Jay-Z has pulled most of his solo albums from streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music, with his back catalogue only remaining on Tidal, the service which he part owns.
Nine of his 12 studio albums have been removed from other streaming platforms, at the request of the artist, Spotify say, while a number of his collaborative records also remain. Jay-Z bought Tidal in 2014, but it has struggled to gather subscribers since despite a series of high-profile exclusives, having amassed only 3 million subscribers to Spotify’s 50 million and Apple Music’s 20 million.
Tidal was launched with a focus of putting control back into the artists’ hands, aiming to allow them to see a greater share of the proceeds from streams via the service. This isn’t the first time Jay-Z has removed some of his work from other competing streaming services, having taken his debut, Reasonable Doubt, off streaming services except Tidal for some time in 2015 when Tidal re-launched. For now, only his first three studio albums remain available to listen to on all streaming services and there has been no comment on what has prompted the latest move.
