As anticipated, the next Prince album will be exclusive to streaming service Tidal, although the details of whether this is a time-limited deal have not been announced. ‘Hitnrun’ will launch on Tidal on 7 September, “cementing” a relationship that began when the service streamed the first hour of Prince’s Rally 4 Peace gig in Baltimore earlier this year. “After one meeting, it was obvious that Jay Z and the team he has assembled at Tidal recognise and applaud the effort that real musicians put into their craft to achieve the very best they can at this pivotal time in the music industry,” said Prince.
“Secondly, Tidal have honoured us with a non-restrictive arrangement that once again allows us to continue making art in the fashion we’ve grown accustomed to and we’re extremely grateful for their generous support.” Non-restrictive? There’ll be inevitable speculation about how long the exclusive will last: Tidal had 770k subscribers last time Jay Z gave numbers in April, and although Prince has never been afraid to go his own way, the prospect of missing another 75m potential listeners on Spotify and however many million on Apple Music, to name but two, will not have escaped him. Our prediction: ‘Hitnrun’ will be on Tidal’s rivals sometime in October.
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Tools: Kaiber
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