We may never know what happened with Tidal’s stream of Drake’s performance at this past weekend’s Lil Weezyana Fest.
In what’s turning out to be an obvious game of music business politricks, Drake’s manager, Future The Prince, told BuzzFeed that Drake’s performance being blocked from Tidal was a “business decision” he made and Apple had nothing to do with it:
The decision to not have Drake participate in the Tidal steam has nothing to do with Apple or Drake’s deal. Point blank, 100%. 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.
Tidal issued a statement via a spokesperson contradicting Drizzy’s manager and claimed it has proof Apple was behind the whole ordeal.
“We have all the email receipts and written correspondence that took place with said blocked performance,” reads the statement. “That being said we choose to keep it classy. Great show to all the performers. Great performance Wayne. God Bless New Orleans. 10 years stronger.”
Future The Prince refuted Tidal’s statement, calling it a publicity stunt and divulged he prohibited Drizzy’s performance from streaming on the platform because he was unsure of the “aesthetics and quality” of the stream:
I don’t understand. If you’re going to say something about the situation publicly, you should tell the truth. They saw the opportunity to take a situation and spin it in their favor as a publicity stunt. We wanted to make sure the stream represented us in the right way, and we didn’t have much insight into what they were doing. Aesthetics and quality are important to us and we didn’t have any control over that or time to investigate it. We were just there to participate in the benefit.
