Last weeks fans of the rapper Drake learned of rumours claiming he opted to leave Jay Z’s TIDAL wave two days before it launched.
This week, they are to learn that he has reportedly been offered a $19 million by Jimmy Iovine and his people over at Apple as he gears up to begin life away from the Cash Money music group.
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The company is said to have started talks with the performer with hopes of turning him into a guest DJ for iTunes Radio.
Reports add that the $19 million is also being used to lure the star into committing to other projects launched by the company as they plan to take on TIDAL and Spotify with their very own streaming service.
The tech giant wants to offer a three-month free trial period for its $10-a-month subscription service to get customers to sample its new offering. So far so good, but it also wants the labels to give it rights for free during that time.
The laughable request from the most valuable brand on the planet comes at a time when music buyers might opt to ditch the downloads in order to try a new free offering, creating a potential quarterly revenue shortfall for rights owners.
As for music publishers, we hear Apple wanted to offer lyrics as part of Apple Music, but didn’t want to pay extra — again, free is nice if you can get it.
Apple’s plans appear aimed at taking the best of Pandora, Spotify and YouTube and blending it into something that will outgun them all. There are plans for streaming music (and video), artists’ pages, a YouTube-style post-it-yourself destination called Apple Connect and a well-documented reboot of iTunes Radio.
Whether all of this will coalesce and result in a host of hot stars on stage with Apple CEO Tim Cook on June 8 will depend on who blinks first.
Kanye West has also been linked to Apple’s forthcoming assault on the music industry.