Tidal vs Apple Music vs Spotify: Jay Z Quietly Pulls Songs From Apple Music, Spotify
As the online music streaming war intensifies, hip hop icon and Tidal co-owner Jay Z has been quietly removing his music from major online streaming service outlets such as Apple Music and Spotify, while also keeping the same songs available on his own music service.
According to MacRumors, the musical artist and professional rapper has reportedly removed his entire solo album collection from Apple Music. As such, when fans of the musician search for "Jay Z" on Apple Music, only songs in which he collaborated with other artists are available to stream on the service in the United States and other parts of the world.
This is not the first time that Jay Z has removed certain albums from Apple Music, having previously pulled out "Reasonable Doubt" and "The Blueprint." However, this is the first time that the rapper has removed his entire catalogue of albums from the online music streaming service. Currently, only a few of his collaborations with artists like Linkin Park, R. Kelly, Kanye West and Rihanna can be streamed.
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Jay Z's albums have reportedly been removed from Spotify as well, which was confirmed by the company via Twitter on Friday, April 7.
"We can confirm that some of Jay Z's catalogue has been removed at the request of the artist," the company revealed after a Spotify user inquired about the disappearance of Jay Z's songs on the service.
Jay Z entered the music streaming game back in 2015 after purchasing Tidal and its Swedish parent company Aspiro. In March 2016, the streaming service claimed it had over three million subscribers, but reports alleged that it may have been misreporting the actual number of paying customers.
As of December 2016, Apple Music has over 20 million subscribers, while Spotify announced recently that it has surpassed 50 million paying customers.
Other online music streaming services such as Google Play Music and SoundCloud Go+ have yet to be affected by the recent takedown.
