JAY-Z's Spotify Snub Reportedly Costs Him $1 Million Per Week

JAY-Z’s 4:44 reached the top of the Billboard 200 without being on Spotify. But now, it’s being reported that Hov’s Spotify snub is also costing him about $1 million a week.

Industry insiders say that Jigga’s latest album would be making that much money based on payouts to other prominent musicians, the service’s share of the market, and the average rate paid per song stream, according to Billboard.

Drake’s Views, for instance, generated approximately $20.7 million in royalties after going from an Apple Music exclusive to a wide release on Spotify and other services. In fact, its move to Spotify doubled the number of times his songs were played last year, according to the report.

According to insiders, Hov has had a longstanding grievance with Spotify, complaining about its ad-supported service, which is available for free. As a result, Jigga has taken his catalog off of the service. Only a select number of featured appearances remain available on Spotify.

This likely won’t hurt JAY too much. MusicWatch analyst Russ Crupnick says that streaming is more like “pocket change” to musicians of Hov’s stature. “I’m guessing the diapers for those wonderful new children aren’t being paid out of streaming royalties,” he said, referencing Sir and Rumi Carter, JAY and Beyoncé’s newborn twins.

Jigga once said he isn’t a “businessman,” but rather a “business, man” and he is highly regarded as one of the most successful musicians in the world. This year, he reportedly signed a 10-year $200 million deal with Live Nation for touring. He also sold 33 percent of his streaming service TIDAL to Sprint for a reported $200 million.

4:44 was released as a TIDAL exclusive earlier this month, following exclusive albums from Beyoncé, Kanye West, and Rihanna. A week later, it was unleashed as a physical album and it was made available on Apple Music. This helped it top the Billboard 200, selling 262,000 equivalent album units (174,000 traditional) in its second week out. It also gave him the most No. 1 albums of any solo artist in the history of the chart.