Tidal Wave

Jay Z held an eventful press conference to announce the launch of online streaming site TIDAL. Though this site is no different from its competitor Spotify, there is only one thing that separates the two entities: price. TIDAL is being offered to subscribers at $9.99 for standard quality and $19.99 for “lossless high fidelity sound quality”, whereas Spotify is free.

Jay Z is not the only big name celebrity that is involved with the site. Kanye West, Beyonce, Rihanna, Madonna, and Nicki Minaj are some of the few artists who stood on stage alongside Jay as co-owners, making it the first artist-owned service for music and video.  

Jay Z says his main goal with TIDAL is to restore “fair trade” in music. “For someone like me, I can go on tour,” he said in an interview with Billboard. “But what about the people working on the record, the content creators and not just the artists? If they’re not being compensated properly, then I think we’ll lose some writers and producers and people like that who depend on fair trade.”

The rapper mogul acquired ownership of TIDAL when he purchased Aspiro, for $56 million. It’s apparent that he has high hopes for the success of the site, but are music fans willing to stray away from a free music streaming service? Time will tell.

-Jesse Lyles