And that one decision may have quietly changed the entire trajectory of modern music.
Jay-Z had just purchased Tidal for $50 million plus, betting that artist-exclusive releases would make it the dominant streaming platform, and he wanted Drake, the biggest artist at the time, as his crown jewel.
Instead, Drake went the other direction and partnered with Apple Music, launching OVO Sound Radio, starring in commercials, and giving Views a global platform that reportedly hit 1 billion streams in a single week, a record at the time.
That move didn’t just benefit Drake; it exposed the fatal flaw in Tidal’s entire strategy: reach and placement will always outperform exclusivity. A decade later, Drake became the most streamed artist in Spotify history with over 100 billion catalog streams globally, numbers that simply don’t happen behind a paywall.
DJ Akademics has suggested the tension between Jay and Drake traces back to this rivalry, even pointing to a bar on “Charged Up” where Drake name-drops the Apple deal directly. At the end of the day, business is business, and Drake made the right call.
