Jay-Z’s Tidal exclusive ‘4:44’ goes platinum in less than 1 week

Jay-Z is celebrating his 13th platinum album thanks to the successful Tidal-exclusive release of ‘4:44.’

To be clear, an album goes platinum when it achieves 1 million sales. In today’s digital age, it’s even harder — the RIAA didn’t even count streams toward a gold or platinum album certification until last year.

It takes 1,500 track streams to equal one album sale. With Tidal’s 1.2 million subscribers, each one would have needed to stream 4:44 tracks 1,250 times for Jay to have really gone platinum.
So, how’d he do it?
According to Billboard, it was the free downloads provided by Sprint that qualified Jay’s album for the certification.

4:44 Goes Platinum - JAY-Z’s 13 Platinum (or higher) solo studio Album Awards are more than any other hip hop artist. @s_c_ @RocNation #444 pic.twitter.com/oSSXrUpMUn

— RIAA (@RIAA) July 5, 2017