Jay Z Buys Streaming Music Company Aspiro for $56 Million

Looks like Dr. Dre is not the only hip-hop mogul in the streaming music business now.

Jay Z is set to acquire the Scandinavian streaming music company Aspiro for the price of 56 million dollars. Tech Crunch is reporting the purchase is being done through his company Project Panther Bidco and has been approved by Aspiro’s main shareholder. Aspiro runs two streaming music services: a free one called WiMP which serves northern Europe, and a high-definition one for the U.S. and U.K. called Tidal.  It is a rival of Spotify and Beats Music, and its service WiMP has half a million paying users.

Project Panther said in a statement that Aspiro “is an innovative high-quality company with strong future growth potential.” How Aspiro could fit into Roc Nation‘s plans is unclear, but don’t be surprised if Jay offers exclusive music through it and lures a few artists to it. Things just got a bit more interesting in the race for Hip-Hop’s first billionaire.