This battle over the streaming music space is giving rise to a new East Coast/West Coast rap feud.
Jay Z is leveraging his relationships with music artists to jump-start his own subscription music service — pulling ahead of rival hip-hop mogul Dr. Dre and music impresario Jimmy Iovine, who are big players in overhauling Apple’s upcoming Beats service.
Music industry insiders say Jay Z’s Tidal is already going head-to-head with Apple’s pointmen over the right to exclusively stream albums from Florence and the Machine, among other big-name artists.
“There’s only one person with a bigger Rolodex than Jimmy Iovine and that’s Jay Z,” said one source.
Jay Z, who also has his own Roc Nation record label, is pitching his streaming service as more artist-friendly than that of Apple, which developed a reputation for playing hardball with the record labels when it came to its iTunes service.
“Jay Z’s whole approach is, they’re created by artists, supported by artists,” said one label executive. “The more players, the better.”
Now that the industry is shifting to streaming and away from digital downloads, Apple is having a tougher time courting the music industry — even with the well-connected Iovine, who, along with Dre, sold Beats headphones and the sister music service to the Cupertino, Calif., tech titan for $3 billion.
“If you are Jimmy, you’ve got to be thinking, this guy is beating me to the punch at trying to get all the artists,” said a source.
The record labels are hoping Jay Z’s music and entertainment connections will bring more mainstream attention to the niche that is rapidly growing in the US but still lags in Europe and other countries.
Jay Z is doing his part with a splashy New York launch event on Monday for Tidal. Rihanna, Madonna and Coldplay are rumored to be attending the glitzy presentation at the Eighth Avenue post office building.
Jay Z’s Roc Nation reps a host of artists from DJ DeadMau5 to Kanye West, who could also throw their weight behind his service — not to mention wife Beyoncé.
Tidal is already available for $20 a month, while Apple’s Beats relaunch isn’t due until summer.
Tidal also uses a high-fidelity streaming protocol that boasts better sound quality than Spotify and other streaming rivals.
Jay Z’s Tidal combined with other Aspiro services counts 580,000 subscribers around the globe.
“He’s disrupting Apple’s venture,” said one source.
Jay Z’s Project Panther BidCo paid $56 million last year to buy Aspiro, the Swedish company behind Tidal and WiMP.
Sources say he’s having conversations with the likes of Sprint owner Softbank and private-equity firm KKR to possibly raise more cash.
One of the senior executives at the firm is a former KKR executive and was most recently with BMG Rights, once owned by KKR. One potential partner said the value of Tidal has risen to $250 million.