While performing at a private show at Terminal 5 in New York for Tidal subscribers, Jay Z launched into a blistering attack against those he said are criticizing his new streaming service, Tidal. He lashed out at Google, Youtube, Spotify and a host of others.
He claimed he was being depicted as ‘the bad guy’ because he’s going against the grain, before turning on Google and YouTube for underpaying artists, claiming they ‘pay you a tenth of what you supposed to get’. ‘You know n***as die for equal pay right? You know when I work I ain’t your slave right?’ he rapped.
He also included Beat’s co-founder Jimmy Iovine in that list, who was previously accused of trying to lure high profile artists away from Tidal.
Then he even turned on people he called hypocrites, who dared to complain about Tidal’s high prices
topping off Jay Z’s $520 million fortune, when they never complained about filling Steve Jobs’ or Phil Knight’s pockets when they were buying iPhones and Nikes.
‘Oh, n***as are skeptical ’cause they own shit – You bought nine iPhones and Steve Jobs is rich, Phil Knight worth trillions you still bought those kicks,’ he said, before rounding on enemy number one: ‘Spotify is 9 billion they ain’t say sh*t ‘.
The B-sides show was only open to Tidal subscribers who compiled a playlist of the rappers lesser known tracks as part of a competition.
He has tried to defend his fledgling streaming service a number of times before.
At the end of April, he said: ‘The iTunes Store wasn’t built in a day. It took Spotify 9 years to be successful. We are here for the long haul. Please give us a chance to grow and get better.’
In its first month it flopped in the iTunes app store charts, despite a launch from big names.
It is not known why the app has dropped so significantly but the price may be considered too high for some users.
Tidal currently has more than 25 million songs and 75,000 music videos in its library. It is billed as the first artist-owned platform for music and video and the service aims to compete directly with Spotify and Apple’s music service, headed by Dr Dre.
Users can pay either $9.95 a month for a standard streaming service or $19.99 for high quality streaming in the US.
Unlike rival Spotify, the service doesn’t have a free tier – meaning the musicians stand to make more money from it, but this also means it doesn’t play adverts.
Many users who downloaded it and are using it during the trial period may be looking to cancel their subscriptions or uninstall the app.
