Jay Z, the co-owner of streaming music site Tidal, has made the inevitable move of taking his music off of rival service Spotify, reports Billboard.
As of April 7, a search showed only two collaborative albums with R Kelly listed: “Unfinished Business” (2004) and “Best of Both Worlds” (2002). There are now also only five singles, all collaborations: “N—-s in Paris” (Kanye West featuring Jay Z), “Numb/Encore” (Linkin Park with Hova), “All the Way Up” (Fat Joe and Remy Ma ft. French Montana, Infared and Jay Z), “Clique” (Big Sean with Jay Z and Kanye) and “Dirt Off Your Shoulders” (with Notorious B.I.G.).
Spotify has since confirmed that “some of his catalog has been removed at the request of the artist,” according to Billboard:
Reports earlier today seemed to erroneously claim that Jay Z’s catalog had similarly been removed from Apple, but albums including The Black Album, Vol. 2…, Hard Knock Life, Vol. 3: Life and Times of S. Carter, Kingdom Come and his last solo LP, 2013’s Magna Carta… Holy Grail, were all listed. His other albums The Blueprint and Reasonable Doubt, for which Hova owns the masters, are not listed but were previously removed.
One primary difference in the services that may have led Jay Z to remove the titles from Spotify and not Apple is the former’s ad-based freemium tier which pays artists less in royalties than subscription tiers.
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(Photo Source: AP)
