There’s no doubting that when it comes to listening to music in 2016, streaming is where it’s at. At the top you’ve got the major corporations Spotify and Apple Music, with Tidal a little further behind, all in a huge bidding war to give artists a minimum royalty rate to make more money. Over the years many artists have spoken out about the streaming war, mainly due to this lack of payment, but now we may finally have a solution thanks to rapper, beat-making extraordinaire, entrepreneur and the closest thing we’ll get to a person living life with every cheat code enabled: Kanye West.
Yup that’s right, everyone’s favourite Twitter ranter Yeezy has once again come out swinging with his perspective on an issue, this time the streaming wars. He spoke out yesterday on his Twitter saying that Apple should just write out a check to Jay-Z for his company Tidal, continuing to say that we should just, “Let the kids have the music”. This all comes after Kanye released his latest album, The Life Of Pablo as a Tidal exclusive and boosted its users drastically.
This Tidal Apple beef is fucking up the music game.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) July 30, 2016
I need Tim Cook Jay Z Dez Jimmy Larry me and Drake Scooter on the phone or in a room this week!!!
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) July 30, 2016
Fuck all this dick swinging contest. We all gon be dead in 100 Years. Let the kids have the music.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) July 30, 2016
Apple give Jay his check for Tidal now and stop trying to act like you Steve.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) July 30, 2016
While many have said that Tidal is a dying platform and boasts no real growth, Kanye West obviously declares that there is too much competition, whether it be due to exclusives or otherwise. Chiming into the discussion was Ohio rapper Kid Cudi , who agreed with West and said that “the art is lost” thanks to these big corporations who dominate music streaming.
https://twitter.com/KidCudi/status/759809585926594560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The art is lost
— The Chosen One (@KidCudi) July 31, 2016
Whether this will all fall on deaf ears, it’ll simply be a waiting game. Major artists do have a history of affecting corporations though, especially streaming. It wasn’t long ago that Taylor Swift spoke out about Apple Music’s royalty rates and managed to increase the payment towards artists, so who knows what kind of power Kanye and Kid Cudi’s rants will hold. Will we see artists entirely removing their catalogues from certain platforms? Who knows, but fingers crossed the future sees artists on the top of the food chain, rather than the big businesses.
Image: Your EDM