Jay Z may have claimed that the launch of Tidal was no attempt to push other music streaming giants out of the business, but that didn’t do much to insure their safety as the media-proclaimed “Tidal wave” is now in full effect.
A short while after Jay Z revealed just how massive and star-studded the Tidal team was, he snatched his own legendary hip hop album off of Spotify while his wife released an exclusive video of her new tune “Die With You” to Tidal.
They are both major moves from the Carters that sent a message, intentional or not, to the rest of the music streaming services—Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Jay Z’s first album from 1996, Reasonable Doubt, is still considered a hip hop classic and contains a plethora of songs that are still streamed, celebrated and listened to today.
If anyone wants to stream the timeless hits like “Dead Presidents II” or “Can’t Knock the Hustle,” however, they won’t be able to turn to Spotify.
Jay Z’s album has been pulled from the current leader in the streaming space, according to Fader.
It isn’t clear if Jay Z will be pulling more of his albums from services like Spotify or Pandora but his ownership of all of his Def Jam master recordings gives him the right to do whatever he wants with his music.
It’s the second major loss for Spotify, which also had all of Taylor Swift’s music snatched from its musical repertoire.
Jay Z, however, has already moved to get Swift’s music on Tidal.
The loss of Swift’s tunes and a classic hip hop album from one of the rap games biggest players is enough of a hit to Spotify, but the Tidal punches kept coming when the “Queen Bey” herself released her first Tidal-exclusive track on Saturday.
Her latest release, “Die With You,” was released solely on Tidal and came along with the type of video that Beyonce and Jay Z fans can’t resist.
The Tidal-exclusive video, recorded on a cell phone, captures Beyonce playing the piano as she belts out the soulful track for the mysterious person behind the camera.
It’s not until the end of the video that the cameraperson turns the cell phone around and reveals Beyonce’s joyful husband recording her.
Jay Z smiles widely at the camera as it is now revealed that Beyonce performed the ode to her husband on their seventh anniversary.
It isn’t clear how many new subscriptions Tidal earned based on the exclusive release, but social media was certainly abuzz with users claiming they were ready to “sacrifice $20/mo to the Queen” in order to watch the intimate video.
With other Tidal co-owners including Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, DeadMau5, J. Cole, Kanye West, Jack White and more there is no telling what other kind of major music exclusives will be released to Tidal.
Despite the many naysayers who have been doubting the service’s potential, Tidal seems to be off to a strong start and has already demonstrated its ability to take over all sources of media with this army of A-list co-owners.
Tidal doesn’t offer a free version of the service but rather boasts a $10 version along with a $20 version that promises to come with higher quality sound.
Only time will tell how massive Tidal can truly grow to be, but Jay Z is still insisting that he isn’t in competition with anyone else.
“I know everyone thinks ‘new company, main business competitor is Spotify’ but we’re really not here to compete with anyone, we’re actually here to improve the landscape,” Jay Z said, according to a Fader transcript. “If just the presence of Tidal causes other companies to have better pay structure, or to pay more attention to it moving forward, then we’ve been successful in one way.”
For that reason, the hip hop mogul says, Spotify is not a competitor and neither is Apple’s forthcoming Beats music service.
“As the tide rises, all the boats rise,” Jay Z added.
