News: Jimmy Iovine Shuts Down Rumors on Leaving Apple Music

Last week there were numerous reports that Jimmy Iovine would be leaving Apple Music. After selling the Beats brand with Dr. Dre to Apple for $3 billion, Iovine signed on in 2014 to work with the streaming service. But, many were speculating after turning 65, he had plans on departing the brand and retiring.

Well, thinks again as Jimmy quickly shut down the rumors speaking exclusively with Variety. Take a look at what he had to say below and read the full story here.

‘I am almost 65, have been with Apple for four years and in 2 1/2 years the [Apple Music] service has gotten to well over 30 million subscribers and Beats has continued its successful run. But there’s still a lot more we’d like to do. I am committed to doing whatever Eddy [Cue], Tim [Cook] and Apple need me to do, to help wherever and however I can, to take this all the way. I am in the band.

All this stuff you’re seeing in the newspapers, let me tell you, my stock vested a long time ago. We need Donald Trump here to call it ‘fake news.’

There is a tiny portion of stock that vests in August, but that’s not what I think about it. My contract is up in August, but the funny thing is, I don’t have a contract. I have a deal, and certain things happen along that deal. The bottom line is I’m loyal to the guys at Apple. I love Apple, and I really love musicians. That’s why those articles annoyed me, because it had nothing to do with reality. It made it out to be all about money.

‘The next chapter, whatever intensity I’m working, will be to help streaming come to scale. The record industry right now is expecting technology to fix their problems, like they always have, and I’m not sure technology is going to fix their problems this time. It will make music better, it will make it sound better, and improve access and delivery, but I’m not sure that benefits the labels unless the labels do something to make the proposition more interesting. Everybody’s talking about the great oil gusher, but it’s not going to scale unless streaming gets more interesting.’