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Drake has initiated legal action against Universal Music Group and Spotify over allegations that the two companies conspired to artificially inflate the popularity of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”
In a filing Monday (Nov. 25) in Manhattan court, Drake’s Frozen Moments LLC accused UMG of launching an illegal “scheme” involving bots, payola and other methods to pump up Lamar’s song — a track that savagely attacked Drake amid an ongoing feud between the two stars.
“UMG did not rely on chance, or even ordinary business practices,” attorneys for Drake’s company write. “It instead launched a campaign to manipulate and saturate the streaming services and airwaves.”
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Drake’s attorneys accuse UMG of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the federal “RICO” statute often used in criminal cases against organized crime. They also allege deceptive business practices and false advertising under New York state law.
The court filings are a remarkable twist in the high-profile beef between the two stars, which saw Drake and Kendrick exchange stinging diss tracks over a period of months earlier this year. That such a dispute would spill into business litigation seemed almost unthinkable in the world of hip-hop.
It also represents a stunning rift between Drake and UMG, where the star has spent his entire career, first through signing a deal with Lil Wayne’s Young Money imprint, which was distributed by Republic Records, and then signing directly to Republic.
Lamar, meanwhile, has also spent his entire career associated with UMG, first through the TDE imprint, which was distributed by Interscope, and more recently through his own company pgLang, which he licenses through Interscope.
In technical terms, Monday’s filing is not yet a full lawsuit, but a so-called “pre-action” petition — a procedure under New York law that aims to secure information before filing a lawsuit. Spotify declined to comment. UMG did not immediately return a request for comment.
This is a developing story, and will be updated as more information becomes available.
ROSÉ has signed a global publishing administration deal with Warner Chappell Music. News of the deal arrives as her single “APT.” (featuring Bruno Mars, who is also signed to Warner Chappell and Atlantic Records) continues to dominate on the Billboard Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S. charts.
About a month ago, the song debuted at No. 1 on both charts and continues to rank at the top through the week of Nov. 23. It also debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, which tracks popular singles in the U.S.
Though ROSÉ has been a global icon since she joined BLACKPINK as its lead singer in 2016, “APT.” further solidified the singer as a star in her own right and acts as an introduction for her solo debut album rosie, which is set to drop on Dec. 6.
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“I am beyond excited to join the team at Warner Chappell,” ROSÉ said of her new deal in a statement. “There is so much more to come that I can’t wait to share — it’s going to be an amazing journey.”
“ROSÉ has earned this moment, and it’s a huge honor to officially welcome her to our Warner Chappell family,” added Ryan Press, president of North America at Warner Chappell, in a statement. “As she breaks record after record, she’s singlehandedly redefining the K-pop genre while also paving the way for a new era of cross-cultural expression. We’ve already hit the ground running with our partners at Atlantic to support ROSÉ’s bold vision and explore new creative opportunities for her songs. Above all, we can’t wait to see where her music takes us next.”
Born in Auckland and raised in Melbourne, ROSÉ has had her mind set on a career in music since she was 15. To help her achieve her dreams, the young singer moved to South Korea and soon after was selected as a member of BLACKPINK, the first K-Pop girl group to grace the cover of Billboard, win a VMA and headline Coachella.
Though BLACKPINK had a number of top global hits, including “Pink Venom,” “How You Like That,” “Ice Cream (with Selena Gomez),” “Shut Down” and more, the members of BLACKPINK, like many other performers in the K-pop genre, did not take part in the songwriting process of those songs, meaning ROSÉ and her bandmates did not receiving publishing royalties. Now, the singer, whose real name is Park Chaeyoung (or Roseanne Park in English), is in the writing room, lending her pen to her new solo works “APT.” and “Number One Girl,” the second single to be released ahead of rosie. She also received writing credit for the two songs on her debut EP R, released in 2021.
Nearly five years after the major labels won a $1 billion music piracy verdict against Cox Communications, the U.S. Supreme Court is signaling that it might jump into the long-running copyright case.
In an order issued Monday (Nov. 25), the justices asked the Justice Department to weigh in on whether the high court should tackle the huge penalty, which Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment (SME) and Warner Music Group (WMG) won back in 2019 over allegations of widespread piracy by Cox’s users.
After an appeals court ordered the award recalculated earlier this year, both sides have asked the Supreme Court to take the case. The labels want the justices to reinstate the original verdict; Cox wants the high court to overturn it entirely.
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Such petitions are always a long shot, as the Supreme Court takes less than 2% of the more than 7,000 cases it receives each year. But Monday’s order — a “call for the view of the Solicitor General,” or CVSG, in SCOTUS parlance — is a relatively rare step that indicates that the justices think the issues in the case might be significant enough for the court to tackle.
UMG, SME and WMG all sued Cox in 2018, seeking to hold the internet giant itself liable for alleged wrongdoing committed by its users. The labels said Cox had ignored hundreds of thousands of infringement notices and had never permanently terminated a single subscriber accused of stealing music.
ISPs like Cox are often shielded from lawsuits over illegal downloading by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA. But a judge ruled that Cox had forfeited that protection by failing to terminate people who were repeatedly accused of violating copyright law. Stripped of that immunity, jurors held Cox liable in December 2019 for the infringement of 10,017 separate songs and awarded the labels more than $99,000 for each song, adding up to $1 billion.
Earlier this year, a federal appeals court overturned that award, ruling that aspects of the verdict weren’t supported by the law. But the appeals court also upheld other parts, and Cox is still facing the potential of a very large penalty when damages are recalculated.
In taking the case to the Supreme Court, Cox has urged the justices to undo the entire verdict. The company has issued dire warnings, arguing that the “draconian” approach applied in the case “threatens mass disruption” by potentially forcing ISPs to terminate internet service to thousands of Americans.
“The stakes are immense,” Cox’s attorneys wrote. “This court should grant certiorari to prevent these cases from creating confusion, disruption, and chaos on the internet. Innovation, privacy, and competition depend on it.”
Firing back, the labels have called those arguments “disingenuous” and instead urged the court to take up their own separate petition seeking to reinstate the entire verdict.
“This court should take Cox’s concerns about terminating internet access with a healthy serving of salt,” attorneys for UMG, SME and WMG wrote. “During the time period at issue here, Cox terminated over 600,000 subscribers for not paying their bills. When Cox’s money is on the line, Cox clearly has no problem ‘irreparably cutting’ its customers ‘off from society.’”
Kix Brooks is marking the end of an era, as he steps down from his nearly two-decade role as host of the national country music radio show American Country Countdown. Brooks’s final broadcast will air the weekend of Dec. 28-29, 2024.
Beginning the weekend of Jan. 4-5, 2025, country radio personality Ryan Fox will take over as host of American Country Countdown with Ryan Fox. Fox currently serves as on-air host, mornings, at Dallas country station KPLX/99.5 The Wolf.
Brooks took on the hosting role at American Country Countdown in January 2006, guiding listeners through each week’s top hits, while both entertaining them with his wit and humor, but also offering deep insights into artists, the country music genre and its rich history.
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“I never dreamed I would be asked to host a legendary international radio show like American Country Countdown,” Brooks said in a statement. “The fact that I have been supported by hundreds of affiliates and an amazing team of radio professionals for 18 years has made this one of the greatest experiences of my professional life. It’s time to turn my primary focus back to writing, recording and touring with Brooks & Dunn. It’s been an honor, to say the least, that I was trusted with a microphone that had such an iconic history. Special thanks to all the fans who listened and participated, to ensure that I was being the best that I could be. Keep counting ‘em down!”
Brooks’s work leading American Country Countdown, which is broadcast to more than 300 station affiliates nationwide through Westwood One, was honored with the Country Music Association’s national broadcast personality of the year in 2009, 2011 and 2013, making Brooks the first person to win a CMA award in both artist and broadcast categories. He also claimed the Academy of Country Music’s radio award for national personality in 2021.
Fox said in a statement, “To be given the opportunity to take the reins on one of the longest running, most successful, Country countdown shows in the world and sit in the same chair as Hall of Famers like the legendary Kix Brooks and the late, great Bob Kingsley, is a tremendous honor. This is a terrific era for country music, and I cannot wait to count down the biggest country hits from coast to coast!”
As part of Brooks & Dunn, Brooks just picked up a 15th win in the Country Music Association’s vocal duo of the year category during last week’s CMA Awards, held Nov. 20 in Nashville.
Universal Music Group (UMG) is firing back at a lawsuit from Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst claiming the label owes the band more than $200 million, calling the allegations “fiction” and demanding they be thrown out of court.
The blockbuster lawsuit, filed last month in Los Angeles federal court, claimed that Durst had “not seen a dime in royalties” over the decades — and that hundreds of other artists may have been treated similarly under “systemic” and “fraudulent” policies.
But in UMG’s first response on Friday, attorneys for the label said the lawsuit must be dismissed immediately because it is “based on a fallacy.”
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“Plaintiffs’ entire narrative that UMG tried to conceal royalties is a fiction,” writes Rollin A. Ransom, an attorney with the law firm Sidley Austin who represents UMG in the lawsuit. “Plaintiffs’ complaint fails as a matter of law and should be dismissed with prejudice.”
The key problem with Durst’s claims? According to UMG’s attorneys, it’s that documents included in his own lawsuit “eviscerate” his allegations. They specifically cite emails in which a UMG exec appears to have reached out to get royalties flowing, but was rebuffed by the band’s own business manager.
“Over a year before plaintiffs’ ‘discovery’ of allegedly ‘concealed’ royalties, UMG affirmatively and unilaterally reached out to Limp Bizkit’s representative so that it could begin making royalty payments to the band, and was instead informed by him that all members of Limp Bizkit but one (including plaintiff Durst) had assigned their royalty shares to others, and were therefore not entitled to any royalty payments from UMG,” the company wrote in Friday’s filing.
Durst’s attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday. They will have a chance to file a formal response in court opposing UMG’s motion to end the case.
Durst and Limp Bizkit sued UMG in October, claiming the band had “never received any royalties from UMG,” despite its huge success over the years: “The band had still not been paid a single cent by UMG in any royalties until taking action.”
That claim was something of a stunner. How had one of the biggest bands of its era, which sold millions of records during the music industry’s MTV-fueled, turn-of-the-century glory days, still never have been paid any royalties nearly three decades later?
According to Durst, the answer was an “appalling and unsettling” scheme to conceal royalties from artists and “keep those profits for itself.” He claimed the company essentially kept Limp Bizkit in the red with shady bookkeeping, allowing it to falsely claim the band remained unrecouped — meaning its royalties still had not surpassed the amount the group had been paid in upfront advances.
But in Friday’s response, UMG said such claims of “concealment” were undercut by those emails. UMG says the message show a senior royalties director reaching out on his own initiative to Paul Ta, the band’s business manager, to “start making royalty payments,” but being rebuffed.
“Mr. Ta rejected that proposition, responding that all the Limp Bizkit members but one (including Plaintiff Durst) ‘have … sold/assigned their share [of the royalties] to various companies,’ such that no royalty payments were owing to any of those individuals (including Plaintiff Durst),” UMG wrote in Friday’s motion.
UMG says Ta later emailed back that his statements had been incorrect, at which point the label paid out roughly $3.4 million to the band and its companies – a fact that contradicts the lawsuit’s claims of “never received any royalties.”
“Plaintiffs concede thereafter receiving millions of dollars in payments from UMG,” the label wrote Friday. “Plaintiffs nevertheless brought this suit alleging breach of contract and fraud on their ‘suspicion’ that they are owed more royalties, and seeking rescission of the parties’ agreements.”
Award-winning songwriter Rhett Akins has signed with Jonas Group Publishing (JGP). Additionally, Jonas Catalog Holdings will acquire songs from Akins’s extensive catalog, while Warner Chappell Music will continue its long relationship with Akins and administer the copyrights.
Akins, who is a two-time BMI songwriter of the year winner, eight-time CMA triple play winner, Academy of Country Music songwriter of the decade recipient and a Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee, has had songs recorded by Jason Aldean, Brooks & Dunn, Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton and more.
Jonas Catalog Holdings has also acquired songs from his Little Brocephus Music,Ritten by Rhettro Catalogs. The acquisition includes songs such as “Love You, Miss You, Mean It” (Luke Bryan), “What’s Your Country Song” (Thomas Rhett), “To Be Loved By You” (Parker McCollum), “Half Of Me” (Thomas Rhett/Riley Green), “It Matters To Her” (Scotty McCreery), and “Red” (HARDY/Morgan Wallen).
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Jonas Group Publishing launched in 2020 and is a division of Jonas Group Entertainment, founded by Kevin Jonas Sr. in 2005. Jonas Group Publishing is led by JGP president Leslie T. DiPiero and is home to songwriters including Akins, Justin Ebach, Terri Jo Box, Franklin Jonas, Bailee Madison, Amy Stroup and the catalog of Julia Michaels.
“Rhett is an extraordinary songwriter,” DiPiero said in a statement. “Personally, I have admired his work since I first came to town. He is a master of everything that is great about country music. It is an honor to represent his catalog of excellence, and our entire team is looking forward to contributing to his continued growth and success.”
“I’ve seen Leslie’s dedication to songwriters for many years,” Akins said. “She is a friend of and advocate for creators. The impact the Jonas family has made on the music world is remarkable, and it is obvious their love for music and family is their driving force. You put all that together, and I think you have a pretty unstoppable squad that leads with their values. I am very excited to join Kevin, Leslie, and the whole Jonas Group Publishing team.”
“We are honored to welcome Rhett to our roster, along with his incredible catalog,” Jonas of Jonas Group Entertainment stated. “Rhett is an immensely talented songwriter whose contributions have shaped the landscape of country music and beyond. His catalog reflects not only his incredible talent but also his ability to create songs that resonate with audiences around the world.
“We are thrilled to bring Rhett’s body of work into the Jonas Group Publishing family, which would not have been possible without the support and expertise of our trusted financial partner, Corrum Capital Management. We must also thank Access Media Advisory and Teresa Miles Walsh, Dave and Ruscell Pavlin, Matthew Beckett, and Milom Crow Kelley Beckett Shehan PLC for providing valuable assistance throughout the purchase of the catalog. All of us at JGP look forward to celebrating and amplifying Rhett’s extraordinary artistry.”
Three of Nelly’s former St. Lunatics bandmates have now formally dropped out of a lawsuit seeking royalties from the rapper’s breakout album Country Grammar – two months after they said they hadn’t wanted to sue him in the first place.
The lawsuit, which claims the Lunatics contributed to the album but that Nelly cut them out of the credits, was first filed in September by Ali (Ali Jones), Murphy Lee (Tohri Harper), Kyjuan (Robert Kyjuan) and City Spud (Lavell Webb). But Lee, Kyjuan and Spud quickly rebelled — saying they never consented to the lawsuit and demanded that they be removed from the case immediately.
In an updated version filed Friday, the lawyers behind the lawsuit finally did so – meaning the case is now a dispute between Ali and Nelly alone. In a statement to Billboard, Ali’s attorney who filed the case, Precious Felder Gates, said her client would “continue to pursue the unpaid royalties he is entitled to.”
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“Our client, Mr. Jones, is deeply committed to protecting his creative contributions and ensuring rightful compensation for his work,” Felder Gates said. “While others may have chosen to withdraw, his dedication to his artistic legacy and his rights as a creator remains unwavering.”
A group of high school friends from St. Louis, the St. Lunatics rose to prominence in the late 1990s with “Gimme What U Got”, and their debut album Free City — released a year after Country Grammar — was a hit of its own, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
In their Sept. 18 complaint, the bandmates claimed that Nelly had repeatedly “manipulated” them into falsely thinking they’d be paid for their work on the 2000 album, which spent five weeks atop the Billboard 200. But they said he never made good on the promises.
“Every time plaintiffs confronted defendant Haynes [he] would assure them as ‘friends’ he would never prevent them from receiving the financial success they were entitled to,” the lawsuit reads. “Unfortunately, plaintiffs, reasonably believing that their friend and former band member would never steal credit for writing the original compositions, did not initially pursue any legal remedies.”
But in early October, Lee, Kyjuan and Spud joined Nelly on stage for his performance at the American Music Awards – a seemingly strange move for jilted bandmates engaged in active litigation. Days later, it made more sense: They never wanted to sue Nelly.
As Billboard reported at the time, a lawyer representing the trio had privately sent a letter just a week after the case was filed, warning the attorneys behind the case that Lee, Kyjuan and Spud had “informed me that they did not authorize you to include them as plaintiffs.”
“They are hereby demanding you remove their names forthwith,” N. Scott Rosenblum wrote in the Sept. 24 letter, which was obtained by Billboard. “Failure to do so will cause them to explore any and all legal remedies available to them.”
In Friday’s updated lawsuit, the attorneys for Ali did just that, removing Lee, Kyjuan and Spud from the list of plaintiffs. But they also included new substantive allegations as part of their amended complaint.
In one major change, they added HarbourView Equity Partners to the list of defendants, citing Nelly’s $50 million catalog sale to the company last summer. Calling it a “substantial transaction,” Ali’s attorneys suggested that the big deal helped spark the lawsuit.
“At this juncture, it became apparent that, notwithstanding defendant Haynes’ repeated assurances … defendant would not fulfill his longstanding promises to compensate plaintiff,” Ali’s attorneys wrote.
A representative for HarbourView did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday.
Brady Bedard has been appointed as the executive vice president of promotion for Atlantic Music Group, transitioning from a 26-year career at Sony Music and Columbia Records, where he most recently served as senior vp of pop promotion. In his new role, Bedard will take the lead on promotion strategies for the Atlantic, 300 and 10K Projects labels.
Bedard’s career has been marked by significant contributions to the success of high-profile artists such as Adele, Beyoncé, Harry Styles, Miley Cyrus, BTS, and many more. A native of the Twin Cities, he began his career as a college rep for Sony Music in 1998. Over the years, he progressed through roles in marketing and radio promotion, eventually landing his most recent position in 2018. His expertise spans multiple genres and a deep understanding of the evolving radio and music landscape.
AMG CEO Elliot Grainge praised Bedard’s extensive experience and strong industry connections, emphasizing his ability to navigate the complexities of promotion.
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“He’s expertly navigated the ever-shifting radio landscape for more than a quarter century, with a passionate devotion to the music and deep relationships across the industry,” said Grainge.
Bedard’s appointment is part of a broader leadership restructuring under Grainge, who recently also named Alana Dolgin as the label’s first president of digital marketing, underscoring AMG’s focus on digital innovation.
This leadership evolution aligns with broader strategic initiatives at Warner Music. In last week’s earnings call, Warner CEO Robert Kyncl commended Atlantic and Warner Records for driving growth through innovative talent discovery and promotion. He highlighted the success of 10K Projects, a joint venture between Warner and AMG, attributing its rapid growth to Grainge’s digitally driven strategies. Kyncl also lauded Grainge’s intensity — “I love that about him,” he said — and decisive leadership, which he believes attracts top talent.
Bedard expressed enthusiasm for his new role, citing Atlantic’s legacy of artist development and its strong reputation in radio promotion.
“Having spent my entire career so far at one company, the only other place I could ever imagine working is one with such a rich history of artist development and genre-spanning roster as WMG,” said Bedard. “Atlantic is a legend in the radio promotion business, and to join the company at this transformational moment is tremendously exciting. I want to thank Elliot for this amazing opportunity.”
Artist manager and investor Nicholas Parasram and Twitch co-founder Justin Kan have announced a new venture that will offer artist and producer management along with publishing and distribution services, as well as an “incubation lab” — the latter “to help its clients bridge the gap with emergent technologies and develop new IP and businesses,” according to a press release.
Announced Monday (Nov. 22), the venture, called Thin Ice Entertainment, launches with several clients: electronic producer Stryv (“Move,” recently remixed by Camila Cabello); longtime David Guetta and Sia collaborator Marcus van Wattum, who has also produced for Britney Spears, G-Eazy and TWICE; Nigerian producer Zone, whose productions have been featured on tracks by Jason Derulo, Sexxy Red and more; and producer RE/MIND, who worked with Zone and Derulo on the Derulo track “Limbo.”
“At our core, Thin Ice is focused on helping talent create businesses around their IP and ensuring their brands scale in their own unique way,” said Parasram in a statement. “Justin and I started Thin Ice because we want to create a platform for creatives to truly express themselves through their art and help them build a sustainable living from it. Leveraging our combined experience in the startup ecosystem, Thin Ice is also incubating in-house technology products to help talent better monetize, distribute, and create IP. We’ve applied the same principles we’ve used in the startup ecosystem –investing at the earliest stage and focusing on supercharging growth — to the entertainment industry, empowering creatives to take their businesses to new heights.”
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Parasram and Kan originally connected while working together at Kan’s venture fund Goat Capital, which incubated and invested in early-stage tech companies including Stash and Rye. Prior to Goat Capital, Parasram founded Sonar Projects, through which he managed creators, worked on brand marketing campaigns and secured content deals for venture-backed startups. In 2015, he partnered with Stryv to help launch the producer’s career, eventually getting him signed to Artist Partner Group (APG) in 2020.
Kan is best known as the co-founder of Twitch, which was acquired by Amazon in 2014 for $970 million. He serves as a general partner at Goat Capital and was previously a partner at incubator Y Combinator. Over his career, he has invested in more than 100 startups, including Mercury, Ramp, Cruise, Alto Pharmacy, Xendit, Scale, Reddit and Rippling.
The value of global music copyright reached $45.5 billion in 2023, up 11% from the prior year, according to the latest annual industry tally by economist Will Page. When Page first calculated the value of various music copyright-related revenue streams in 2014, the figure was $25 billion—meaning music copyright could double in value in ten years.
Record labels represented the largest share of global music copyright with $28.5 billion in 2023, up 21% from 2022. Streaming grew 10.4% and accounted for the majority of labels’ revenue. Physical revenues fared even better, rising 13.4%, while vinyl record sales improved 15.4%. Globally, vinyl is poised to overtake CD sales “soon,” Page says. CD sales are still high in Japan and across Asia, but Page points out that vinyl is selling more units at increasingly higher prices. “It’ll easily be a $3 billion business by the next [summer] Olympics” in 2028, he says.
Collective management organizations that collect royalties on behalf of songwriters and publishers had revenue of $12.9 billion, up 11% from the prior year. In a sign of shifting economic influence, live performances now pay more to CMOs than general licensing for public performances. Additionally, CMOs’ digital collections exceeded revenues from broadcast and radio, reflecting the extent to which streaming has usurped the power of legacy media. A decade ago, digital made up just 5% of collections while broadcast accounted for half.
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In another shift in the industry’s power dynamics, publishers collected more revenue from direct licensing than they received from CMOs. These royalties are a combination of “large and broadly stable income like sync and grand rights and fast-growing digital income,” says Page. “Publishers prefer direct licensing as it means they see more money faster,” he explains. A song that spikes in mid-March, for example, takes 201 days to pay the artist and 383 days to pay the songwriter. “What’s more,” he adds, “a third of that [songwriter] revenue can disappear in transaction costs” in the form of administration fees charged by various CMOs.
While some parts of music copyright suffered during the pandemic—namely public performance revenue—music has surged since 2020 to overtake the brick-and-mortar movie business. In 2023, music was 38% larger than cinema. That marked a massive shift since pre-pandemic 2019, when cinema was 33% bigger than music. Over the last four years, music grew 44% while cinema shrank 21%. The true difference between music and cinema is even greater: Page’s music copyright numbers account for trade revenue that goes to rights holders and creators. The cinema figures in his head-to-head comparison represent consumer spending. Of cinema’s $33.2 billion in box office revenues in 2023, only half goes to distribution, according to one analyst’s estimate.
Page’s report covers the totality of revenue generated by both master recordings and musical works. He removes double-counting — mechanical royalties that are counted as revenue by both record labels and music publishers, for example — and fills in the gaps in more focused industry tabulations by the IFPI, CISAC and the International Federation of Music Publishers.
“Anyone trying to capture the attention of policymakers who doesn’t grasp the threat posed by AI, for example, may find it handy to have a big number showing what’s at stake,” he wrote in the report.
For large, Western music companies, the globalization of music has opened new markets to their repertoire. Page’s report looks at the reverse effect: the value of developed streaming markets to artists in less wealthy countries. North America and Europe, regions dominated by subscription revenue, accounted for 80% of the value of streaming growth but just 48% of the increase in the volume of streaming. In contrast, Latin America and Asia (less Japan), where streaming platforms get far less revenue from each listener, accounted for 12% of streaming’s value growth compared to 46% of its streaming activity gains.
To artists from Latin America and Asia, fans in markets where streaming royalties are higher can be lucrative. For example, the nearly $100 million of streaming revenues generated by Colombian artists such as J. Balvin and Shakira inside the U.S. was six times greater than those streams would have been worth in their home country. This “trade-boost” of $78 million was worth more than the entire $74 million Colombian recorded music industry. Similarly, Mexican artists’ streams inside the U.S. were worth $350 million in 2023—$200 million more than had those streams come from Mexico.
“Let’s remember, Mexico and Colombia are just two examples exporting to just one market,” says Page, who co-authored a paper in 2023 that described the rise of “globalization,” a term for music created for local markets in native languages that tops local charts on global streaming platforms. “There’s so many more across South and Central America and the whole world is listening to these new ‘glocalisatas’.”