He’s coming to the end of his first month of Tidal’s launch, and Jay Z isn’t too keen on naysayers who are already deeming the music streaming venture a failure.
The “99 Problems” rapper hopped on his Twitter account last night (April 26) to share some thoughts with those who have criticized Tidal as being too expensive and only helping the industry bigwigs like shareholders Beyonce, Madonna, Daft Punk, Rihanna, Kanye West and Nicki Minaj.
Jay wrote, “Stream of consciousness coming in 5, 4, 3, 2… #TidalFacts… Tidal is doing just fine. We have over 770,000 subs. We have been in business less than one month. 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 & get better. There are many big companies that are spending millions on a smear campaign. We are not anti-anyone, we are pro-artist & fan. We made Tidal for fans. We have more than just music. We have video, exclusive concerts, tickets for events early, live sports! Indie artists who want to work directly w/ us keep 100% of their music. ‘If you don’t want the CEOs all in the videos’ haa. Tidal pays 75% royalty rate to ALL artists, writers and producers – not just the founding members on stage… Rich getting richer? Equity values… YouTube $390 billion. Apple $760 billion. Spotify $8 billion. Tidal $60 million… My cousin just moved to Nigeria to discover new talent. Tidal is a global company… Our actions will speak louder than words. We made Tidal to bring people the best experiences and to help artists give that to their fans over and over again. We are human (even Daft Punk ha). We aren’t perfect – but we are determined.”
