Tidal, a new music streaming service has recently been re-launched by Jay Z with huge support from other celebrities like Beyoncé, Madonna, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Usher & Rihanna. Co-owned by these top artists, the service is expected to stream exclusive content from at least 16 A-list artists and marks a whole new era for how artistes share their music with their fans.
Foremost among the offerings of Tidal is high-fidelity audio and video as well as curated content. However, being a subscription-based service, users will have to pay a monthly $20 fee for lossless audio and $10 for the not-so-high-fidelity tracks.
As great as this service seems to be, the question remains: Will Nigerian fans be able to embrace the Tidal wave or keep off? Here are 5 reasons why Tidal may not find love with Nigerian users.
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Subscription Fee
With a monthly subscription fee of $10-$20 (N2,000 – N4,000), Nigerian fans are unlikely to embrace the streaming service in a hurry.
Data Availability
One of basic requirement of a streaming site is availability of data on the users end. With the current cost of internet data in Nigeria, streaming still remains a luxury.
Artists’ Gain At The Expense Of Fans
The ownership and co-ownership of the business begs the question of who benefits: The Artists or the fans?
And with the goal of Tidal being to get Artistes properly paid, the usually skeptical and naturally suspicious Nigerian fans will wonder what they really stand to gain.
Free Music Everywhere
In an era of bluetooth, flash share, free downloads and streaming, it’s a wonder if Tidal will be able to overcome the typical Nigerian fans’ perception of music as something to be had for free. Especially in a market where the top artistes are already giving away so much free music as it is, and the Alaba pirate is even there to provide the foreign songs at giveaway prices.
Little Interest In Sound Quality
One of the major strengths of Tidal is the hi-fidelity offering. This will definitely excite core music fans. However, the average Nigerian listener just wants to listen to a song and dance, not caring what ingredient is missing in the studio mix, or whether the audio is balanced or not. The regular guy doesn’t even have the device, speakers or headsets to enjoy top grade music engineering and can’t be bothered about what hi-fi audio or video is.
Whether Tidal succeeds or fails, only time will tell. However, Mr Shawn Carter has a history of proving people wrong and winning big, so it’s safer to watch and observe.
We wish him luck!
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