First artist-owned music streaming service

TIDAL was launched in North America and the UK in October 2014 by Norwegian technology giant Aspiro and developed by rapper/entrepreneur Shawn "Jay Z" Carter's (USA) Project Panther Ltd. as the world's first artist-owned music streaming service. At a press conference in New York on 30 March 2015, a group of high-profile musicians – including Beyoncé, Madonna, Prince and Rihanna – were presented as the co-owners/stakeholders of TIDAL, which offers 40 million tracks and 130,000 music videos for streaming and a two-tier subscription service for its 3 million customers.

The initial co-owners of TIDAL were: Jason Aldean, Arcade Fire (Win Butler and Régine Chassagne), Beyoncé, J Cole, Daft Punk (Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo), deadmau5 (Joel Zimmerman), Calvin Harris, Alicia Keys, Madonna, Coldplay's Chris Martin, Nicki Minaj, Prince, Rihanna, Usher, Kanye West and The White Stripes' Jack White. French band Indochine, Lil Wayne, Damian Marley and T.I. have since joined TIDAL's roster of co-owners.

"We come together before you on this day, March 30, 2015, with one voice in unity, in the hopes that today will be another one of those moments in time – a moment that will forever change the course of music history. For today we announce TIDAL, the first ever artist-owned, global music and entertainment platform." – Alicia Keys at the #TIDALforALL press launch

TIDAL announced in March 2016 that 1.35 million of its 3 million subscribers were paying for its $19.99 "HiFi" service, with the remainder of its customers on the $9.99 "Premium" service.

TIDAL claims to offer the highest percentage of royalties to musicians and songwriters of any music streaming service.

Kanye West's The Life of Pablo album was streamed 250 million times on TIDAL in the 10 days after its release on 14 February 2016.