A Week In Hip Hop
You've probably heard of this Tidal thing, musicians changing their profile pictures on their various social media channels to a nice sky blue in support of Tidal and it's all thanks to Jay-Z. Jay bought a majority stake in the company that owns Tidal which has obviously come with some serious respect in the music industry as artists such as J Cole, Kanye West, Madonna, Deadmau5, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna ... basically any major musician who Jay-Z could get on board.
This is super interesting because Tidal reckon they can switch things up in the music streaming business, effectively their service will allow artists a great revenue share. That touches on the digital age debate of artists and creators in general simply making free content as they aren't really getting the financial rewards that they deserve for their creative output.
Yup, first things first, you've got to pay.
It's hard not to describe the quest to give the artists the financial rewards they deserve as admirable, but I'm not overly convinced that Tidal will be a booming success. They've got the marketing sussed, just get lots of famous musicians who want more money but they are relying on the goodwill of consumers who are pretty happy getting everything for free. Tidal will stream music in some super duper high quality format and you'll also get exclusive content, either $9.99 a month for one tier or $19.99 a month for a better tier, US dollars.
Everything Jay-Z touches seems to turn to gold, but I'm not sure about this Tidal thing. They are fighting for the artists, which is nice as they other major streaming site Spotify doesn't really reward artists for all those streams. It's nice, admirable and lovely, but I just don't know if Tidal can be as big as they think it will be.
Kendrick Lamar is doing the media rounds, dropping knowledge about his album all over the show. Peep a few of them...
Here's the 'King Kunta' video if you missed it
This Dr Dre interview was posted last weekend and I chucked it up on this page right huuur, but here it is again.
A cheeky bit of 'Rhythm Roulette'
Wale has dropped 'The Album About Nothing' which from an early listen of a few songs sounds like he's touching on his past music, pre-MMG type of music. We'll give it a spin and give it a few words, in the mean time let the man himself explain...
The Broccoli City Festival looks and sounds incredibly dope, merging festival vibes with an all round healthy lifestyle is awesome. Personally I'm pretty freaking jealous of the concept and this year they have some pretty heavy acts headlining, Erykah bade, Joey Bada$$ and the Smith's Willow and Jaden will all be performing.