UPDATE: Jay-Z pulls all his music from Spotify, reinstates on Apple Music

UPDATE: Pitchfork reports that Jay-Z’s catalogue appears to have returned to Apple Music, but is still absent from Spotify. 

A Spotify spokesperson told Pitchfork that “some of Jay Z’s catalog has been removed at the request of the artist”.

ORIGINAL STORY:

Tidal co-owner Jay-Z has pulled his solo albums from its two major rivals Spotify and Apple Music.

Spotify tweeted it could "confirm that some of Jay Z’s catalogue has been removed at the request of the artist," but did not provide a specific reason. 

Over the past 18 months, Jay-Z’s best sellers Reasonable Doubt and The Blueprint series had been removed. 

But contrary to assumptions, it’s not likely that the hip hop mogul is withdrawing his 15 albums – they had sold 55 million worldwide by last year – for competition reasons. Apple Music still lists a number of his albums like The Black Album, Vol. 2…, Hard Knock Life, Vol. 3: Life and Times of S. Carter, Kingdom Come and 2013’s Magna Carta Holy Grail.

It is believed that Jay-Z targeted Spotify because its ad-based free tier pays less in royalties than subscription tiers.

Aside from four mixtape tracks, Jay-Z is not present on Amazon Music’s streaming service either. But his music is still available to buy on Apple’s iTunes Store, and still streaming on smaller services as Google Play Music.

Jay-Z’s decision has not been repeated by his wife, superstar Beyoncé: most of her product is on Apple Music. So is that of Tidal stakeholders Kanye West, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Daft Punk, Jack White, Madonna, Arcade Fire, Alicia Keys, Usher and Calvin Harris.

When Jay-Z bought Tidal’s parent company, his strategy for the service, at least on paper, seemed promising: there was the attraction of Tidal’s high-quality audio, backed by 16 superstars who wanted to control their music and get better royalties.

Tidal worked on attracting subscribers with exclusives by the likes of Beyoncé and Kanye. But these moves haven’t translated into long-term paying members. 

Tidal is estimated to have 3 million subscribers, to Spotify’s 50 million and Apple Music’s 20 million. It posted a $28 million loss in 2015. 

Nevertheless, Tidal can’t be dismissed as a failure. Jay-Z had bought it for $50 million in March 2015. But it was valued at US$600 million in January 2017, when telco Sprint bought a 33% stake and gave the streaming service access to its 45 million customers.