Jay Z is going head-to-head with Apple — and Apple supporters Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine — by building his own streaming business. This streaming service will be “created by artists, supported by artists,” in an attempt to win big names over to his streaming service.
Already, Tidal, the streaming service Jay Z has provided, is disputing with Apple over the rights to exclusive content such as new albums by Florence and the Machine and other big names.
Of course, this also puts Jay Z directly at odds with Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, who have been big supporters of Apple’s Beats service.
“There’s only one person with a bigger Rolodex than Jimmy Iovine and that’s Jay Z,” said one industry source.
And with Jay Z’s focus on artists pitted against Apple’s reputation for playing hardball with its iTunes services, it looks like Tidal could give Beats a run for its money.
“If you are Jimmy, you’ve got be thinking, this guy is beating me to the punch at trying to get all the artists,” said a source.
The streaming service is already up and running, for a fee of $20 per month, while Apple isn’t due to launch theirs until this summer.
“He’s disrupting Apple’s venture,” said one source.
Tidal boasts better sound quality than other streaming services like Spotify, and with 580,000 subscribers between Tidal and other Aspiro services, Jay Z is already a big competitor.