All of Jay-Z’s solo albums have been removed from the Apple Music and Spotify streaming services. According to Spotify, the removal came “at the request of the artist.”
Jay-Z’s solo work is also almost entirely absent from Amazon Music’s streaming catalog, with just four tracks from mixtapes offered. This is not the first time that Jay-Z has pulled his music from the streaming services, since he had pulled his debut album, Reasonable Doubt, from all streaming services except for Tidal after Tidal’s launch.
Jay-Z, a.k.a. Shawn Carter, is part owner of Tidal, a music streaming service that competes with Apple, Spotify, and Amazon’s services. Jay-Z purchased Tidal’s parent company in 2015 and re-launched the service in partnership with many other high-profile artists who stated a desire to maintain control of their own work.