Apple “Not Looking” to Buy Tidal, Says Jimmy Iovine
Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was in talks to acquire Jay Z’s streaming service Tidal. Apple Music head Jimmy Iovine has now dismissed those reports, telling Buzzfeed News, “We’re not looking to acquire any streaming services.” Iovine said, “We’re really running our own race.”
Apple launched its streaming service, Apple Music, two months after Jay Z bought Tidal. Since Tidal’s relaunch, Apple Music has hosted exclusive streams of Rihanna’s ANTI, Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo, Beyoncé’s Lemonade, Prince’s entire discography, and much more. Kanye has lamented that the rivalry is “fucking up the music game.” He tweeted, “Fuck all this dick swinging contest. We all gon be dead in 100 Years. Let the kids have the music. … Apple give Jay his check for Tidal now and stop trying to act like you Steve.”
Tidal was first launched in 2014, by the Norwegian/Swedish technology company Aspiro. In March of 2015 it was acquired by Project Panther Ltd., a Jay Z owned company. Following the purchase, Jay Z relaunched Tidal as an artist owned subscription streaming service that claimed to pay the highest royalties to musicians. Jay Z invited several musicians to be stakeholders in Tidal, including Arcade Fire, Beyoncé, Chris Martin, Deadmau5, Daft Punk, Jack White, Kanye West, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Usher, and others.
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