State Champ Radio DistroKid
Leading indie distributor DistroKid has named COO Phil Bauer as its new president, the company announced Thursday (Jan. 11), where he will lead day to day operations. As part of the new leadership structure, founder and CEO Philip Kaplan is transitioning into the role of chairman moving forward. Bauer has served as COO of the […]
MNTGE, a vintage clothing brand that integrates blockchain technology into its garments, partnered with Grimes‘ Elf. Tech initiative for a limited-edition merch collaboration. The deal will encompass vintage, one-of-one NFC chip-enabled vintage t-shirts and denim jackets, screen-printed with AI graphics designed by Grimes on the back and an Elf. Tech graphic screen-printed on the sleeve. The NFC chips will provide both a digital rendering of the garment and a certificate of authenticity, as well as the ability to preview new music from Grimes by scanning the chips on a smartphone. The Grimes + MNTGE jacket retails for $200 and the t-shirt retails for $50 here.
In other Grimes-related news, CreateSafe — the company whose Triniti API powers Grimes’ Elf.Tech platform — partnered with music technology platform Slip.stream to make more than 200 GrimesAI songs available to creators and fans in their video content and live-streams on any platform. Grimes unveiled the Elf.Tech platform in beta this past May, allowing fans to create and upload songs by cloning the singer’s voice.
DistroKid struck an expanded agreement with TikTok that will make music from artists distributed by DistroKid available across CapCut and TikTok’s Commercial Music Library as well as its recently unveiled social music streaming service TikTok Music, which is now available in Brazil and Indonesia and in beta in Mexico, Australia and Singapore. This is the first time music from DistroKid artists will be available on TikTok Music.
Additionally, DistroKid partnered with digital audio workstation FL Studio to distribute works uploaded to FL Cloud — described as a new service within the FL Studio 21.2 update that will offer producers a growing library of royalty-free loops and one-shots, unlimited AI-powered mastering and unlimited music distribution to all major digital streaming platforms.
Esports company GameSquare Holdings entered into a “definitive agreement” with FaZe Holdings to acquire online gaming and youth culture brand FaZe Clan “in an arm’s length all-stock transaction,” according to a press release. The release states that FaZe Clan and GameSquare generated annual revenue of roughly $138 million and reached a 26.3% gross margin last year. “Management expects to realize over $18 million in run-rate cost savings from the FaZe Clan acquisition, supported by reduced duplicate corporate costs and other cost savings,” the release continues. The combined company plans to give guidance following the close of the transaction, after which Richard “FaZe Banks” Bengtson will take over as FaZe Clan CEO; Thomas “FaZe Temperrr” Oliveira will take over as president; and Yousef “FaZe Apex” Abdelfattah will take over as COO. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2023, subject in part to the approval of FaZe Clan and GameSquare shareholders.
The Circuit Group, a recently formed entity designed to create business opportunities around artists’ intellectual property, signed a strategic partnership with U.K.-based house music label Defected Records. Under the deal, The Circuit Group will offer Defected, along with its sister- and sub-labels, expertise across its suite of services to help the label build its presence in North America. In turn, Defected will support The Circuit Group as it expands its presence in the United Kingdom, Europe and other territories globally.
Defected Records also signed an agreement with Reactional Music, the maker of an interactive music engine for video games. Under that deal, Defected licensed the masters for a selection of tracks from its catalog for use on Reactional’s music delivery platform and personalization engine for game developers. Songs to be made available under the deal include cuts from Bob Sinclar, Dennis Ferrer, Kings of Tomorrow, MK and The Shapeshifters, CamelPhat, Honey Dijon and John Summit.
Michael Bublé launched Fraser & Thompson, a new whiskey brand in partnership with longtime friend and master distiller and blender Paul Cirka. The whiskey is blended and bottled by Heaven Hill in Bardstown, Ky. and will be brought to market by spirits incubator WES Brands.
Warner Music’s ADA renewed its longstanding partnership with independent label LAB Records, which has released music by artists including Tommy Lefroy, BEKA, Beach Weather, Antony Szmierek, Des Rocs, Aziya, Crawlers, The K’s, Nell Mescal and Yoke Lore.
Sphere Entertainment partnered with Madison Square Garden Sports on a deal that will see next-generation Las Vegas venue Sphere become the official jersey patch partner of the New York Knicks. The Sphere logo will now appear on all Knicks game jerseys during both home and away games in the 2023-24 season; it will also be on Knicks practice jerseys, warm-up shirts and jerseys sold at Madison Square Garden’s in-arena retail locations as well as on shop.MSG.com.
Copyright management firm Pex and its rights initiative, RME, entered a collaboration with copyright protection platform Cosynd. Under the partnership, RME’s community of creators and rightsholders can utilize Cosynd’s copyright registration API to register their works with the U.S. Copyright Office.
ASM Global struck a partnership with Adventist Health that will see the California City of Stockton’s 10,000-seat facility renamed Adventist Health Arena. Upgrades to the arena will include a new 360-degree LED center-hung, ribbon boards, back-of-house enhancements and more.
Elsewhere, ASM Global signed a deal with the City of Andover, Kans., to manage and operate the Capitol Federal Amphitheater for five years beginning on Jan. 1, 2024. It also renewed its management agreement with the Jekyll Island Convention Center in Jekyll Island, Ga. through 2029, with an option for an additional five-year renewal after that.
Audius, a blockchain-based streaming platform, launched its music marketplace in beta on Wednesday (Nov. 1), meaning that its user base — which has ranged between 4 and 7 million in recent months — can now send direct payments to their favorite artists.
“We were a marketplace for engagement and attention,” Roneil Rumburg, co-founder/CEO of Audius, tells Billboard. “But talk to any artists — what’s top of mind for them is, ‘How am I going to pay rent next month?’ This feature allows them to make the following they have a financial asset. There’s a structure to monetize via Audius now rather than just building a fan base.”
More than 40 acts, including RAC, Matt Ox and Cheat Codes, will participate in the beta program, which Audius hopes to roll out widely in the first quarter of 2024. Artists can set prices for fans to stream a previously unreleased demo or download stems to participate in a remix competition, for example. And fans can pay artists more than that price if they’re particularly excited about an offering.
“What we heard [from users] is they were looking for a deeper way to engage with artists,” Romburg explains. He likens allowing them to tip extra on top to “the behavior pattern you see from the folks who buy vinyl even though they don’t have a record player at home — they want to support that artist.” (Users are further incentivized to support artists via a matching program: If an act sells access to a track for $1, for example, that act and the purchaser each get 1 $AUDIO tokens, which helps them gain more voting power on the community-run platform.)
Implementing a monetization option has also allowed Audius to build new bridges to the traditional music industry for the first time. “This monetization feature set saw fairly broad buy-in,” Rumburg says. The platform is partnering with DistroKid, allowing a large number of independent acts the option to put their music on Audius, and Beatport, an important hub for the dance music community. In addition, Audius is announcing its first set of label partners, a group that includes EMPIRE, Nettwerk Music, Circus Records and Anjunadeep, among others.
Rumburg cautions that “the way the deals with the labels coming on are structured, it’s not like their whole catalog gets shoved into Audius.”
“Uploading the same music that’s available everywhere else probably wouldn’t work,” he continues. “Where we’ve had the most success is when artists are sharing weird, different things that they probably wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing with their broader fan base. Something like sharing early draft versions of future content to get feedback — the most highly engaged part of the fan base loves that s—.”
But under the new deals, Romburg adds, “When content is shared on Audius that’s owned by a label, the payments will flow correctly.”
Digital distributor DistroKid has acquired Bandzoogle, a platform specializing in helping artists create websites and sell their wares to fans. Launched in 2003 and based in Ottawa, Canada, Bandzoogle powers more than 60,000 artist websites and e-commerce stores, and provides solutions for crowdfunding, subscriptions and mailing lists. “At DistroKid, we’re always working on innovative ways […]
DistroKid is all grown up, with the launch of its first-ever branded mobile app.
Initially available for iPhone, DistroKid’s app puts the independent digital music distributor’s tools at the fingertips of artists, all the time.
From today (May 4), clients can upload new releases, receive instant payment alerts, access stats from Apple and Spotify, and edit metadata, all from their devices, according to a presser.
“The number one request we’ve gotten from DistroKid members is a dedicated mobile app,” comments Matthew Ogle, VP of product at DistroKid. “With music consumption, promotion, and increasingly even music creation happening predominately on mobile, we are meeting artists where they’re at, on their phones.”
British R&B singer Xadi participated in the beta-rollout, and, in a statement, vouches that the app “felt so familiar and easy to use.”
It’s unclear when the app will be available for Android.
The DistroKid iPhone app is the latest innovation from DistroKid, which claims to distribute 30-40% of all new music in the world and, in 2021, was valued at $1 billion.
Earlier in 2023, the business pressed the button on Mixea, an AI-powered intelligent mastering tool that helps artists prep their tunes for radio.
Last year, DistroKid officially got busy in the music video space with the launch of DistroVid, which enables artists to upload an unlimited number of music videos to leading digital service providers for one flat price.
And in 2021, the rollout of Upstream, a service that would allow independent artists using the platform to share data with record labels in hopes of grabbing attention, and getting signed.
Now in its 10th year, DistroKid pays artists 100% of their earnings, and claims to have processed more than 25 million songs.
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