Apple Music will miss out on Jay Z’s upcoming 4:44 album

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Jay Z 4:44
Jay Z's own streaming service has exclusivity.
Photo: Jay Z

Jay Z will release his new 4:44 album at the end of this month, but if Apple Music is the only streaming service you subscribe to, you’re going to miss out.

It’s been almost four years since Jay Z released his last album, Magna Carta… Holy Grail, which sold over 3.3 million copies worldwide. An exclusive deal with Samsung made the release free to Galaxy smartphone owners, but Jay Z won’t be so generous this time around.

To enjoy 4:44 without actually buying it outright, you’ll need a subscription to TIDAL, Jay Z’s own music streaming service, which has exclusive rights to it at launch. It’s unclear how long that deal will last, but Apple Music, Spotify, and the rest will have to wait.

TIDAL costs the same as Apple Music ($9.99 a month) in the U.S., but it doesn’t offer a family plan that lets multiple users enjoy it at a discounted rate. You can, however, pay an extra $10 a month for the “HiFi” option, which streams lossless-quality music.

If you’re a Sprint customer, you can enjoy TIDAL HiFi free for six months, thanks to the carrier’s recent acquisition of 33 percent of the service. You’ll need to visit sprint.tidal.com or a Sprint store to activate your subscription.

To celebrate the partnership, Sprint released an exclusive preview of Adnis, one of the tracks on 4:44, which you can listen to below.

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