Drake Appears In Lil Wayne’s Festival And Starts A Tidal-Apple Music War

Lil Wayne & Drake

With all these streaming services in the game, a war is unavoidable, and we got a taste of it last Friday when Lil Wayne had his Lil Weezyana in New Orleans, a festival to benefit Tha Carter Fund, which supports after-school programs in Louisiana. Drake stopped by to play a few songs while Tidal was livestreaming the whole event because Lil Wayne is a co-owner of Jay Z’ streaming business. The problem is that people watching it on line never saw Drake’s performance…. Why? It’s simple, Drake is on Apple Music and signed an exclusive deal of $19 million with them.

Angry Tidal representatives tweeted ‘Apple is interfering with artistry and will not allow this artist to stream. Sorry for Big Brother’s inconvenience’… I am not sure what Big Brother has to do with this, isn’t it just a conflict of interest and big money?

However, there is more to the story, and according to Rolling Stone and other media, Drake’s manager is now denying that Apple Music stopped the streaming.

‘The decision to not have Drake participate in the Tidal stream has nothing to do with Apple or Drake’s deal, said Drake’s manager Future the Prince to BuzzFeed. ‘Point blank, 100 percent. I made a business decision. Apple doesn’t have the power to stop us from being part of a live stream. The only people that have the power to do that are Cash Money and Universal, and they’re our partners.’

So why was the streaming stopped? Future the Prince (and can we trust him with a name like this?) blamed the possible poor quality of the livestream:

‘Aesthetics and quality are important to us and we didn’t have any control over [the livestream] or time to investigate it.’

Investigate what? I though Tidal was all about high quality for everything so obviously this guy is lying.

But Page Six reports another story. According to certain sources, Apple is apparently threatening Tidal with a $20 million lawsuit because of Drake’s appearance: ‘Legal letters have been sent to Tidal warning that Drake cannot appear on the Tidal stream of the festival, either solo or part of a group, and if the warning was ignored, the liabilities could be up to $20 million…. This event is for charity, Drake is doing two songs. Why does Apple think it can dictate to artists where and when they can perform?’

What were Drake and his manager thinking? Representatives from Apple and Tidal have declined any comments, but it’s clear that when big money is involved a war between streaming services was ineluctable. And it has only started.