Jay Z Pulls His Catalog Off of Spotify and Apple Music
Jay Z is still leveraging TIDAL exclusivity as a big part of his streaming service's appeal, and today (April 7) the rap mogul yanked the vast majority of his catalog off of competitor services Apple Music and Spotify.
Acclaimed Jay Z albums like Reasonable Doubt and The Black Album had already been pulled; but as of today, the only Jay releases available are 2002s Collision Course with Link Park on Apple Music and his R. Kelly collaborative albums Best of Both Worlds and Unfinished Business on Spotify. Spotify has confirmed that the removal of Jay’s remaining catalog was done “at the request of the artist.”
Tidal was accused of inflating its subscription numbers earlier this year. According to a report from the Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv (via The Verge)--after scouring internal reports from the service--Tidal only had 350,000 subscribers when Jay Z announced in September 2015 that the streaming company reached 1 million users.
Despite that controversy, it was announced that Sprint purchased a 33 percent stake in Tidal for a reported $200 million.
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