| March 3rd, 2016

Feeling EnTIDALed?

By: journeymagazine

By: Ayanna Zulu

Tidal is an artist-owned music streaming service free of advertisement that provides high-quality streaming for a reasonable, monthly price of $9.99. When rapper Jay Z launched Tidal with co-owners Beyonce, Rihanna and Kanye West, he provided an opportunity for artists earn fair compensation for their music. Before the Tidal wave, there was never a music streaming service platform owned by music artists. By eliminating the middle man, artists who have become co-owners  like has a direct business-to-consumer plan that is the only one of its kind.

Most recently announced part-owner, T.I. celebrated his partnership with the music service by holding a free concert in Greenbriar Mall in Atlanta, Ga available to Tidal subscribers and contest winners of a local Atlanta radio station.

According to Tidal.com, subscribers have access to 40 million songs and 90,000 high definition music videos with curated editorial. Competitors like Apple Music, Spotify and Google that stream music are criticized by artist for unfair compensation.

“Everyone knows that the pay system is unfair to artists,” said Jay Z, at the Tidal launch in March 2015. “Everywhere else, everyone gets compensated for their work. Music is everywhere — you consume it every day, everywhere you go. The content creator should be compensated. It’s only fair.”

Tidal is an exceptional streaming service that allows all subscribers to share the same experience.

When you enter the website on your computer or mobile device, the dark color scheme makes a bold statement. It makes you feel like you are apart of an elite group of people that share the same passion for music as you. The layout is simple and easy for people to understand. With the most popular albums, songs or music videos, the site gives you knowledge of the hottest and most recent exclusives in music from artist like Alicia Keys, Kanye West and Usher.

When it comes to $9.99 a month to have the privilege of attending concerts, exclusive music and live concert streaming and creating your own playlist from a variety of tracks it almost seems to good to be true.

Tidal has not only changed the music streaming experience, but the company offers the highest pay of royalties to artists and songwriters according to the NY Times. Jay Z and co-owners killed two birds with one stone and took ten steps ahead of competitors like Apple Music. According to Business Insider and data from Bank of America, Apple Music’s download revenue has been in a steady decline for the last few years. Revenue in 2015 was down 62%.

Apple Music just doesn’t work for consumers anymore. Apple’s music streaming service gives subscribers another reason to download additional streaming applications to their mobile devices to suffice what each one lacks, which takes up memory space. The irony lays in Apple offering consumers more space for a small monthly fee.

The time you rave about how amazing your music streaming service is, make sure you’re talking about Tidal.