Cultura Voice

  For some time, influential voices in the industry have called for the unrecouped balances of heritage artists to be written off by record labels. This would see modern-day royalty earnings of these acts get paid into their pockets, rather than being swallowed by a record label with whom they may have ended dealings decades ago. That is especially true, in many cases, for heritage Black artists. Last summer, during industry-wide discussions surrounding Blackout Tuesday, veteran US artist manager and attorney, Ron Sweeney, called on the major record companies to implement a number of new policies in a strong op/ed. Sweeney wrote: “With respect to Black artists signed to you prior to 2000, that are no longer signed to your companies, zero out their unrecouped royalty balances and let their royalties flow to them so they can support themselves.” Many in the music industry never thought we’d see a day where a major record company openly embraced such a plan. Those people were wrong. I...

Independent artists worldwide are generating serious money for the music industry. According to estimated figures published by MIDiA Research, total revenue generated by ‘self-releasing’ artists in 2018 was $643 million – up 35% on 2017, when the equivalent annual number hit $472m. Today, can reveal that a single distribution company, CD Baby, contributed over $100m of that $600m-plus independent artist revenue. US-based CD Baby, which started as an online CD store in 1998, now represents over 750,000 recording artists, 170,000 songwriters, and over 9m tracks across 800+ genres. Speaking today (January 8), CD Baby CEO Tracy Maddux revealed that his company’s 2018 artist earnings had topped $100m. That’s up at least $20m on the previous year, when it distributed around $80m in 2017. And while Maddux explained that CD Baby doesn’t disclose certain precise fiscal details, he did confirm that the company’s 2018 gross revenues were “in the range $120m fo...

Spotify plunged itself into the center of a sensitive, industry-wide debate last month when it announced that it was starting to ban certain artists from its first-party playlists on the grounds of ‘hateful conduct’. The controversial move saw the likes of R Kelly (pictured) and rapper XXXTentacion removed from major Spotify playlists – essentially due to allegations of serious misconduct in their personal lives. Spotify earned some praise for the move, but plenty of backlash. Those against the announcement including some of Spotify’s own senior executives – believed to include, according to reports, its global head of creator services Troy Carter. Today, Spotify has officially walked back the ‘hateful conduct’ policy, which is believed to have originally been the brainchild of its public affairs boss Jonathan Prince. However, the firm has stood by a provision, introduced at the same time, which will see music containing ‘hateful content’ – ie. lyrics which incite hate – ...