Few things in popular culture will leave a dent in the national conversation like new music from one of the greatest rappers of all time. Jay Z is releasing a new album, 4:44, exclusively on Tidal and Sprint is promoting it as a perfect reason to get a Sprint cell phone plan.
The mysterious 4:44 project was confirmed on Sunday by Tidal on Twitter as Jay Z’s 13th solo album, and first since 2013’s Magna Carta…Holy Grail. The news comes less than two weeks after Sprint announced it will offer its customers a six-month subscription to Tidal for free. Jay Z’s return to the microphone will also be the first major release since Sprint purchased a 33 percent stake in Tidal in January. Looks like Sprint is ready to use Tidal’s biggest draw to lure in new customers.
Sprint has had its trouble adding enough subscribers to regain its spot among the top three wireless networks since losing its spot to T-Mobile in August 2015. Since then, Sprint subscribers have remained relatively flat at roughly 58 million with less than 200,000 subscribers added in the first quarter of 2017.
Before we knew we were getting a new Jay Z album, 4:44 advertisements started popping up around the country. Our hopes were temporarily shot when a 4:44 commercial supposedly for a new film debuted during Game 3 of the NBA Finals featuring Academy Award winning actors Mahershala Ali, Lupita Nyong’o, and Danny Glover. Portions of the same commercial were re-released on Tidal over the weekend, but this time with Jay Z rapping a few lines from a song entitled Adnis, following the announcement of Jay’s new album. The song title is in reference to his father Adnes Reeves, who died in 2003.
As of now, Jay Z’s highly anticipated new album will appear on Tidal after midnight on June 30. The last time a Jay Z release was so closely tied to cell phones, he gave his Magna Carta album away for free to the first million Samsung Galaxy devices owners who downloaded the Magna Carta app. Looks like the same plan, just a different app this time. Let us see how many new cell phone subscribers a new Jay Z album is worth.
