Tidal has claimed listeners streamed Bey and Kanye’s latest albums hundreds of millions of times. But did they?

Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv has accused Tidal, which is primarily owned by Beyonce’s husband Jay-Z, of inflating its subscriber numbers in the past, claims the company has denied.

Tidal, which has rarely shared its data publicly, had a streaming exclusive on West’s album for its first six weeks of release and continues to be the exclusive streamer for Beyonce’s album. It claimed that West’s album had been streamed 250 million times in its first 10 days of release in February of 2016, while claiming it had just 3 million subscribers — a claim that would have meant every subscriber played the album an average of eight times per day; and that Beyonce’s album was streamed 306 million times in its first 15 days of release in April 2016.

Beyonce’s label Sony were paid more than $4 million for April and May of 2016, with Lemonade accounting for more than 60 per cent of that, while West’s label Universal received 3.2 million euros with a similar percentage for The Life of Pablo.

“This is a smear campaign from a publication that once referred to our employee as an ‘Israeli Intelligence officer’ and our owner as a ‘crack dealer,” a Tidal statement read. “We expect nothing less from them ... The information was stolen and manipulated and we will fight these claims vigorously.”