The One Thing Jay Z Can Do to Make Me Subscribe to Tidal

One simple addition could make the service much more valuable to rap fans.

Not Available Lead
Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

Not Available Lead

At the top of 2015, I finally succumbed and did something I never thought I’d do again: I started paying for music. I’ve been downloading music ever since the waning days of Napster, and after I pointlessly bought Kanye West’s Late Registration in 2005, I decided, "To hell with this, I’m just going to get my music for free for forever." And yet, I went and got Spotify Premium. It was the best decision I’ve made all year. Thanks to Spotify, I now wake up, download new releases straight to my phone while getting dressed, and listen to the latest Big Sean on the way to work. So simple, so easy, totally worth $10 a month. I'm not paying for the music—why would I pay for something that’s already free? That's stupid—I'm paying for the convenience.

Which brings me to Jay Z and his much maligned music service. Tidal has gotten a ton of bad press for dubious reasons. In response, Jay has been trying to court consumers with tactics that seem out of character for the calculating hustler: personally calling people who signed up for the service, going on Twitter to defend its shortcomings, and performing a b-sides concert for Tidal users. It's cool Jay is being hands-on, but those tactics don't really sell Tidal as a service. Besides, it's not like I signed up for Uber so its super cool CEO could give me a ride home. For all his effort, Jay has failed to explain how being a member would make my life more convenient. But you know what would make me want to subscribe to Tidal? If it added all the mixtapes from DatPiff or LiveMixtapes. 



Adding mixtapes to Tidal would give it a distinct advantage over Spotify and would help the smaller artists some critics felt Jay’s Tidal gathering left out.


Spotify is great for a lot of things, like browsing through Steely Dan's or Carrie Underwood's or N.O.R.E.'s catalog on a whim. And I love how Spotify freed me from the shackles of being the manager of my ever-expanding music library. For years I’ve obsessively tagged every song so its artist, album, year, producer, and album artwork were accurate and the bitrates were equal throughout. (It would drive me crazy to see a song like 2Pac’s “Ambitionz Az a Ridah” tagged as Tupac’s “Ambitions As a Rider”). And yet, I still find myself cleaning up tags. Because, as useful as Spotify is for getting the latest albums from Drake, Earl Sweatshirt, and Toro y Moi, I still go to DatPiff and LiveMixtapes to get the latest mixtapes from Juicy J, Rich Homie Quan, and T-Wayne.

Spotify already has a limited selection of recent mixtapes, like Chief Keef's Sorry 4 the Weight and Future's 56 Nights (though not Future's Beast Mode). And I'm impressed they have tapes like PeeWeee Longway's The Blue M&M 2. But that's not enough. Spotify can never be the end-all, be-all music app for serious rap fans because mixtapes are a part of a healthy rap diet. In fact, mixtapes are vital to hip-hop. They function as rap’s true underground/indie scene. And as we’ve argued before, “mixtapes” are the ultimate hip-hop misnomer—they aren’t mixes, they aren’t on tape, but they’ve become as crucial as albums. (If a mixtape is made up of all original production, it’s an album to me, period.)

In his Twitter rant, Jay tried to stress how Tidal pays indie acts, claiming, “Indie artists who want to work directly w/ us keep 100% of their music.” and “Tidal pays 75% royalty rate to ALL artists, writers and producers -- not just the founding members on stage.” So why not extend that courtesy to all the rappers putting out mixtapes for free on the Internet? Surely Rich Homie Quan, Young Thug, and London on da Track deserve some compensation for their contributions to last year's excellent Rich Gang mixtape (sadly, not on Spotify). Adding mixtapes to Tidal would give it a distinct advantage over Spotify and would help the smaller artists some critics felt Jay’s Tidal gathering left out. Plus, rap fans would be forever grateful.

Adding all those mixtapes to Tidal is obviously easier said than done. It might require Aspiro (Tidal's parent company) to acquire a company like Datpiff, which may or may not even be possible. And I'm not sure if some mixtapes are even available in hi-definition audio. But if Jay Z is really looking for a way to differentiate his product, it might be worth the investment. If Tidal were to offer high-quality audio, artist exclusives, the hottest mixtapes, and all of the world’s music at your fingertips, well, then I’d be a lot more willing to make the switch. After all, music has been free ever since I've been a teenager. But I keep on paying for convenience.

Insanul Ahmed is the Editorial Producer for Complex Music. He lives in Los Angeles. Follow him @incilin.

Latest in Music