Jay-Z turns 50 years old today (Dec. 4) and there’s cause to celebrate over on Spotify. That’s because the prolific rapper’s music catalog has been returned to that streaming service after a two year absence. Spotify tweeted about it on Wednesday.
https://twitter.com/Spotify/status/1202090253839937536
“Happy birthday, Hov Welcome back to Spotify,” they tweeted, linking out to his tunes.
He is, of course, the owner of Spotify competitor Tidal and there’s been no official announcement as to why his music is back on Spotify. Hov’s solo work disappeared from both Apple and Spotify in April 2017, but was quickly restored to Apple Music — not so with Spotify. At the time, Spotify only said the removal was done “at the request of the artist.”
Addressing the rivalry in a freestyle at a show in 2015, Jay Z said: ‘I feel like YouTube is the biggest culprit. Them n**gas pay you a tenth of what you supposed to get. ‘You know n**gas die for equal pay, right? You know when I work I ain’t your slave, right You bought nine iPhones, and Steve Jobs is rich. Phil Knight worth trillions, you still bought those kicks. Spotify is $9 million, they ain’t say s**t.’