Jay Z fired back at critics of his Tidal music service on Sunday, claiming the site is "doing just fine" and that its subscriber base is growing. The rapper, who relaunched Tidal after purchasing its parent company Aspiro Group earlier this year for $56 million, urged critics to hold off on dismissing the service too soon. He said, "The iTunes Store wasn't built in a day," and "It took Spotify nine years to be successful." Jay Z added that 770,000 subscribers have already signed up for Tidal, which he relaunched to compete with platforms such as Pandora and Spotify.
But his series of tweets came shortly after Tidal dropped out of the top 500 most downloaded apps in the U.S. on April 18, according to App Annie data; it then fell further to No. 870 just days later. Despite rumors suggesting Jay Z and Beyonce are creating an album that would debut exclusively on Tidal, the service only jumped up to No. 664 on the app charts.
Meanwhile, Kanye West, one of Tidal's 16 celebrity owners, deleted all references to the service on his Twitter feed by April 22, before backtracking after press caught wind of the removal.
"We are here for the long haul," Jay Z said. "Please give us a chance to grow and get better."??
