The 47-year-old hip-hop megastar and music business mogul reportedly pulls most of his music from Spotify due to competitive reasons.
- Apr 10, 2017
AceShowbiz - Jay-Z reportedly pulled his entire discography from Spotify due to business motives. The hip-hop star is the co-owner of a music streaming service Tidal, so his decision to remove his music from Spotify sparks speculations that it is a business tactic to beat Tidal's competitor. A rep for Spotify claimed that "some of his (Jay-Z) catalog has been removed at the request of the artist."
Now there are only few Jigga's albums which can be found on Spotify. Two collaborative albums with R. Kelly, "Best of Both Worlds" (2002) and "Unfinished Business" (2004), are still listed along with some collaborative singles, but all of his solo albums have vanished from the streaming service. A recent report claimed that Jay-Z also gave similar treatment to Apple Music.
Although there's still no confirmation from Jay-Z, the decision to remove music from Spotify and Apple Music seems to be a competitive move to make fans turn to Tidal. Jay-Z's wife who's also heavily-invested in Tidal, Beyonce Knowles, however, didn't pull her music from the streaming services, although her recent effort "Lemonade" is only available on Tidal exclusive.
Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, bought Tidal for $56 million in 2015. However, Tidal didn't seem to go too well in streaming marketplace. Its subscription number is reportedly below 3 millions, far behind Spotify with more than 50 million subscribers and Apple Music with 20 million subscribers. Other Tidal's major artist investors are Rihanna, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Calvin Harris, Madonna, Alicia Keys and Coldplay.
