Just when you thought Samsung had no more “next big things” up its sleeve, it recruits no other than rap legend Jay-Z, who agreed to release 1 million advanced copies of his new upcoming album – Magna Carter Holy Grail – exclusively to owners of the Korean company’s Galaxy range of smartphones and tablets completely free.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Samsung has paid $5 million for the content, despite other media speculations that claim such a deal could be worth as much as $20 million. The partnership will see the album released to Samsung customers 72 hours precedent of the album’s actual release date which is July 4th through an app that will be available on the Google Play Store on June 24th.
Even though Samsung users will have the advantage over others, however, they will not be to share any of those tracks with anyone until the official release.
Speculations have been circulating for quite a long time now and they were confirmed on Sunday when the ad below played during the game 5 of the NBA final, featuring the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs.
In the video you can see Jay-Z as well as his production team – which
includes Rick Rubin, Timbaland and Pharrell Williams from The Neptunes – working their magic in the studio developing the album and of course featuring a Galaxy Tab.
This cooperation is quite intriguing since it provides Jay-Z with an advanced $5 million of sales even before the album has actually been released, and is considered as an additional force with which Samsung can contend with Apple and other smartphone developers. Apple released a new music service- the iTunes Radio- during its WWDC event just this month making it an obvious sign that mobile entertainment content has become a fascinating part of today’s smartphone experience.
Previously, Samsung has collaborated with filmmaker Tim Burton, Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd as well as basketball champ LeBron James.