As reports start to trickle in about Jay Z'sTidal streaming services flopping, one of it's biggest backers appears to be distancing himself from the fledgling company.
The New York Daily News reports that Kanye West has scrubbed his Twitter of all mentions of Tidal. He even removed the company's logo as his avatar and replaced it with a picture of his My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy artwork.
It's a strange move from someone who was an initial big backer of the company and a good friend of it's CEO.
It's a Jet Life and Taylor Gang thing as Spitta Andretti links up with Wiz Khalifa for a new tune entitled "Weed Nap" featuring SAYITAINTTONE. Take a listen and download the track up top.
Here's the album cover and the official tracklist forLil Boosie'sforthcoming album entitledTouch Down 2 Cause Hell. The project drops on May 26th. Features includeKeyshia Cole Webbie, Rich Homie Quan, Chris Brown, Rick RossandT.I.
Tracklist
1. Intro 2. Windows of My Eyes 3. Retaliation 4. Like A Man ft. Rich Homie Quan 5. No Juice 6. Don Da Da 7. Mr. Miyagi 8. On Deck 9. Hip Hop Hooray 10. On That Level ft. Webbie 11. She Don’t Love Me ft. Chris Brown 12. Drop Top Music ft. Rick Ross 13. How She Got Her Name 14. Spoil You ft. T.I 15. Black Heaven ft. Keyshia Cole 16. Kicking Clouds 17. Hands Up
When Jay Z acquired the Swedish company Aspiro in early March for $56 million, he had big plans to expand the company worldwide. Just a few weeks later the Roc Nation boss re-launched the company's streaming arm, Tidal, with the idea of offering fans high definition music and exclusive videos for $19,99 a month for Lossless High Fidelity sound quality. For those not interested is shelling out $20 a month there is the $9.99 standard service.
With stars like Usher, Rihanna, Madonna, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj and others on board things looked promising initially.
But a new report by Tero Kuittinen of BGR.com provides facts that suggest that Tidal is already losing ground to it's main competitors. Read it below.
When Tidal made its big media push at the end of March, the core message was clear: while other streaming music services like Spotify and Pandora pay a pittance to artists, Tidal offers musicians a better deal. Unfortunately, Tidal also opted to use super stars like Nicki Minaj and Beyonce as spokespersons for the app. The result was the ultimate mixed message: You should feel sorry about how little money Nicki makes.
Two weeks after Tidal briefly cracked the U.S. iPhone top 20 download chart, the app has crashed out of the top 700. Apparently American consumers have limited empathy towards Beyonce and Nicki. Soon after the launch fiasco, Tidal’s CEO was kicked out in a “streamlining” move. The new CEO Peter Tonstad, a former consultant for the Norwegian Ministry of Environment, has his work cut out for him.
To make matters worse for Tidal, its main rivals are now surging. On April 20th, Pandora and Spotify occupied positions No. 3 and No. 4 on the U.S. iPhone revenue chart, respectively. This was the first time two music streaming services have hit the top 4 in sales simultaneously. In order to achieve the feat, Pandora and Spotify had to push Candy Crush Saga out of U.S. iPhone top 4 revenue chart, which is a remarkable achievement.
As a matter of fact, something curious can be seen in Spotify’s download performance right after Tidal media campaign started bashing its allegedly meager payouts. Spotify surged back into the iPad top 40 download chart on March 31st, right when Tidal’s anti-Spotify invective hit its peak in American media. This had not happened since November 2014.
It looks like Tidal’s attacks on Spotify and Pandora actually managed to increase public awareness of the services, boosting Spotify’s download performance in particular at the end of March. And now, a few weeks later, the combined revenue performance of the two music apps is hitting a new milestone. To add insult to injury, Beats Music has started cracking U.S. iPhone top 20 revenue chart.
This is the problem with attacking popular apps – negative media coverage often ends up just boosting them. Twitter rode a flurry of mocking or downright hostile news items to mainstream success. Snapchat leveraged sexual panic of US media about naughty photos to becoming a teen obsession. You can’t badmouth a strong app into a decline. In the hyper competitive app market, any media attention buoys apps with genuine consumer appeal.
Tidal is now facing no fewer than three deep-pocketed rival music apps and they’re all minting money and riding strong momentum. The new CEO must somehow find a way to mop up after the ill-advised March launch and find a way to reposition Tidal in a crowded market… preferably by not trying to make consumers feel bad for multimillionaires. Or giving its rivals extra attention.
Young FP has been well on his way to the top of his game since coming into the new year. With all the recent travels & experiences he's gained during spring break & the greatest independent artist festival this country has seen, SXSW, he has much to share with the masses. He did so in the best way he knows how, behind the mic.
Today he unveils the official video to the bonus track on his latest mixtape drop, "The Smokers Section". Take a trip with YFP in this video as he recaps on the adventures he gained during "SXSW".. Shoutout to 2 Chainz on the concept. He told FP he was "best dressed at SXSW".
Blac Chyna throws shade at Kylie Jenner in a new Instagram photo. Chyna and Jenner have been throwing shots at each other ever since Tyga split from Chyna and allegedly hooked up with Jenner.
There have been rumors of Jenner having cosmetic surgery to enhance the size of her lips. In Chyna's photo she uses Wack-O-Wax to comically enlarge her lips.
There has been a disturbing social media trend dubbed the '#kyliejennerchallenge' where young women have been trying to mimic Kylie's pouty lip look with disastrous results. Check it out below.
DUBB (South Central Los Angeles Rapper), drops his project "Perfect Timing" (Hosted by DJ Skee & Dj Whoo Kid) featuring Crooked I, Joell Ortiz, Fred Da Godson, Emilio Rojas and more. Production from Cy Fyre, League Of Starz, Duke Dinero, Dj Relly Rell, Remixx & others. Its also DUBB's birthday today so he gives fans a gift on his bday.
Tracklist:
01. OTM (Out The Mud) 02. My Day
03. Doubt Demons Feat. Emilio Rojas
04. Middle America Feat. Jake&Papa
05. Favorite Things
06. Praying Aint Enough (Interlude)
07. Reverse Racism
08. Pretend Feat. Crooked I, Joell Ortiz & Fred Da Godson
09. Mastermind
10. Sit Back And Relax
11. Grindin Feat. Jake&Papa
12. Moments
13. Q's Lyric Feat. China Marie
14. One Way Feat. Jenny Kinney
Clinton Sparks takes matters into his own hands as he rescues a group of women sold as sex workers, for his latest video “The Reaper.”
The cinematic production, which was directed and also stars Sparks, trails the Grammy-nominated DJ and his curly haired brunette girlfriend as they follow a shady character to Las Vegas. For the first few minutes of the five-minute clip, viewers assume it’s Sparks and his accomplice who may be on the wrong side of the law, but as the story unfolds, they soon realize Sparks intends to avenge his love’s honor.
While the video keeps fans glued to the screen, the music keeps their ears wide open. With verses from West Coast G’s, Problem and Snoop Dogg fans can rest assured all bases are covered with Sparks’ latest offering.
Funeral Fabolous teams up with MTV to world premiere his new music video for "You Made Me." Directed by Gerard Victor. This song is off of Fab's latest disc, The Young OG Project. Cop it now from iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-young-og-project/id950829088.
Big Sean stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday, April 20. He performed "One Man Can Change the World" off of his new album entitled Dark Sky Paradise.
Top 5 dead or alive emcee Scarface recently chopped it up with Vlad TV. He shed light on an upcoming Geto Boys tour, dealing with suicidal thoughts when he was younger, The Diary of a Madman autobiography, Deeply Rooted album, possible separate joint albums with Nas, Kool G. Rap and Billy Danze of M.O.P.
Rachel Roy has been granted sole and legal custody of the two daughters she shares with ex-husband Dame Dash.
TMZ reports that Dame didn't show up in court for the hearing. He will now only be allowed to see 15-year-old Ava and 6-year-old Tallulah during supervised visits.
During the bitter dispute over the children both Dame and Rachel trashed each other in the media. She accused him of being a pothead and delinquent father. He countered by claiming Roy threatened him with a knife and had driven drunk with one of their daughters.
In the end the judge in the case sided with Rachel, who also got a three-year restraining order against Dame.
CATANIA, Sicily (Associated Press) — The United Nations refugee agency said Tuesday that it believes more than 800 people drowned when a boat packed with migrants trying to reach Europe sank on Saturday, making it the worst such incident ever in the Mediterranean.
New details of the tragedy were emerging as the U.N. High Commissioner Refugees and other aid agencies interviewed the handful of survivors who arrived overnight in Catania, Sicily.
Survivors put the number of passengers on board the three-deck fishing trawler at 850, according to UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards in Geneva. Only 24 bodies were recovered, in addition to the 28 survivors.
"From available information and the various accounts we've had UNHCR now believes the number of fatalities to have been over 800 making this the deadliest incident in the Mediterranean that we recorded," Edwards told reporters in Geneva.
Among the arrivals overnight were two suspected smugglers, who were immediately detained for investigation of aiding and abetting illegal immigration, reckless homicide and causing a shipwreck.
The newly arrived survivors told UNHCR that the wreck was caused when one of the smugglers crashed the boat against the Portuguese-flagged King Jacob container ship that responded to a distress call, according to UNHCR spokesman Carlotta Sami.
"The survivors said that the person who was steering the boat, their smuggler, was navigating badly, and he did a bad move that made it crash against the bigger ship," Sami said by telephone from Sicily. The ship pitched in the water before finally tipping over, and sinking.
Several hundred people were locked on the lower level, hundreds more were inside a second level and hundreds more were on deck, according to prosecutors.
Sami said the Portuguese ship had previous experience with migrant rescues and praised its efforts, and that of other merchant ships.
While the search continued for survivors and bodies, the depth of the sea where the tragedy took place off the Libyan coast made it unlikely more would be recovered, as is typically the case.
The weekend deaths have jolted the European Union into taking action, with Italy demanding that it not be left alone to shoulder the burden of rescues and that the EU focus on preventing the boats from leaving Libya in the first place.
Combatting the smugglers by arresting the ringleaders and destroying their boats is emerging as a key part of Europe's 10-point proposal for an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday. Italy has arrested more than 1,000 smugglers, most of them the navigators and not the masterminds, but says it needs help.
Catania prosecutors said the capsizing was due to two factors: The smuggler captain, Mohammed Ali Malek, 27, by mistake rammed his boat into the Portuguese-flagged cargo ship that had come to its rescue. In addition, the migrants themselves then moved around on the overcrowded boat, which was already unbalanced from the collision, making it capsize.
The survivors were brought Tuesday to a migrant holding center in Catania and were "very tired, very shocked, silent," according to Flavio Di Giacomo of the International Organization for Migration.
Sami said all the survivors were men, several of them adolescents. "They are very confused, fragile and scared," she said.
The coast guard, meanwhile, reported that it saved some 638 migrants in six different rescue operations on Monday alone. On Tuesday, a further 446 people were rescued from a leaking migrant ship about 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of the Calabrian coast.
The smugglers use a variety of boats for their crossings, from rubber Zodiac-type boats to wooden fishing vessels and even old cargo ships. They are always overcrowded to maximize the revenue of the smugglers, who charge between 1,000 and 1,500 euros (dollars) for the crossing from Libya, where most trafficking operations originate.
The EU plan calls for closer law-enforcement coordination to trace smugglers' revenue sources, which prosecutors have said often evade traditional bank transfers in favor of informal Arab hawala networks, in which migrants' relatives in Europe pay local brokers for each leg of the journey.
Italy had launched a robust and expensive search-and-rescue mission in 2013 after some 366 migrants drowned off the island of Lampedusa. The politically unpopular Mare Nostrum operation ended last year, and the EU's Frontex border patrol mission took charge. But its limited mandate and resources have prevented it from being effective in saving lives.
The International Organization for Migration says the 2015 rate of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean is much bigger than last year, when a total of 3,279 migrants died.
The number of deaths this year "could well top 30,000," said Joel Millman, spokesman for the Geneva-based organization. "We just want to make sure people understand how much more ... rapid these deaths have been coming this year than last year."
The number of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean already this year is 1,776, according to the U.N. refugee agency, which also estimates that 219,000 people made the crossing last year.
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Barry reported from Milan. Frank Jordans in Berlin and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.
Here's the fifth music video from Neef Buck off of his 'Forever Do Me 7' mixtape! Check out "Keep the Water Running" shot by Inferno Productions below. For videos call 267-304-9255.
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