This past weekend, Jay Z treated TIDAL users to an exclusive ”all B-Sides” concert at Terminal 5 in New York City. During the roughly two hour set, he took time out from performing some of his deeper cuts to throw 90 seconds’ worth of freestyle shade at Spotify and YouTube, and defend his fledgling streaming service, TIDAL. Throughout the improvised verse, Hov cast many aspersions against his competitors and quickly spun together comparisons between race relations and the state of the music industry.
In place of Nas, Jay Z the mogul took aim at Jimmy Iovine and Google but spared them his deepest digs which instead were reserved for his top adversary—Spotify. “Lucy, you got some ’splainin’ to do / The only one they hatin’ on looks the same as you,” he said in reference to a smear campaign Jay Z is convinced the company is waging against TIDAL. He continued, “It’s cool, I know they’re trying to bamboozle you / Spending millions on me to try to confuse you” before brushing the whole situation off as “politics as usual” and launching into a live rendition of the song of the same name. Well played, sir.