Jay Z fired back at critics of his Tidal music service on Sunday, claiming the site is “doing just fine” and that its subscriber base is growing.
The rapper, who relaunched Tidal after purchasing its parent company Aspiro Group earlier this year for $56 million, urged critics to hold off on dismissing the service too soon.
The music mogul tweeted to his 3.1 million followers that his new music subscription service “is doing just fine. We have over 770,000 subs. We have been in business less than one month.”
“The iTunes Store wasn’t built in a day,” he said. “It took Spotify nine years to be successful.”
Jay Z added that 770,000 subscribers have already signed up for Tidal, which he relaunched to compete with platforms such as Pandora and Spotify.
But his series of tweets came shortly after Tidal dropped out of the top 500 most downloaded apps in the U.S. on April 18, according to App Annie data; it then fell further to No. 870 just days later. Following rumors suggesting that Jay Z and Beyonce are creating an album that would debut exclusively on Tidal, the service only jumped up to No. 664 on the app charts.
“We are here for the long haul,” Jay Z said. “Please give us a chance to grow and get better.”
Using the hashtag “TidalFacts,” Jay Z sent out numerous other tweets about the service, noting that the “iTunes Store wasn’t built in a day” and that Tidal pays “75% royalty rate to ALL artists, writers and producers — not just the founding members on stage.”
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