After Roc-A-Fella, I don’t believe Jay-Z wanted to be the corporate guy at Def Jam Recordings and come into the office most days of the week. However, he was willing to do it if he could get his masters back. Owning your masters is the foundation and mechanism to get your royalty money. You saw Jay-Z go after his masters in negotiations with Damon Dash and then with Def Jam in exchange for him serving as president. A dirty secret in the music business is a disproportionate number of Black artists selling their publishing or borrowing against the intellectual property at high interest rates. Often they do this to keep up with a floss lifestyle in the short term while giving away value in the long term. Jay-Z fought to get his masters back and won. He was willing to go “corporate” to do so. He got uncomfortable.
Some industry insiders we have spoken with say the Forbes estimates for Tidal appears too low.
“And most notably, Sprint paid $200 million for a third of Tidal, valuing the company at $600 million, a tenfold increase on the $56 million Jay Z paid to acquire it in 2015,” reported the verge.
