Jay Z fired back at critics of his Tidal music service on Sunday, claiming the site is "doing just fine" and that its subscriber base is growing. 
 
 The rapper, who relaunched Tidal after purchasing its parent company Aspiro Group earlier this year for $56 million, urged critics to hold off on dismissing the service too soon. 
 
 "The iTunes Store wasn't built in a day," he said. "It took Spotify nine years to be successful." 
 
 Jay Z added that 770,000 subscribers have already signed up for Tidal, which he relaunched to compete with platforms such as Pandora and Spotify. 
 
 But his series of tweets came shortly after Tidal dropped out of the top 500 most downloaded apps in the U.S. on April 18, according to App Annie data; it then fell further to No. 870 just days later. Following rumors suggesting that Jay Z and Beyonce are creating an album that would debut exclusively on Tidal, the service only jumped up to No. 664 on the app charts. 
 
 Meanwhile, Kanye West, one of Tidal's 16 celebrity owners, deleted all references to the service on his Twitter feed by April 22, before backtracking after press caught wind of the removal. 
 
 "We are here for the long haul," Jay Z said. "Please give us a chance to grow and get better." 
 
 Here's a full look at the rapper's tweets defending Tidal on Saturday: 
 
 Stream of consciousness coming in 5, 4, 3, 2… #TidalFacts — Mr. Carter (@S_C_) April 26, 2015 
 
 Tidal is doing just fine. We have over 770,000 subs. We have been in business less than one month. #TidalFacts — Mr. Carter (@S_C_) April 26, 2015 
 
 The iTunes Store wasn't built in a day. It took Spotify 9 years to be successful… — Mr. Carter (@S_C_) April 26, 2015 
 
 We are here for the long haul. Please give us a chance to grow & get better. #TidalFacts — Mr. Carter (@S_C_) April 26, 2015 
 
 There are many big companies that are spending millions on a smear campaign. We are not anti-anyone, we are pro-artist & fan. #TidalFacts — Mr. Carter (@S_C_) April 26, 2015 
 
 We made Tidal for fans. We have more than just music. We have video, exclusive concerts, tickets for events early, live sports!... — Mr. Carter (@S_C_) April 26, 2015 
 
 ….Tidal is where artists can give their fans more without the middlemen. #TidalFacts — Mr. Carter (@S_C_) April 26, 2015 
 
 Indie artists who want to work directly w/ us keep 100% of their music. "If you don't want the CEOs all in the videos" haa #tidalfacts — Mr. Carter (@S_C_) April 26, 2015 
 
 Although Tidal joins an already oversaturated music-streaming market, it's promoting itself as a service that delivers superior sound quality, and pays artists more than what competing platforms pay. Music is streamed at 1411 kilobytes per second, which is near-CD quality, beating out Spotify whose streams range from 96 to 320 kbps. 

 Jay Z is on the defensive.No, he’s not being showered with a security cam-friendly array of Mortal Kombat-worthy punches and kicks courtesy of the inimitable Solange. Rather, the hip-hop icon turned entrepreneur who once rapped, “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man,” has taken to Twitter to ward off a barrage of criticism aimed at the artist-owned streaming music service Tidal, of which he is the fearless leader. 
 
 The man formerly known as Sean Carter fired off a series of tweets on Sunday using the #TidalFacts to try and dispel perceived myths floating about concerning Tidal. 
 
 Mr. Z also added: “The iTunes Store wasn’t built in a day. It took Spotify 9 years to be successful… We are here for the long haul. Please give us a chance to grow & get better. There are many big companies that are spending millions on a smear campaign. We are not anti-anyone, we are pro-artist & fan. We made Tidal for fans. We have more than just music. We have video, exclusive concerts, tickets for events early, live sports!... Tidal is where artists can give their fans more without the middlemen.” “Indie artists who want to work directly w/ us keep 100% of their music,” he continued. “‘If you don’t want the CEOs all in the videos’ haa. Tidal pays 75% royalty rate to ALL artists, writers and producers—not just the founding members on stage. Rich getting richer? Equity values… YouTube $390 billion. Apple $760 billion. Spotify $8 billion. Tidal $60 million. My cousin just moved to Nigeria to discover new talent. Tidal is a global company. We have Tidal X—it supports artists by giving them a platform to connect with their most loyal fans. Tidal is for all. Our actions will speak louder than words. We made Tidal to bring people the best experiences… and to help artists give that to their fans over and over again.” 
 
 Let’s dispel some of Jay Z’s myths here, first. Tidal is not one month old—it was launched by the Swedish/Norwegian company Aspiro in October 2014. Jay Z’s company Project Panther Ltd. later acquired it in March 2015. On March 23, the now-Jay Z-owned Tidal integrated WiMP, its sister service (also acquired from Aspiro), which had 597,000 total subscribers as of July 17, 2014, according to Aspiro’s Q2 company presentation. 
 
 On March 30, Tidal held one of the more ostentatious and narcissistic press conferences in history. Sixteen multimillionaire artists took the stage—including Jay Z, Beyonce, Kanye West, Madonna, Daft Punk, Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Jack White, and more—all of whom each assumed a 3 percent ownership stake in Tidal (besides Jay Z, who owns considerably more). They announced a grand “vision to change the status quo” and “forever change the course of music history,” before signing a declaration of independence. It was the Super Bowl of circle jerks; a gaudy display by a group of wildly popular musicians who feel they’re not being adequately compensated for their contributions to the world (thank God they didn’t get into journalism). 
 
 Tidal offers high fidelity and lossless audio quality, but also exorbitant fees of $20 per month. The idea behind Tidal is that these higher subscription fees will lead to greater royalties for the artists—so it’s pretty hard to understand how this endeavor is “for fans,” as Jay Z claims. Tidal’s logic seems to be that fans’ money will now go directly into the pockets of the artists, but if the monthly premium is more than competing music streaming sites’ like Spotify and Apple’s Beats Music, how does this benefit the fans, and not just pad the pockets of these equity-blessed entrepreneurs? 
 
 Now let’s talk about those subscriber numbers. Jay Z touted Tidal’s 770,000 subscribers, but 597,000 of those came from WiMP. That means fewer than 200,000 people have subscribed to Tidal in the close to a month since that disastrous March 30 presentation. Tidal also dropped out of iTunes’ top 700 most-downloaded apps chart this past week. 
 
 Furthermore, the “exclusive” content Tidal has been rolling out mainly consists of content that would be free to fans otherwise, e.g. streaming singles like Rihanna’s “Bitch Better Have My Money” (which, by the way, should be Tidal's theme song), music videos, and the ability to livestream concerts, all of which people could’ve just caught on YouTube without paying a high monthly premium. Hell, one of the “exclusives” they offered was a playlist curated by a contributing editor from Vanity Fair: 
 
 It’s good that Jay Z’s cousin moved to Nigeria to scout talent, and that indie artists who sign with Tidal allegedly “keep 100% of their music,” although it’s not really clear what Jay Z meant by this very vague statement. 
 
 Now to the supposed “smear campaign” being orchestrated against Tidal. 
 
 The idea that a “smear campaign” has been launched against Tidal seems incredibly paranoid at best, and disingenuous at worst. Tidal’s outrageous press conference—and the backlash it provoked—had nothing to do with any campaign, nor did the many musical acts who’ve spoken out against the streaming music service. 
 
 In an interview with The Daily Beast, Mumford & Sons called the owners of Tidal “new school fucking plutocrats” and went on to say they wanted no part of the self-serving spectacle. 
 
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 “We wouldn’t have joined it anyway, even if they had asked,” said Mumford & Sons frontman Marcus Mumford. “We don’t want to be tribal. I think smaller bands should get paid more for it, too. Bigger bands have other ways of making money, so I don’t think you can complain. A band of our size shouldn’t be complaining. And when they say it’s artist-owned, it’s owned by those rich, wealthy artists.” 
 
 He added, “What I’m not into is the tribalistic aspect of it—people trying to corner bits of the market, and put their face on it. That’s just commercial bullshit. We hire people to do that for us rather than having to do that ourselves. We just want to play music, and I don’t want to align myself with Spotify, Beats, Tidal, or whatever. We want people to listen to our music in their most comfortable way, and if they’re not up for paying for it, I don’t really care.” 
 
 And Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard, in an interview with The Daily Beast, slammed Tidal’s much-ballyhooed presser for being out of touch. 
 
 “I think they totally blew it by bringing out a bunch of millionaires and billionaires and propping them up onstage and then having them all complain about not being paid,” said Gibbard. “There was a wonderful opportunity squandered to highlight what this service would mean for artists who are struggling and to make a plea to people’s hearts and pocketbooks to pay a little more for this service that was going to pay these artists a more reasonable streaming rate. And they didn’t do it. That’s why this thing is going to fail miserably.” 
 
 There’s also the bizarre situation with Tidal presentation attendee/Jay Z protégé Kanye West and his precarious position within the company. 
 
 Last week, following the news that Tidal had dropped out of iTunes’ Top 700 iPhone apps chart after debuting in the top 20, West mysteriously scrubbed his Twitter timeline of all mentions of Tidal with no explanation. The news made major headlines, with many seeing it as West distancing himself from the poorly performing service. Someone—presumably pal Jay Z—must have got in West’s ear about the media fallout (his rep would not comment on the matter), and the rapper reaffirmed his supposed commitment to Tidal early Thursday morning: 
 
 None of these artist slams or the pretentious presentation or the West Twitter incident seems indicative of any elaborate “smear campaign” against Tidal, but rather the byproduct of a dreadful PR campaign. Jay Z, who once infamously proclaimed “my presence is charity,” ended his Sunday afternoon Twitter plea with the following: 

 The rapper and mogul defends the streaming service’s turbulent start, asking followers to ‘give us a chance to grow & get better’ 
 
 Since its star-spangled launch back in March, Jay Z’s streaming service Tidal has taken quite a beating from those who are sceptical of its intentions and the proposed benefits for its users. Taking to Twitter on 26 April, the rapper and mogul wrote a series of messages defending Tidal and its turbulent beginnings. 
 
 First addressing the immediate problems facing the app – which fell out of iPhone top 700 chart last week – Jay Z urged followers to be patient. “Tidal is doing just fine. We have over 770,000 subs. We have been in business less than one month.” 
 
 He continued to compare Tidal to the iTunes store which he says “wasn’t built in a day”, and Spotify, which took “9 years to be successful”. 
 
 Tidal originally billed itself as a service to deliver “the first artist-owned global music and entertainment platform”, and promised to give shares to other musicians. Much of the criticism surrounding the service has been based around its focus on the major musicians affiliated with the brand; Mumford and Sons, for instance, lambasted the “new-school fucking plutocrats” behind the launch. Jay Z tackled this subject, explaining: “Tidal pays 75% royalty rate to ALL artists, writers and producers – not just the founding members on stage.” 
 
 Alluding to the recently added Tidal Rising function, which helps to elevate the careers of smaller bands and artists, Jay Z also said: “Indie artists who want to work directly w/ us keep 100% of their music.” He added that his cousin had relocated to Nigeria to discover new talent, saying: “Tidal is a global company.” 
 
 In a bid to create a closer relationship with users of the service, Jay Z has gone to great lengths to engage subscribers, enlisting Jack White and other “Tidal superstars” to personally call subscribers to thank them for their support. 

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– The iTunes store wasn't built in a day and it took Spotify almost a decade to become successful, Jay Z pointed out in a series of tweets over the weekend claiming his Tidal music service was the victim of a "smear campaign" from big companies. "Tidal is doing just fine. We have over 770,000 subs," he said, promising that he was in it for the long haul. "We have been in business less than one month." The celebrity-owned service dropped out of the iPhone top 700 download chart within weeks of its relaunch, and only jumped as far as 664 even after rumors that Tidal subscribers would be the first to access a new album from Jay Z and Beyonce, reports Mashable. Addressing criticism that the service seems designed to help rich stars like its owners get richer, Jay Z said "Tidal pays 75% royalty rate to ALL artists, writers and producers—not just the founding members on stage," the Guardian reports. With the new Tidal Rising function for smaller bands, he said, "Indie artists who want to work directly w/ us keep 100% of their music." At the Daily Beast, Marlow Stern calls Jay Z's talk of an anti-Tidal smear campaign "incredibly paranoid at best, and disingenuous at worst," blaming the backlash in the outrageous press conference the service's celebrity co-owners held last month.