50 years ago today, Shawn Corey Carter, who would later become better known as Jay-Z, was born. There are plenty of reasons to be happy about Jay-Z’s birthday, considering he’s one of the most important figures in music history. Spotify certainly has cause to celebrate: Starting today, Jay-Z’s discography is finally streaming on Spotify again. Jay-Z has not posted about the news, but the streaming service shared an announcement.
Happy birthday, Hov 🎁
Welcome back to Spotify.https://t.co/exr5QGgwCK pic.twitter.com/t7l4H5zn6E— Spotify (@Spotify) December 4, 2019
In April 2017, Jay-Z’s albums were taken off of Spotify, and the platform wrote at the time, “We can confirm that some of Jay Z’s catalogue has been removed at the request of the artist.” There was no confirmed reason beyond that for why Jay-Z’s albums were pulled, although the removal of his discography came shortly before the release of Jay-Z’s 2017 album 4:44, and two years after he purchased competing streaming service Tidal. Whatever the case, Jay-Z’s albums are on Spotify once again, so users can now listen to everything from his 1996 debut Reasonable Doubt to The Black Album to Magna Carta Holy Grail.
Hi there! We can confirm that some of Jay Z's catalogue has been removed at the request of the artist /LP
— SpotifyCares (@SpotifyCares) April 7, 2017
This was not the first time that Jay-Z had removed his music from Spotify. In April 2015, he removed Reasonable Doubt from all services except Tidal, which had just launched at that point. Then, in March 2016, his Blueprint albums were taken off of Spotify, but were still available on other streaming platforms.