JAY-Z’s “4.44” Is #1 For 2nd Week Even Without Spotify, But It’s Costing The Rapper Millions

JAY-Z's "4.44" is #1 for the second week in a row, even though its still not available on Spotify, the largest streaming music service globally. It's an impressive accomplishment, but its costing the rapper dearly in other ways.

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JAY-Z's new album "4.44" is number one on the Billboard chart, even though its still not available on Spotify. But Jay-Z's diss of the globe's #1 music streamer is proving to be costly.

Using Drake's early week Spotify streams as a guide, analysts have determined that Jay-Z is missing out on payments of as much as $1 million a week, for at least the first few weeks of release. Another put the payment as low as $250,000 per week. Spotify payments to artists vary widely depending on how may stream it on the paid service vs. free, what countries the streams come from, and individual deals with labels and publishers.Of course, Jay-Z can afford to forgo any income source that he chooses without wife Beyonce or their new twins feeling it, “I’m guessing the diapers for those wonderful new children aren’t being paid out of streaming royalties,” MusicWatch industry analyst Russ Crupnick tells Billboard.