NEWS: Jay Z Wants TIDAL To "Extend The Album Cycle" & Restore "Fair Trade" In Music

Jay Z Wants TIDAL To "Extend The Album Cycle" & Restore "Fair Trade" In Music

Jay Z shares some insight into the goals of his new streaming service, TIDAL.

There was no way the announcement of TIDAL was going to go down without a surprise, but while plenty of people thought they had it figured out (an album drop from Rihanna or Kanye West), no one predicted the actual unveiling -- the huge cast of musicians who co-own the service.

Despite sharing ownership with Kanye West, Rihanna, Madonna, and many more, Jay Z's name has been attached to the service for the last few weeks, and it was Hov who gave the first interview on the goals of the company with Billboard today.

Jay revealed in the sit-down that he's attempting to make sure that everyone involved in music (those behind the scenes moreso than the artists) gets their fair share, as well as his goal to maintain a consistent output from artists that isn't limited to an album cycle.

Check out some excerpts from Jay's #NewRules below. Read the full interview here.

On restoring "fair trade" in music:

Definitely. For someone like me, I can go on tour. But what about the people working on the record, the content creators and not just the artists? If they’re not being compensated properly, then I think we’ll lose some writers and producers and people like that who depend on fair trade. Some would probably have to take another job, and I think we’ll lose some great writers in the process. Is it fair? No. If you put in work, everyone else, you go to work you get paid. That’s fair trade. It’s what our country is built on.

On what he wants out of TIDAL:

Artists come here and start making songs 18 minutes long, or whatever. I know this is going to sound crazy, but maybe they start attempting to make a “Like a Rolling Stone,” you know, a song that doesn't have a recognizable hook, but is still considered one of the greatest songs of all time, the freedom that this platform will allow art to flourish here. And we’re encouraging people to put it in any format they like. It doesn't have to be three minutes and 30 seconds. What if it’s a minute and 17, what if it’s 11; you know, just break format. What if it’s just four minutes of just music and then you start rapping?

On whether it will offer exclusives from artists:

Well, it’s up to the artist. You know, there’s a thing now, it’s called the album cycle. You put your single out, promote it, then another single -- I think that now for an artist an album cycle doesn’t have to end. They’re on Instagram and Twitter and all these things, so we’re just talking about ways of extending that album cycle, and it could be anything. What if it’s a video offering tickets to the next concert, or what if it’s audio or video of the recording process? It could be anything. It could be them at home listening to songs that inspire them. Anything they want to offer, you know; just be as creative as possible, that’s the only charge, really. Make it look really good and make everyone that consumes it think, “Man, I got something really great.” Treat the people with respect; make it memorable.