As announced earlier this month, JAY-Z’s new album 4:44 is now available to stream on Tidal, but only for people who subscribed to Tidal before today or are current Sprint customers. That makes it seem more like a reward for dedicated JAY-Z fans or Tidal users rather than any kind of incentive for people to sign up for Tidal, but it’s an interesting model. According to Variety, though, this weird exclusivity thing isn’t going to last forever.
According to unnamed sources, Variety says that 4:44 will hit Apple Music at some point next week, and it “seems very likely” that it will be on iTunes and other music stores after that. Variety also thinks it’s “inevitable” that the album will be on physical formats “at some point,” but that’s definitely not a given in 2017.
Assuming you were a Tidal subscriber yesterday, you can stream 4:44 below.