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T.I., who partnered with DJ Drama in the early 2000s to build the beginnings of his superstar career, revealed that he has a similar stance on how he approaches streaming. Though he is a co-owner of Jay Z’s TIDAL platform, he insisted that he would not make his new album The Dime Trap a TIDAL exclusive like Beyonce or Kanye West because he’s not sure if his core fanbase lives there.

“This is an album that’s dedicated to my core fans,” he said in an radio interview with Ed Lover. “The people who went out there the first week Trap Muzik came out, so I’m basically dedicating this album to them and making the music that I know they want to hear me make. So I know those people all of them can’t necessarily afford TIDAL. So we will have some exclusive content and exclusive components. I don’t know if the entire album will be exclusive.”

Spotify recently gave DJs in general a lifeline in the streaming wars when they announced they will allow DJs to post mixes and radio shows featuring other artists music. Being penalized for posting music not belonging to them had long been a roadblock for DJs on platforms like Soundcloud, that became notorious for taking down links containing such material.

The irony of Chance The Rapper’s song “Mixtape” featuring Young Thug and Lil Yachty is that he may indirectly be one of the artists driving mixtape DJs into irrelevancy. None of his three mixtapes featured a DJ on it while his Coloring Book “mixtape” became the first streaming-only project to hit the Billboard 200.

To borrow from the question he posed on the song’s hook, “Does anybody still give a f*ck about a mixtape DJ?”

 

 

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