Happy new year and welcome to MusicREDEF 2021. Since we last chatted, I've been reminded that there's a band called EVE 6 and I've learned that the LONG WINTERS guy used to be a HARVEY DANGER guy, but it's neither the '90s nor the '00s and I promise this will be an "INSIDE OUT"- and BEAN DAD-free zone for as long as I'm able to hold out... Things to catch up on: JACK DORSEY's SQUARE apparently is thinking about acquiring JAY-Z's TIDAL. The potential deal between the fast-growing payment company and the struggling (by most accounts) music streaming service left a lot of people scratching their heads in the waning days of 2020, but the always astute DAN RUNCIE makes a good case, on his hip-hop blog TRAPITAL, for a 2021 marriage. Hip-hop influencers have been crucial to the marketing strategy of Square's CASH APP almost from the beginning; Runcie noted nearly a year ago that more than 200 rappers, including OFFSET, DREEZY and RICH THE KID, had name-dropped Cash App in songs. Aligning itself with an app that, for all its struggles, is rich with hip-hop content, can expand that marketing and, among other benefits, drive down the app's customer-acquisition costs, he now argues. As for Jay-Z, who not that long ago informed the world, "I bought some artwork for one million / Two years later that s*** worth two million / Few years later that s*** worth eight million," let's just note that he bought Tidal for $56 million. Do the rest of the math yourself. Then imagine if Tidal had actually been successful... Maybe Tidal and Square should go on a double-date with AMAZON MUSIC and WONDERY... VARIETY's KRISTIN ROBINSON detects a bootleg-song-sized loophole in SPOTIFY's podcasting strategy, which, if you want to take the cynical view, is good for the podcasting side of the business and not so great for the music side of the business. But that might be underestimating the value of those bootlegs for fans, artists and even record company marketing departments, which aren't always fully in sync with record company legal departments. In either case, ENGADGET reported several days later that Spotify appears to be in takedown mode... Add JIMMY IOVINE to the list of sellers to HIPGNOSIS SONGS. He's sold 100 percent of his music and film production points—which covers works by the likes of EMINEM, 50 CENT, U2, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN and STEVIE NICKS—to the investment fund for an undisclosed price... Monday would have been JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE's 39th birthday, and his father marked the occasion by releasing the album that no father would ever want to, or should ever have to, make. It's heartbreaking and beautiful, and not without a little hard-earned pride and joy... Compositions by MA RAINEY, DUKE ELLINGTON, FLETCHER HENDERSON, BESSIE SMITH, JELLY ROLL MORTON and RODGERS & HART are among the 95-year-old works that entered the public domain on Jan. 1... Speaking of Ma Rainey: GEORGE C. WOLFE's film version of AUGUST WILSON's MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM brings to life the electrifying power of 1920s blues and jazz—and the timeless gift record companies had for screwing the artists who created it. The work's stage origins are readily evident in a film that takes place nearly entirely in two rooms on a single day, and the late CHADWICK BOSEMAN is brutally great as Rainey's restless trumpeter... BOBBY SHMURDA could be out of prison in seven weeks... Over the holidays we lost the masked underground hip-hop genius MF DOOM (who died in October, but his death wasn't reported until New Year's Eve); metal shredder ALEXI LAIHO of CHILDREN OF BODOM; bluegrass shredder TONY RICE; prolific and versatile pianist "BLUE" GENE TYRANNY; hip-hip pioneer JOHN "ECSTASY" FLETCHER of WHODINI; proto metal bandleader LESLIE WEST of MOUNTAIN; the greatest named sideman in rock history, the SILVER BULLET BAND's ALTO REED; beloved Mexican composer ARMANDO MANZANERO, and publicist RANDY ALEXANDER, an old colleague of mine from the New Jersey music journalism scene. RIP also CLAUDE BOLLING, FRANK KIMBROUGH, TITO ROJAS, ADOLFO "SHABBA DOO" QUIÑONES, STEVE BROWN, PHYLLIS MCGUIRE, GEOFF STEPHENS, EUGENE WRIGHT, RUDY SALAS, IVRY GITLIS, FOU TS'ONG, FANNY WATERMAN, LOU DENNIS, GEORGE GERDES, GINNY KALMBACH and SHIRLEY YOUNG... Here's our full accounting of nearly 650 notable music deaths in 2020.