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JME Shares 2019 Album ‘Grime MC’ to Streaming Services

Hannah Jaap — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 15:54:37 +0000

British Grime artist JME released his fourth studio album in November 2019, titled ‘Grime MC’. At the time, the album was not released to streaming services because he wants to be able to see listeners’ reactions to his art, as well as staying true to the reason he creates music: because he loves it. Now, JME has made the decision to share the full album on all streaming platforms.

Jme – Grime MC

Spotify https://t.co/lLM1kXsAso

Apple https://t.co/t63h5Vz3dJ

Tidal https://t.co/CQE7Vio7Dd

Amazon https://t.co/Ke6FZZBwU4 pic.twitter.com/TShx0Hbmrv

— Jme (@JmeBBK) June 1, 2020

This follows numerous ‘Grime MC’ singles including ‘Nang‘ featuring older brother Skepta, released to all platforms earlier this year. So, why did the artist initially choose to keep his music limited to physical copies, and why has he changed his mind now? As he told SK Vibemaker in an interview, “If Youtube and Twitter and Spotify and all this stuff shut down I’m still gonna be spitting bars.”

Primarily, it seems that the reason for this change is that fans so desperately wanted JME’s album to be accessible in every way – especially after waiting four years for new music – and asked him for months. But the full album, uploaded 1st June, coincides with the riots and protests surrounding the killing of George Floyd and many other innocent African-American people at the hands of police. As JME is known for using his music to discuss current affairs and issues, perhaps he is now using it to highlight the social injustice taking place. JME took to Twitter after the tragedy, retweeting various posts and sharing a video of Phillip DeFranco explaining what happened.

Of the 18 tracks included on ‘Grime MC’, fan favourites appear to be ‘Nang‘ and ‘Issmad‘, which have both reached over 600,000 streams on Spotify. With half of the album’s songs being released as singles, all of these have been accompanied by a music video, most recently ‘Live‘ featuring Merky Ace, which shows JME and his collaborator hosting the news. In just over a week, the video has gained 150,000 views.

JME released his first LP ‘Famous’ in 2008 via his own record label Boy Better Know, having spent years in the music industry writing ringtones and working with Skepta. He is now an MC, songwriter, producer, and DJ and has collaborated with many different grime artists.

An Unreleased Prince Album Will Be Available on Tidal Next Year

Joe Russ — Mon, 14 May 2018 15:53:45 +0000

The streaming platform Tidal has won a case to house the late singer Prince’s previously unreleased music on it’s website. Prince’s estate and the streaming service sued each other in 2016 over the rights to stream the artists unreleased music.

The album will be available on Tidal as of 2019.

The entertainment advisor of Prince’s estate, Troy Carter said:

I’m very pleased this is resolved, and we get to honor the relationship between Prince and Tidal with this album. We look forward to fans hearing the new music and experiencing the genius of Prince.

The album will be exclusively available on Tidal for 14 days, before physical copies are released.

This will be the first Prince album released since December of 2015, when he released HITnRUN Phase Two, just 4 months before his death at the age of 57.

Jay-Z, one of the many owners of Tidal said:

Our only goal is to share Prince’s music with his fans as he wanted. After thoughtful and honest conversation with him, he chose TIDAL as his partner for HITnRUN Phase One and HITnRUN Phase Two, and we will continue to respect and honour Prince’s enduring legacy and wishes with this new collection.

Taylor Swift Reintroduces Entire Music Catalogue on Streaming Services

Thomas Keidan — Sat, 10 Jun 2017 12:37:15 +0000

Taylor Swift’s representative has confirmed that the music artist has reintroduced her work on streaming services including Spotify, Tidal and Amazon after removing her entire catalogue in 2014 due to financial concerns. Previously, Swift had exclusively allowed Apple music to stream her catalogue after the music platform agreed to pay artists royalties during its three-month free trial to the service. As of today, all of Swift’s work including 1989 was available to stream on all available services. Swift has been widely condemned for her apparent U-turn with many speculating that such a move was a deliberate attempt to draw attention away from the release of Katy Perry’s Witness which was also released on streaming services today. Recent coverage from the likes of Forbes were quick to highlight the ‘suspicious’ timing of such a move. A clear explanation of the decision remains to be seen from Swift’s camp with an official statement claiming that the move is a celebration of 1989 hitting ten-million sales.

Such news has followed emerging news concerning the feud between Swift and Perry; Perry recently confirmed rumours of such a dispute to James Cordon and also told NME that Swift is attempting to ‘assassinate [her] character’. Additionally, Perry’s song ‘Swish Swish’ has been rumoured to be a thinly-veiled attack on Swift with lyrics referring to her as ‘selfish’ and a ‘sheep’. The dispute appears to have arisen when a member of Swift’s team left to join Perry on tour.

However, whereas such a move has widely been considered as a petty marketing tool designed to undercut a fellow artist, many have pointed to the practical necessity of such a move. Ultimately, online streaming distribution helps to determine the chart positions with the Top 200, and 1989 has been at a disadvantage since its release by being excluded from the world’s largest streaming services. Following the reintroduction of Swift’s music onto music streaming services, 1989 sold 1,903 copies in the U.S. but received credit for 6,061 album sales, thanks to 1.6 million streams on Apple.

In other Taylor Swift related news, accounts have emerged of the artist’s infamous Best Female Video acceptance speech at the MTV VMAs; whilst speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, former MTV chief Van Toffler has described how Swift was ‘crying hysterically’ following Kanye West’s interruption on stage. This incident appears to have prompted another feud with a fellow musician after the rapper released his song ‘Famous’, which featured the lyric “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex, Why? I made that b—- famous.”

Jay-Z Removes His Music From Spotify

Joe Whitcombe — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 22:36:06 +0000

Hip-hop icon and Tidal co-founder Jay-Z has today pulled the vast majority of his back catalogue from streaming service competitor Spotify. The Brooklyn MC has taken what many are considering to be a’nuclear’ option, to drive his loyal followers to Tidal, after pulling many of his classic albums and singles.Jay-Z follows the likes of Taylor Swift and previously Prince, to remove their music from the streaming service, before the estate of the Purple One made a deal with the streaming service after this year’s Grammy awards.

NME reports that the only Jay-Z tracks remaining on the service are In My Lifetime Vol. 1 and Reasonable Doubt, as well as 1998’s Vol. 2 Hard Knock Life. Also still available is 2004’s cult collaboration with Linkin Park, Collision Course, featuring the famous mash-up of ‘Numb/Encore,’ as well as lead single from Watch the Throne, his co-release with Kanye West ‘N***as in Paris’.

Spotify have confirmed to Billboard that “some” of Jay-Z’s music has been removed “at the request of the artist.” Jay-Z recently made his return to music, featuring on the surprise single from Frank Ocean ‘Biking’ which also features Tyler, the Creator. The single debuted on Oean’s ‘Blonded’ show on Apple Music, proving that for now, it’s only Spotify that threatens Hova as a competitor to Tidal.

Jay-Z hasn’t released a full project since Magna Carta Holy Grail in 2013, instead preferring to focus on his business ventures, but fans may be encouraged by this new feature as a positive sign of things to come, especially given that Ocean previously collaborated with Jay on Watch the Throne.