JAY Z has won acquisition of the Swedish music streaming company, Aspiro, following 90% of shareholders accepting the rapper’s $54m (£36m) bid.

Aspiro run the music streaming services WiMP and Tidal. 

At the end of last year, Aspiro had half a million paying users for its streaming services, which included 35,000 subscribers for its “lossless” HiFi-quality music service available in the UK under the Tidal brand. It costs £19.99 a month, however, which is double the price of Spotify in the UK.

The company had posted a net loss of $5m for the last three months of 2014, admitting that it could run out of money at some point this year.

By the end of this month, the company plans to launch Tidal in 22 countries, mostly in Europe.

The Aspiro acquisition now puts JAY Z into direct competition with Beats Music, the streaming service co-founded by Dr Dre, which was bought by Apple as part of a $3bn acquisition of its parent company Beats Electronics in 2014.

A lossless service could form part of Apple’s looming relaunch of Beats.

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Watch a recent interview with JAY Z on The Howard Stern Show below: