Dominating headlines across the web today was Jay Z and his press conference on Monday for his new streaming service Tidal. The new venture in music was supported by a list of who’s who in music with Beyonce, Rihanna, Kanye West, J.Cole, Nicki Minaj, Usher and more.

Outside of the press conference, Jay Z provided the first insight into the new deal in a sit down with Billboard where he discloses the purpose of the deal and who are all involved.

“l talked to everyone one on one about music and about what they would like to see in a service, and how would they like this to go,” Jay stated.

In addition to the participants, Hov addresses how business friends, who are also now competitors, like Jimmy Iovine, will react to TIDAL, what brought him to the streaming business and more. Check out an additional except below and check the full interview available on Billboard.

Billboard: When did it first occur to you to get into the streaming business?

Jay Z: A year-and-a-half ago. We saw the movement and how everything was going and figured that this could possibly be the last music format that we see in this lifetime. We didn’t like the direction music was going and thought maybe we could get in and strike an honest blow and if, you know, the very least we did was make people wake up and try to improve the free vs. paid system, and promote fair trade, then it would be a win for us anyway.