At the beginning of last week (Feb. 22), Billboard put out its weekly albums chart with one notable absence: Kanye West's The Life of Pablo, which was exclusively released on TIDAL on February 14. A Billboard spokesman reported that TIDAL had not revealed the album's streaming numbers to Nielsen Music, and thus, not enough information was available to include The Life of Pablo on the Billboard 200.
Two days ago, it was reported that TIDAL fired two of its executive employees. In reporting the news, The Verge pointed out that the company could've gotten into trouble for not reporting its streaming numbers, and TIDAL soon contacted the news outlet and implied that Kanye, for whatever reason, had requested that TIDAL not share the streaming data for The Life of Pablo.
"TIDAL says it does share streaming data with Nielsen Music unless requested not to by an artist," reports The Verge.
If the above statement is to be believed, then Kanye West purposely asked TIDAL not to disclose the numbers raked in by his new album. The statement also suggests that Beyonce asked TIDAL not to report on the streaming data for her latest single, "Formation," which was released exclusively on the platform on February 6 and is yet to appear on Billboard's Hot 100.
