Samsung has restarted talks to acquire Jay-Z’s Tidal music streaming service

A few months ago rap mogul Jay-Z was spotted at Samsung’s headquarters in Silicon Valley. He was seen leaving the office of Samsung Research America where the Samsung MSCA unit is located, this particular unit creates content strategy for services like Milk Music, and Jay-Z was said to have met with Samsung’s SVP of content and services Daren Tsui who is said to be the driving force behind Milk Music. You can see where this is going. It didn’t take long for reports to circulate that Samsung was interested in acquiring Tidal, Jay-Z’s music streaming service.

The New York Post has heard from several sources that Samsung has restarted talks to acquire Jay-Z’s music streaming service. This doesn’t come as a surprise since Samsung has long been rumored as an interested buyer and the scribe claims that it has held on-and-off talks with Tidal. “Samsung is re-engaging; they are working on something really big, and they’re keeping it very quiet in case it leaks,” says a source close to the talks. Samsung and Tidal have not yet commented on this report.

Tidal hasn’t really been doing well in the streaming market and it’s still struggling to bring in more subscribers. With Apple Music performing well and Google rumored to be eyeing a Spotify acquisition it would make sense for Samsung to acquire a running service and use it as a stepping stone to craft it into something better. Like Apple, Samsung can push its music streaming service though its handsets, and possibly end up carving some space for itself in the competitive music streaming market.