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Jay Z’s Tidal music service makes star-studded splash
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Jay Z might have 99 problems, but a streaming service ain’t one. The rapper is splashing out $56 million on Swedish company Aspiro, which runs WiMP and high-quality audio service Tidal.
Jay Z’s Project Panther has tabled a bid of 464 million Swedish crowns (around $56 million, AU$72.5 million or £37 million) for Aspiro. Buying a music service puts the musician and business mogul in competition with rival Swedish streaming service Spotify and with Beats, the streaming and headphone brand founded by fellow rapper Dr Dre and bought by Apple for $3 billion last year.
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WiMP is a music streaming service that offers 25 million songs and 75,000 music videos to around half a million subscribers in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Poland. That’s a fraction of the 15 million paying subscribers to Spotify, but it’s still a significant number.
Aspiro also runs Tidal, which launched in the UK and US last year and offers high quality audio in the lossless FLAC format for $19.99 or £19.99 a month.
Jay Z, real name Shawn Carter, is the rapper behind “99 Problems” and “Empire State of Mind”. One half of a power couple with singer Beyoncé, he’s estimated by Forbes to be worth around $520 million dollars thanks to business ventures including the Rocaware clothing range, Armand de Brignac champagne, 9IX fragrances, the Roc Nation sports agency and a stake in NBA basketball team the Brooklyn Nets. Previous dabblings with technology companies include the early release of his album .
