What Prince's Death Means For Jay Z's Tidal

Author: Forbes Magazine

May 03, 2016

When Prince died suddenly late last month, millions mourned–and raced out to consume his work.

When Prince died suddenly late last month, millions mourned–and raced out to consume his work. In the three days after news of his passing broke, Nielsen tracked 579,000 digital and physical album sales for Prince’s music, a 42,000% increase over the three days prior. “Tidal is a new company, it’s brand new,” Prince told Ebony in a severely redacted interview last year (he apparently had a habit of refusing to let reporters record their conversations with him and then complaining about being misquoted). Tidal did not respond to a request for comment for this piece, but it seems that Prince was offered an equity stake in exchange for making Tidal his streaming home–much like Beyonce, Kanye West and the other artist-owners present at the service’s Avengers-style launch event last year. ...