Williams, with their copyright-infringement suit against the service for its recent exclusive with alienated label artist Lil Wayne.
Is it too early to throw in the towel? We’ll have to wait and see..
© 2015, Niyah Nel. All rights reserved.
