Jay Z has purchased a music service set to rival Spotify and other available streaming sites, as reported by BBC News, Tuesday.
Jay Z's wife, Beyonce together with Kanye West and 13 other big names in the music trade gathered in New York on Monday to announce their co-ownership of the online streaming service, Tidal.
Jay Z explained the reason why he and the other famous recording artists decided to venture into this kind of business.
"We didn't like the direction music was going and thought maybe we could get in and strike an honest blow," he stated in an interview with Billboard, days prior to the relaunching.
"Consumers have been disrespecting and devaluing music," the 44-year-old rapper added. "The very least we did was make people wake up and try to improve the free vs. paid system, and promote fair trade."
Jay Z said that another reason for Tidal's relaunch is the increase in creative control it will give to the musicians. Furthermore, it will give them freedom to make longer songs, Business Insider reported, Tuesday.
Alicia Keys, one of the co-owners present during the event, hopes that Tidal will alter musical evolution as their mission goes beyond commerce and technology.
Tidal offers 25 million music tracks, which is fewer compared to Spotify's 30 million.
Despite the other streaming site's advantage, Jay Z formulated a strategy which includes swaying artist's labels to provide the company a short-window period of exclusivity by giving it new music a week in advance of other services.
The first artist-owned platform for music and video offers a standard subscription for $9.99 a month and high fidelity option for $19.99, for better sound quality and more exclusive content access.
As the marketing campaign took over the internet for 24 hours, speculations are now flooding the social media that Jay Z's streaming site isn't about helping musicians. Rather, it's about making money.
"Will artists make more money? Even if it means less profit for our bottom line, absolutely. That's easy for us. We can do that. Less profit for our bottom line, more money for the artist; fantastic. Let's do that today," he said, closing his interview with Billboard.
