JAY-Z’s ‘Reasonable Doubt’ Now Streaming on YouTube Music Premium, SoundCloud, and More
Written by SOURCE on August 16, 2019
Reasonable Doubt, previously a TIDAL exclusive in the streaming era, has now expanded its reach to include additional streaming services.
JAY-Z‘s debut studio album will now be available on YouTube Music Premium, SoundCloud, Google Play Music, Amazon Music, iTunes, iHeartRadio, Napster, Pandora, Tesla, Slacker, and—as before—TIDAL. Apple Music and Spotify, however, are still without.
“Reasonable Doubt is one of the preeminent albums in history and we’re thrilled to distribute this classic body of work to music lovers worldwide,” Krystian Santini—president of Equity Distribution—said in a statement. “This is a landmark milestone for Equity Distribution and we look forward to continuing to expand our platform and collaborate with talented artists from different backgrounds.”
The Equity Distribution platform assists in artists getting their music projects to fans on a global scale, while allowing them to retain masters ownership. The platform currently has partnerships with 125 digital service platforms across the world.
The independent music distribution company, as previously reported, falls under the Roc Nation business umbrella. Speaking with Complex in July, Santini explained the team is “heavily focused” on assisting emerging artists land their break.
“We want to help artists develop and grow their audience, and we want to help them maintain it so they can stay independent if they choose to,” Santini said at the time.
The Reasonable Doubt streaming expansion, notably, arrives the same week as JAY-Z and Roc Nation’s much-discussed NFL deal. JAY and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell defended the move in a press conference Wednesday, with JAY saying he doesn’t “knock what [Colin Kaepernick is] doing, and hopefully he doesn’t knock what I’m doing.”
Nessa Diab, radio personality and Kaepernick’s partner, later shared her assessment of the deal, saying on Hot 97, “The disappointment in JAY-Z isn’t in the partnership,” but instead in his act of “wrapping it in social justice.”
