The rollout of Jay Z’s Tidal streaming service hasn’t been especially smooth since its March launch, and things are going to be especially difficult for the service now that Apple Music is sucking up so much of the oxygen in the room. Also, the company recently lost its interim CEO, and Birdman is suing it for $50 million after the Tidal-exclusive release of Lil Wayne’s FWA album. But Madonna, one of the service’s many celebrity co-owners, recently gave an Associated Press interview in which she insists that they’re building something and working past the various difficulties. Here’s what she says:

It’s just the beginning, so we’re working out a lot of kinks and hopefully we’re going to build something unique and amazing that’s going to attract a lot of people… It’s important that people understand we didn’t create Tidal, we didn’t put this together, we didn’t all join forces because we’re broke and we want more money. The idea is we want to support other artists and we want people to understand this is our heart, this is our work, and we want people to recognize that and we want other artists to have a chance… We live in a society now where everybody just expects everything to be for free, but you don’t get a house for free; you have to pay somebody to build it.

It’ll be fascinating to see how the whole streaming landscape changes once Apple Music’s free trial period ends. I’m sure all the people who were on that Tidal launch stage are holding their collective breath.