Jay Z Performs Freestyle Defending Tidal At ‘B-Sides’ Concert: Watch
Jay Z isn’t done defending Tidal. During his May 16 B-Sides concert, he unleashed a freestyle in which he took shots at Apple, YouTube and Spotify: “Pharrell even told me, go with the safest bet / Jimmy Iovine on for the safety net / Google dig around a crazy check / I feel like YouTube is the biggest culprit.”
The point of Tidal and its subscription fees is to pay artists larger per-stream royalty payouts. For the hip-hop mogul to mention Pharrell is especially interesting. Consider that by December 2014, he only earned $2,700 in royalties from 43 million streams of “Happy” — the one of most ubiquitous songs of last year — on Pandora.
Jay Z could have stopped there, but he didn’t. Instead, as if evoking little brother Kanye West, he stressed that especially as a black artist, he refuses to be a slave to the corporations he lists. “You know I ain’t shucking and jiving and high-fiving, and you know this ain’t back in the days right? / Well I can’t tell, how the way they killed Freddie Gray, right? / Shot down Mike Brown how they did Tray right?”
Hov’s Tidal freestyle isn’t perfect. To start, the loss of black lives isn’t at all comparable to the decrease in artist royalties; if anything, that train of thought highlights his lack of self-awareness, over just how much privileged he is now. (The last time he defended himself in this manner, it was over a New York Times story about his ownership of the Brooklyn Nets.)
At least now, though, after months of critics asking mainstream, established rappers to speak up on behalf of lives like Trayvon Martin (never mind the young activists on the streets every day; also “Where is Ja?”), both hip-hop fans and activists finally have the soundbite they’ve always wanted. Watch Jay Z’s Tidal freestyle below.
[via The Smoking Session]
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