Are you ready for the biggest irony of the day so far? Beyoncé might have to pull her music from Tidal, the streaming platform that she herself is a co-owner of. Here, finally, is what Alanis Morissette was singing about all those years ago. It's like rain on Bey's wedding day, ya dig? Even though Beyoncé is queen of the world, is #AlwaysOnBeat if her meme is to be believed, and only a fool would ever challenge her, at the end of the day, she still is a Sony artist. According to so-called sources, since Sony has yet to settle on a contract dictating Tidal's streaming of Sony artists' work, Beyoncé might be pretty powerless here. A sentence I never thought I'd type.
It would be one thing if Beyonce was the one putting her foot down about the use of her own music, but Knowles isn't the force behind the alleged negotiations stalemate. That honor goes to her husband and fellow Tidal co-owner, Jay Z, who is reportedly refusing to capitulate to Sony's demands that Tidal cough up large sums of money in advance in exchange for the rights to include Sony artists in their catalogue. He's allegedly already come to agreements with Universal and Warner, and he has a great deal of incentive to find a similar compromise with Sony, as, if they withdraw their partnership, the works of all of their artists will most likely be removed from the site. And since that group includes acts like Daft Punk, Alicia Keys, and Usher, who also happen to be Tidal co-owners ... this could get pretty embarrassing.
Bottom line, if the report is true, Jay Z has money to burn, so he's probably not too worried about the financial side of things. However, there are other factors in this rumor to consider here. I think the main one is that there isn't much incentive to continuing to support a platform that doesn't even stream your own music when and if Sony withdraws that music from Tidal as the article claims might happen. It kind of makes me wonder if we might see a little artist exodus as a result of this hiccup. Or even a big artist exodus. A tidal wave, if you will. (I'll show myself out.)
We reached out to Sony and to Jay Z for comment, but have yet to hear back.
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