About a month ago, reports surfaced that Apple was thinking about purchasing Tidal, the music streaming service owned by rapper and entrepreneur Jay Z.
The acquisition would boost Apple Music with access to exclusive content, as Tidal has forged strong connections to prominent names within the music industry. Upon the relaunch of Tidal last year, Jay Z distributed minor ownership rights to artists including his wife Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Nicki Minaj, Madonna, Rihanna, Daft Punk, Usher and many more.
A few days later, the claims were refuted by New York Times music reporter Ben Sisario, as more than one source told him that no such deal between Apple and Tidal was being discussed.
The possible acquisition of Tidal by Apple, however, does not end there. In a series of profanity-laced tweets, Kanye West, who also has strong connections to Tidal as one of its co-owners and launched the highly controversial music video for "Famous" on the service exclusively, called for a meeting to settle the purchase once and for all.
According to West, the "beef" between Tidal and Apple is detrimental to the music industry. The rapper, to settle the issue between the two companies, publicly called for Jay Z, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Apple Music executive Larry Jackson and Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine, to hold a meeting, either through phone or for the individuals to meet in a room. For some reason, West also wants Drake to be involved in the meeting.
"Let the kids have the music," West said in a separate tweet, adding that Apple should buy Tidal now and give Jay Z the check for the streaming service, and that the company should stop acting like late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
The reference to Jobs could be due to the tough negotiating stance that Jobs was known for, with such tactics recently reported to be the reason why Apple has so far failed to get TV networks on board with its planned streaming TV service.
In another tweet that was sent out several hours later, West said that he also wanted Spotify CEO Daniel Ek to be in the meeting that he called for, perhaps to also try to settle the disagreement between Apple and Spotify.
Spotify accused Apple of rejecting updates to its app from being put up on the App Store to limit competition against Apple Music. Apple fired back, stating that it did not change any of its rules or behavior upon the launch of Apple Music or the addition of Spotify as a competitor. Ironically, Spotify is the one seeking to be treated differently by Apple in wanting to get its updates uploaded to the App Store.
