Tidal has seen a steady first year under Jay-Z’s ownership but it may be his wife Beyonce and friends Kanye West and Rihanna that make it a true success.

February 2016 will go down in history as the month that Tidal changed the game and marked it’s place in the music streaming industry. Okay… maybe not but nonetheless it has been a landmark month for the HQ streaming service, seeing 1 single and 2 different albums by music superstars drop exclusively on the platform, bolstering it’s subscribers and use.

Kanye West, self proclaimed king of hip-hop, released his seventh album The Life of Pablo this week after a year of hype and teasing. Kanye released the album exclusively on his good friend Jay-Z’s music streaming service – Tidal. As a result Tidal got pushed to the top of the iOS App Store charts for the first time ever. In the weeks leading up to this release Rihanna’s new album ANTI and Beyoncé’s new single ‘Formation’ was made available solely on the platform.

https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/698972107166892032

Ye, Bey and Rhi have all had massively successful music careers and could signify the rise of Tidal as fans are directed to the service. Tidal has so far been a steady ship on an ocean of warring music streaming ships. The service is holding it’s own but has yet to reach the success of competitors, despite it’s backing from a multitude of music stars.

Tidal is a music service that holds a niche in high quality streaming. It was bought and relaunched by rapper turned businessman Jay-Z last January. Since then the company has seen ventures into TV shows, held exclusive concerts and hit over 1 million subscribers. Whilst a million subscribers seems like a lot it’s a pale comparison to competitors like Spotify approaching 30 million and Apple Music who have earned 11 million subscribers and released later than Tidal last year.

After The Life of Pablo’s release, to mixed-positive reviews, West said it would release elsewhere next week but has since gone back on himself, saying it will never release outside of Tidal. Beyoncé’s single also remains exclusive to Tidal but at the least Rihanna fans can find ANTI on other services now, or buy in stores.