JAY-Z’s ‘4:44’ album goes platinum in less than a week

It’s a platinum life for JAY-Z.

The rapper’s “4:44” album has gone platinum less than a week after its release on Tidal, the Recording Industry Association of America announced Wednesday.

The album was released on June 30 exclusively to Tidal subscribers and Sprint customers.

Last year, the RIAA changed the rules on judging album sales to adapt to streaming music: 1,500 song or video streams are equivalent to 10 track sales or one album sale.

The question remains how 1.5 billion streams of “4:44” tracks were streamed in five days, but RIAA told Variety that “Sprint-enabled downloads were a significant factor” into the final total.

In 2013, JAY-Z and Tidal partnered with Samsung for “Magna Carta Holy Grail.” Samsung purchased 1 million downloads and made the album available to Galaxy owners 72 hours before the official release.

Tidal briefly offered a free download of the album for non-subscribers, but the promo code stopped working Sunday night.

JAY-Z’s latest honor marks his 13th platinum solo album, the most of any hip hop artist in history; he has 17 platinum albums total.

Elvis Presley holds the record with 63 platinum albums, followed by The Beatles, George Strait, Barbra Streisand and Garth Brooks

Source: Nydailynews