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It’s been months since the concept of “artist-centric” royalties was introduced in a January memo from Universal Music Group Sir Lucian Grainge to his staff. It raised a considerable amount of speculation for a company memo, even though for a while the concept remained rather vague. Something about streaming manipulation, functional music, and a model that “supports all artists.”
Now, though, that speculation is over: Deezer has announced its UMG-backed proposal, with plans to launch it soon.
We need more clarity, but this proposal definitely adds to the streaming debate, which is important if we want to improve the streaming ecosystem. The European recorded music market is still far from where it should be – around 42% of its market peak when adjusted for inflation, following the absence of any substantial change in streaming subscription prices over the past decade and a half.
How do we fix this?
First, we need to see higher subscription prices. We have seen some increases, but they are still minor. We just can’t escape that fact. Then there are ideas about how the business can reallocate royalties, and we need as many voices as possible to take part in the discussion. IMPALA started t this wo years and a half ago with its 10-point plan to make the most of streaming, which we revisited in April (infographic here and full plan here). We think Deezer’s proposal is ambitious, and some of it resonates with our own. But it also includes some more controversial provisions.
Let’s start with them.
I’m referring of course to Deezer’s plan to set a threshold for boosts in royalties, available only to acts that get a certain number of streams from a certain number of listeners. Where would the additional revenues go? How many artists would benefit? And what does it say about the stability of the system that an artist could attain “professional” status for a month, only to potentially lose it in following one?
More clarity is needed. Independent labels account for 80% of new releases (including artists patiently awaiting discovery, artists who cater to niche audiences, artists from smaller territories and newcomers just starting their artistic journey). We must avoid a two-tier approach that would impact not only their work, but musical diversity as a whole. We understand that this is not Deezer’s objective, but IMPALA will always oppose thresholds that would harm smaller players and smaller markets, a position that was set already in our first streaming plan. Let’s make sure it’s not the case here.
Key to IMPALA’s approach is a progressive redistribution of revenues where tracks would see a boost in royalties beneath and before the point of global ubiquity, and those which are in the top echelon (however that’s defined) would lose a small percentage of revenue. That’s the Artist Growth model – initially developed by AIM in the UK. We feel this can lead to a healthier ecosystem and more opportunity for new creators from diverse genres.
This could be controversial as well, which is fine, as long as we remember that change must be discussed – and negotiated. It shouldn’t simply be imposed in a deal between two market players, even when one of them is the leader of the market. And while Deezer and UMG will launch this plan soon, until other stakeholders agree, this “artist-centric” model will really be UMG-centric.
Deezer’s plan also has a lot of positives, though.
Who could argue that streaming manipulation needs to be addressed, for example? We absolutely support Deezer’s commitment there, which is also point 4 of IMPALA’s proposal, but we will need to review the idea of caps on individual accounts as we wouldn’t want superfan streams to be devalued.
Deezer also want to address “noise” content is also an issue that Deezer seeks to address. We flagged this in our plan, as a way to address revenue dilution. So we welcome this move and would appreciate other ideas to handle this content, which has a place, as long as it doesn’t dilute royalties.
Deezer’s second proposal for boosts in royalties, for tracks that fans actively engage with, is also interesting. That’s also the rationale behind our “Active Engagement” model, put forward in our plan in 2021. There are different ways one could do this, but it’s great to see the idea getting traction.
Is Deezer ready to make the imaginative leap to embrace the “Fan Participation” model, also proposed by IMPALA, to offer creators a space within the service where they could develop incremental revenues from direct relationships with fans? If so, we could be talking about really exciting and important changes in the streaming market.
We hope that services will also look at ways of rewarding artists who record longer-form music. That’s a conversation we started with our “Pro rata Temporis” model. The issue needs to be addressed without at the same time harming shorter tracks.
In the meantime, we need more extensive discussion and debate. We invite all interested parties to explore IMPALA’s plan and share their perspectives as we collectively navigate the evolving streaming landscape.
Let’s keep the ideas coming!
Helen Smith is the Executive Chair of IMPALA, the European non-profit organization that represents independent music companies, with key issues that include copyright, sustainability, diversity and inclusion, streaming reform, AI, finance and digital services as well as strategic relations with key partners through the Friends of IMPALA program.
Today we are releasing U.S. recorded music revenue data for the first half of 2023, reflecting 9.3% growth over the first half of 2022 — the ninth straight year of positive growth.
With overall first-half revenues hitting an all-time high of $8.4 billion at retail value and paid streaming subscriptions nearing 96 million, this report makes clear the strength of American recorded music’s fundamentals.
For example, this new data shows broad strength across formats — especially digital streaming, which now comprises some 84% of recorded music revenues and grew at a robust 10.3% rate this period. Looking solely at paid streaming subscriptions, that figure climbs to 11%.
In fact, paid subscription services were responsible for nearly two-thirds of total revenues and more than three-quarters of streaming revenues. And they continued to grow at an even faster rate than ad-supported revenues.
But it’s not only streaming; the new data also show the lasting power of physical formats — which grew by 5% — including growth in the value of sales of CDs and vinyl. Overall, physical revenues reached their highest level since a full decade ago, topping $880 million so far this year.
And digital and customized radio music revenues, which include SoundExchange distributions for revenues from services like SiriusXM and internet radio stations, grew 16% to $657 million for the period.
As we’re fond of saying, “Music doesn’t just happen.” This success reflects the hard work, innovation, and creative genius of the artists, songwriters, labels, publishers, and services that make up the U.S. music community.
Finally, with annual Latin music revenues in the U.S. exceeding $1 billion for the first time in 2022 and the first half of 2023 showing continued growth faster than overall revenues, Latin music continues to shine — both economically and creatively. We look forward to releasing a full report on the Latin segment during Hispanic Heritage Month and as a capstone to our upcoming RIAA Honors Celebration of Latin music where we will recognize legends Gloria and Emilio Estefan, superstar Sebastián Yatra and other Latin music trailblazers as well as the policymakers who protect it all.
RIAA is proud to develop and release this transparent data which shows the continued power and vitality of U.S. recorded music.
Mitch Glazier is chairman/CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America.
I’m a California-raised Filipino American who spent my formative years (in the mid-aughts) worshiping bands like Death Cab for Cutie and much of the Myspace-era Warped Tour scene. So when I was 16, I decided to pursue my dream of starting my own band. But as I took a closer look at the artists I loved, the realization hit: Apart from Joey Santiago of the Pixies (who is Filipino), there was no one who looked like me.
Even as I transitioned into the business side of the music industry — working at large management companies, agencies and in touring — the lack of diversity was hard to ignore. And while the industry has changed a lot since I was a teenager, it still has so much room to grow.
As an active songwriter and senior director of A&R at Angry Mob Music Publishing, I’m a big advocate for songwriting camps and the significant opportunity they offer to everyone involved. I recently joined an organization called Mono Stereo Groove, which focuses on the representation of AAPI songwriters in the industry, and, inspired by all of the amazing work being done by those involved in the organization, I wanted to spearhead my own initiative. So at Angry Mob, I decided to introduce a diversity initiative into all creative areas, including by focusing on one of the most important elements in all of songwriting: the community.
This is why I recently launched the New Normal Writing Camp — an all-inclusive, diversity-forward camp that says it all in the name. I wanted to show that diversity should be represented not only on the artist level but also within the writing rooms, which have been very slow to catch up in terms of diversity. Our first annual New Normal Writing Camp, held in June 2023, featured 70% female artists/writers and 50% women producers representing more than 12 cultural backgrounds and featured artists including UMI, Deb Never, Yuna and Paravi. The hope is that camps like this will continue to push the industry to embrace all of the beautifully diverse writers and producers who deserve to be in high-level writing rooms.
The music industry can be difficult to work in, and these songwriting camps give the participants a chance to be themselves, get out of their comfort zones and make music in an intimate, safe space. Through these camps, I have the opportunity to create a diverse environment where songwriters and other professionals can network with those who do and don’t look like them, be exposed to a variety of genres and work with people with whom they otherwise may not have had the opportunity.
The best parts of these week-long writing events are the beautiful songs that are created and the lasting friendships that come out of them. It’s truly special to see people connect through their life stories, cultures and interests, creating music that reflects those. Unless you’re a person of color, it might be hard to grasp how crucial it is to see others who look like you pursuing their dreams and being given a fair shot in a white male-dominated industry. That’s why camps like these — also including Spotify’s GLOW camp for LGBTQ+ writers, Spotify’s Frequency camp for black writers and ASCAP’s She Is the Music camp for women songwriters — are so important.
When chatting about my intention to create writing environments that reflect the world we live in, the response from some industry professionals is usually one of surprise. While that response isn’t necessarily bad, it proves this inclusive approach is far from the norm. But it shouldn’t be. What the industry is blinded to is the potential to miss out on this generation’s next big artist/songwriter/producer — all because its leaders aren’t investing in underrepresented songwriters. All companies need to prioritize this issue, and I feel incredibly lucky to have the Angry Mob team behind me, championing my passion and continuously working alongside me to ensure we’re building a diverse roster of clients and organizing diverse writing camps.
It’s obvious that the music industry has a lot of growing to do, and I could have given up on it a long time ago due to my own experiences with close-minded gatekeepers — but I know that my work, however small, can really move the needle in the right direction. I am extremely proud to be a Filipino American, and it’s important to me to create spaces in the industry where the AAPI community and other underrepresented POC can grow and pursue opportunities that are often not given to them, helping ease the need to work twice as hard to even be considered.
My hope for the future of our industry is equity. I am honored to write about this topic and even share my experience, but I would also like for opportunities in the music industry for underrepresented groups to look the same as everyone else’s. Harkening back to the name of the songwriting camp I launched at Angry Mob, I’m optimistic that we can make diversity in songwriting camps the new normal and not something we need to push for any longer. When combined together, the small steps we take within the industry to provide opportunities to underrepresented groups will impact the future of music in immense ways.
Ralph Torrefranca is the senior director of A&R at Angry Mob Music. He is also a songwriter and the singer/guitarist in the post-punk band Cuffed Up.
Since the end of August, there have been reports that BMI is in advanced talks to sell itself to the private equity firm New Mountain Capital. A deal has yet to be signed but the possibility has raised concerns among songwriters about what it will mean for the collective management sector if one of its largest organizations becomes a business owned by private equity.
Such a move would take BMI in a new direction, away from the traditional model – based on non-profit and transparent operations—of the CISAC community. For CISAC and our global network of 227 Collective Management Organisations (CMOs, or societies), however, it also highlights the strength and value to creators of the global collective rights management system. The collective management model has been successful for over a century, remaining faithful to its core principles, while transforming and adapting to keep pace with the rapidly changing business environment.
BMI will stay connected to this community. In anticipation of the new direction it has taken in the last year, it has moved from being a full CISAC member to a CISAC “client,” a new category that was established in 2020 to accommodate the new types of rights management entities — including SESAC, Soundreef and Nextone – which have emerged.
Clients make up a very small group of “for-profit” entities that differ from the overwhelming majority of CISAC members, which operate on a non-profit basis. Clients are not subject to all of the traditional transparency and business rules that full CISAC members abide by, but still have access to CISAC’s systems and data exchanges that help the global music market function
By accepting for-profit entities as clients, CISAC maintains its inclusiveness and diversity, while not compromising on the core conditions of membership.
It is those core membership conditions which provide the unique value of the global network. Full members, such as ASCAP in the US, PRS for Music in the UK or GEMA in Germany, are required to meet key fundamental rules:
to operate on a non-profit basis or be controlled by their affiliates
to respect CISAC’s global standards of governance and professional rules
to be fully transparent in their financial reporting and share information with the rest of the CISAC members
As a global confederation, CISAC respects individual creators’ decisions on whom they entrust their rights to. It equally respects members and clients’ decisions on how they manage creators’ rights. The global song rights market is changing rapidly, with growing competition between different types of royalty collection bodies at a time when the cost pressures of managing digital collections and distributions has never been greater.
These changes are inevitable and they are good, if they have the end of result of better serving the creators who are at the center of our business.
In this transforming landscape, the vast majority of CISAC’s member societies remain non-profit entities which abide by all CISAC rules. Full CISAC members work only for creators and rightsholders, not shareholders. Their transparency obligations ensure high levels of integrity and best practice across the network. Creators and rightsholders, not financiers and investors, are assured a controlling role in their decision-making. Creators sit on our societies’ Boards of Directors. You’d be hard pressed to find other entities in the music industry which have music creators as their Board members.
The global collective management system gives creators a strong, united voice to lobby for creator-friendly legislation, develop modern systems for data exchange, adopt best practices and maximize collections and distributions. From turning around failing markets such as Greece, Turkey and India, this community continues to play an indispensable role for creators and publishers worldwide.
Our sector remains the only part of the music industry that puts the creator front and centre of everything it does. While more commercial ventures may be tested in our fast-evolving market, the fact remains that the collective management system is the most robust, reliable and fit-for-purpose model in serving creators.
Gadi Oron is the director general of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), a Paris-based rights organization.
September marks the 20th anniversary of the RIAA launching litigation against consumers in a bid to extinguish — or at least dampen — the flames of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing. The consumer litigation was part of a multi-pronged effort that targeted internet service providers, the P2P providers like Napster and Limewire and music fans. In early 2003, nearly 40% of internet users in the United States had used a P2P service to download music, or an estimated 54 million individuals. Upon the RIAA’s announcement of consumer suits, parents began asking their children what they were doing with those stacks of blank CDs; coverage of the pending litigation stifled file sharing before the first notice was filed.
Much has been written about the P2P era, but one thing is for sure: The vast majority of downloaders knew it was illegal. If there was any uncertainty in consumer’s minds, the RIAA litigation helped to clear it up. Perhaps that is the greatest legacy of the consumer litigation, which ended in 2008. The actual law was contested for some time, with arguments about technological innovation and the promotion of that technology for purposes of copyright infringement.
By the 10th anniversary of the consumer litigation in 2013, the record labels had largely won the battle against P2P file sharing. After settlement of the Limewire copyright infringement case in May 2011, the number of people using the remaining services rapidly fell in the United States, and by 2013 had dropped 60% from the peak in 2003. Litigation was one of many contributing factors. The P2P file sharing experience was awful for users, fraught with spoofed files, pop-ups, malware, incomplete and incorrect files, and other maladies. iTunes downloads revived the singles era by offering $.99 tracks. Pandora had been at the top of app store charts for several years, and Spotify was gaining momentum. By 2013, half the U.S. internet using population was streaming, and a handful were beginning to pay for subscriptions. The RIAA moved on to other battles, notably the YouTube “Value Gap.”
As the 20th anniversary of the consumer suits approaches, there has been a stunning reversal in progress in the war to limit consumer access to unlicensed music. An estimated 55 million people in the U.S. acquired or accessed “free” music files in the past year, according to MusicWatch research — the same amount as in 2003. What went wrong? There is an abundance of apps and sites that permit consumers to obtain unlicensed music. Apps that permit YouTube stream-ripping are widely available. Mobile apps available with “free downloads” frequently contain unlicensed content. The very social platforms that the industry relies on to promote artists also harbor unlicensed content. Unlike in the P2P era, the law is clear when it comes to these forms of copyright infringement and licensing requirements, though the DMCA still provides a shield to services that rely on content uploaded by fans.
The problem is the consumer. The teenager who knew that they were committing piracy while downloading In Utero from Limewire is now an adult. Today, they can be easily confused. Their Google music searches may include content that infringes on copyright. Same for the app store on their phone. The recent spate of Taylor Swift Eras tour livestreams on TikTok, while technically the same as a stream-rip of “Cruel Summer,” does not register the same in fans eyes. On top of the unlicensed content, MusicWatch studies indicate 20 million streamers are sharing logins to music streaming services.
The industry has not been silent. The RIAA has litigated against stream-rippers. Mixtape app Spinrilla was successfully sued for infringement and shut down in May. Sony and Universal just sued the Internet Archive for copyright infringement. And as an alternative, streaming companies offer family plans, which raise ARPU and blunt the impact of unauthorized account sharing.
Unlike 2003, however, the industry isn’t paying much attention to the infringing consumer. And why should it? There hasn’t been a collapse in revenues as was experienced during the aughts. Most infringing consumers are active streamers and many pay for a subscription — and a vinyl record or two. There’s not much reason to target music fans. But that doesn’t mean that more shouldn’t be done to educate consumers and further protect the rights of artists and copyright holders.
Russ Crupnick is the principal at market research firm MusicWatch.
The music industry has progressed rapidly over the last decade. TikTok is launching music careers, sites like YouTube are creating new distribution channels and artists like Grimes are open-sourcing their vocals for generative AI creation. But for all of that progress, the opaque systems that control the industry are not in favor of artists driving culture. As listeners, we’ve seen the tip of the iceberg with Taylor Swift’s highly publicized re-recording of her masters and Megan Thee Stallion’s legal dispute with her record label over unpaid royalties.
Music is the most consumed category of art on the planet, and it’s time to evolve the system so that all artists — from top recording stars to indie creators to those who are just getting their careers started — are set up to succeed. But to really grasp what’s needed to shift the power dynamic in the direction of artists, it’s important to peel back the complexities of music revenue.
Changing the narrative on music revenue
There’s a false narrative that is pervasive in the media that says music doesn’t generate any money, driven in large part by the litany of really bad record deals that draw public attention (like the aforementioned Megan Thee Stallion example). But in reality, music makes money — it’s the artists who don’t get paid what they deserve.
The streaming revolution of the 21st century has transformed the way people consume music. But despite streams making up 80-90% of the industry’s revenue, artists see few of those dollars after industry players take their inevitable cuts. Though record labels serve a valuable role in the music ecosystem (from marketing and developing an artist to licensing and distribution), artists can be haunted for decades by bad deals signed early in their careers that unknowingly give away creative control and a significant portion of their future earnings. Artists who have signed contracts with unfavorable terms typically don’t earn negotiating power until they’ve amassed a large following and a fruitful career.
Why the bad deals?
Most artists simply don’t know what they’re signing — it’s not necessarily that they’re making a bad decision. As an artist myself, I experienced this firsthand early in my career. It would take years for me to get paid for my songs — and as someone who’s proficient in accounting from my time studying business in college, my inability to see how much I made from my music was mind-boggling.
The reason that deals are so opaque is that music revenue is growing and coming from more sources than ever before, which creates a complex web of intermediaries within the ecosystem. Every different distributor has a different deal with every different streaming service, and every label has a different deal with every streaming service. And the streaming services are not transparent about how their rates differ across these various deals. Beyond that, there are numerous types of royalties — from performance royalties to mechanical royalties to in-app streaming royalties. Therefore, when it comes to signing on the dotted line, artists must blindly place their trust in a network of counterparties, lacking any real visibility into their actual earnings once every entity has taken their cut. All of this is perpetuated because record labels are incentivized to control information so they can make more competitive deals with artists.
As a result, artists gravitate to what comes naturally — the music. They don’t want to worry about the business side of things because the system isn’t set up in a way that empowers them to ask questions or negotiate favorable deals, and it distracts them from doing what they love.
Finding the opportunity in technology
To rewrite the way music institutions approach music revenue and income, we need to make it as transparent as possible. It seems like a lofty goal for an industry that has long been set in its ways, but technology is making it possible. My company Royal recently launched a free tool that allows any artist to estimate the streaming revenue for their songs. The hope is that artists become more empowered to make deals that uplift their careers.
I’ve also been bullish on crypto since its earliest days, for a variety of reasons, including its ability to transform the music industry with transparency. Blockchain is inherently transparent — in fact, the one thing you can’t do on a blockchain is hide information. It’s all there, at all times. It’s also time-stamped which establishes a clear provenance (traceability of ownership over time). This is especially useful in the music business, where copyright infringement plagues artists and record labels alike. Perhaps most importantly, leveraging tokens that represent rights enables artists to see the value of their songs and create tangible benchmarks upon which to negotiate better deals. With more information always comes more power.
Artists don’t know how much money they’re missing out on, but they could. And it doesn’t have to be a public battle when they do find out. If we embrace technological progress to improve outdated systems, we can create an open data ecosystem that gives artists not only more transparency into their earnings and fan bases but more control over their artistic careers. Better deals alongside more creative freedoms is a winning combination that can define the next 30 years of music — we just have to be willing to change.
Why should artists even care?
As much as streaming has changed the music industry for the better, there are still unanswered questions about how value accrues in this system. Do we equate the value of passively listening to a sleep playlist in the background to actively listening to your favorite album with friends?
This talk of numbers and questions of value may seem like a distraction for artists who just want to spend their time making music — but ignoring this topic completely opens the door to predatory industry practices that threaten musicians’ longevity and entire legacies.
More industry transparency should improve all the variables that play into an artist’s career and result in musicians keeping more ownership of the art they create. Having the humility to acknowledge what music is actually worth is the first step in unlocking more value in this new era of the industry.
Justin Blau is CEO of Royal and a world-renowned musician and producer, known as 3LAU. An early crypto adopter, Justin has been advocating for building the investable layer of music on blockchains since 2017. In 2021, he founded Royal to empower artists to share their music with fans and give people the opportunity to invest in music.
Ask a lawyer: “Do you have too many clients?” The answer will only ever be, “I’d like more.” But not all lawyer-client relationships are created equal. Entertainment lawyers are not like lawyers who handle class action lawsuits and represent thousands of clients with little contact, or personal injury lawyers where you hope that you never have to help the particular client again. We are in a high touch, fast-paced, relationship-based, paper-intensive business.
Billboard raised some great questions and points last month in its widely-discussed report, “Music Lawyers Have a Problem: Too Many Clients, Too Many Deals & Too Much Paperwork.” It’s true: the digital era has removed substantial barriers of entry to recording and distribution of music. Now combine that with the ease and speed of music to market, songs written and recorded, sometimes by as many as ten or more credited writers and producers, and deals that are as varied and creative as the music they’re meant to protect. You’re left with ever-growing piles of music business paperwork.
This “Lawyer Problem” can and will be fixed by a combination of music industry education and training and the deployment of deal-making platforms and tools, aided by AI, that modernize and improve the whole dealmaking process. These are the fundamental beliefs that led me — and co-founder Steven Ship — to build Creative Intell, an education and deal-drafting platform now in private beta.
This doesn’t mean that every artist and their team members need to go to law school. But let’s face it: if you bring your car to a mechanic and can’t describe the problem, you aren’t setting yourself – or the mechanic – up for success. Attorneys spend an enormous amount of time on education, walking clients through basic deal points and nuances. In an age when deals are getting more and more bespoke, it behooves artists and their camps to master the broad dynamics and key terms of basic dealmaking. A striking number of industry professionals in positions where they should know better still don’t understand basic royalty accountings or recoupment; each one of these cases costs the client billable hours and/or a law firm a lot of time.
Administrative process may not sound like the sexiest topic. But given the high volume of deals being done, an enormous amount of time is wasted on tasks as simple as downloading documents, saving the file to the correct folder and naming the document, redlining, checking precedent from prior deals, and looking for variations to include in a revised draft. If you’re a lawyer or a manager, how many emails do you send or receive asking “Where are we with this?” Talk to any working attorney in the music business, and they will acknowledge that these are substantial, contributing factors to the drag on deals.
And you’d be amazed what happens once a deal is signed. How much time is spent on taking contracting metadata and having it entered into royalty systems? Why are producer agreements sent to record labels as PDFs that need to be manually entered into royalty systems? The same goes for song split data for publishers and PROs. Minutes that add up to hours and days can be saved throughout the entire contracting process. Notably, none of the tools utilized by music industry attorneys are actually built for making contracts or their other needs. As platforms where all of the above can be executed, organized and archived in one place emerge and become industry standard, transformative speed and efficiency will result.
And of course, it wouldn’t be a “future of work” piece if we didn’t touch on the potential of AI. Generative tech offers enormous promise in the dealmaking and contracting spaces. Google “legal tech” and “AI” and you’ll see waves of funding and new, still-experimental utility–and yes, plenty of missteps in these early days. But given the right focus and experienced oversight, well-trained engines are capable of generating bespoke language for some of the most common deals in the music business where clients can ask questions, and be provided with immediate, accurate contextual education. These sorts of next-generation platforms should lower the barrier to entry for all music industry stakeholders including artists, songwriters, producers, managers, etc. in a whole different way: creating much greater access to credible, needed legal direction and knowledge to handle the world of music industry deals.
None of this will put lawyers out of business. Rather, as the various elements laid out in this piece begin to come to market, attorneys will be freed to fix higher level issues such as song splits disputes that hold up income for years which require relationships to fix and stamina to resolve. They’ll have more time to develop relationships with more “buyers” and “sellers” to provide added value. And they’ll finally get ahead of paperwork to plan for their clients’ futures. In this world, lawyers may still be unable to help themselves from always wanting more clients. But those clients will receive better, faster service.
David Fritz is partner, Boyarski Fritz LLP, and co-founder, along with Steven Ship, of Creative Intell, a deal-making platform currently in private beta.
Hip-Hop is turning 50 this year, and so am I.
I grew up fully immersed in the world of Hip-Hop and, like many other people, I don’t know anything else. Fifty years on, our culture rightly reminisces about and celebrates the iconic songs, performers, and cultural moments from over the years – but for me, and so many others, Hip-Hop is about more than just the music.
For me, it is the lens through which I view the world. I am a student of KRS-One. “Rap is something you do. Hip-Hop is something you live,” KRS famously said. That expansive view of the word, the sound, the dance, the visual art, the fashion, the business politics, philosophy, technology is what defines me.
Hip-Hop to me is, of course, the foundational “Four Elements” that we all recognize: MCing, B-Boy/B-B-Girling aka Breakdancing, Graffiti and DJing. But beyond these core tenants of the genre, it’s about so much more. Hip-Hop is about the energy and will of the people that cannot be stopped or controlled by any external system – and how we define and create the Culture on our own terms.
It is also how A.I. (Allen Iverson) played basketball. How he arrived at the games, with his hair braided by his mother. How the league changed the dress code to control his expression only to birth an even more powerful expression of fashion and expression we see today.
Hip-Hop was how Barack Obama moved on stage with Michelle and the family. The syncopation of his voice and the pregnant pauses caused the world to hang on his every word with the way he delivered a speech – it felt like rhyming. If he wanted to, Barack would have been an ill MC. Just as I imagine if Hov wanted to run for office he could be Mayor. It is this energy – that multifaceted, multidisciplinary power of Hip-Hop that BRIC looks to celebrate this year and for years to come.
2023 marks the 50th anniversary of Hip-Hop, a huge moment for the Culture. But what happens after the big weekend of celebrations planned for the summer? At BRIC, we’ve been having thoughtful conversations about our own contributions to this moment, particularly with my background as the founder of the Brooklyn Hip-Hop festival and BRIC’s rich history as a place for artistic exploration, incubation, and presentation. As a leading Brooklyn arts and media institution whose work spans contemporary visual and performing arts, media, and civic action, BRIC is uniquely positioned to plug into this moment across the spectrum of arts and culture. For over 40 years, our institution has shaped Brooklyn’s cultural and media landscape by presenting and incubating artists, creators, students, and media makers. As a creative catalyst for our community, we ignite learning in people of all ages and centralize diverse voices that take risks and drive culture forward.
I’m excited to share that, this fall, BRIC is launching a new curatorial lens called BRIC Hip-Hop. Across the organization, we’ve united around an ethos and a mission of creating an evergreen home for the education, expression, and evolution of Hip-Hop. Our programmatic focus will join others in the space by giving Hip-Hop a home for incubation, debate, and development not just during anniversary years, but for many years to come.
In many ways, Hip-Hop culture is built into the DNA of BRIC. For decades, it’s been central to how we operate, how we coordinate, how we curate. On the surface, we may not be here B-Boying or bombing trains, but we operate under the same tenets and philosophies that have fueled Hip-Hop culture for half a century. The fundamental idea is that we use arts, culture and education to communicate and build with our community. It is how we show up for the people—of all races and spaces, of all ages and means—every year, not just this year. Hip-Hop is how we grow, why we adapt, and what we hope to embody in the future. We institutionalize the spirit, diversity and beating heart of Hip-Hop into BRIC’s programming and through BRIC’s team.
We do this because it matters. Hip-Hop is innate to us, but it is also a choice. It is a choice to be multidisciplinary, to embrace art and creation in its many forms. It is a choice to be anti-racist, to embrace people from all walks of life who have found comfort and possibility in the enduring strength of community. It is a choice to be feminist, not to be ageist or transphobic or limit access because of a disability, but to view and operate with a goal of equality and equity of power, purpose and possibility.
By institutionalizing Hip-Hop, by ingraining it into everything we do, we’re seeking to build on its legacy and protect it for generations to come. We are celebrating the past by making entry points for creation in the present to better our collective futures. Maybe you’re a teenager. Maybe you’re a toddler. Maybe you’re grandparents. Maybe you’re from Flatbush or Park Slope or Bed-Stuy. It doesn’t matter. All are welcome.
New York is the birthplace of the Culture and we want to make sure people don’t forget about Brooklyn’s contributions to the story of Hip-Hop, both past and present. Many people walked up and down Fulton Street, from Masta Ace and Big Daddy Kane to Yasiin Bey to HOV himself for clothes, fame, and inspiration. And like those that came before us, we want to come together, cut through the madness of the world and do something real.
We’re beyond excited to share this new vision for BRIC’s contributions to the Hip-Hop space with our communities this fall and in the years to come. BRIC Hip-Hop will be a waystation for scholars, tourists, and artists this year and well into the future. Come join us at the Lena Horne Bandshell or at BRIC House, come down to the stoop, and find your place, whether it be something familiar or new. We can’t wait to have you be a part of the BRIC Hip-Hop conversation.
Wes Jackson has over 25 years of experience as a leader and innovator in entertainment and academia, previously working at Emerson College, The City University of New York, and consulting for Jazz At Lincoln Center. He is a Trustee of the Brooklyn Public Library and Board Chair of the Brooklyn Crescents, and has been leading BRIC — a multi-disciplinary arts and media institution anchored in Downtown Brooklyn — as its President since July 2022. On August 11 & 12, BRIC will commemorate Hip-Hop’s 50th Anniversary with free music performances, screenings, and more in Brooklyn at Prospect Park. Visit here for details.
From ChatGPT writing code for software engineers to Bing’s search engine sliding in place of your bi-weekly Hinge binge, we’ve become obsessed with the capacity for artificial intelligence to replace us.
Within creative industries, this fixation manifests in generative AI. With models like DALL-E generating images from text prompts, the popularity of generative AI challenges how we understand the integrity of the creative process: When generative models are capable of materializing ideas, if not generating their own, where does that leave artists?
Google’s new text-based music generative AI, MusicLM, offers an interesting answer to this viral terminator-meets-ex-machina narrative. As a model that produces “high-fidelity music from text descriptions,” MusicLM embraces moments lost in translation that encourages creative exploration. It sets itself apart from other music generation models like Jukedeck and MuseNet by inviting users to verbalize their original ideas rather than toggle with existing music samples.
Describing how you feel is hard
AI in music is not new. But between recommending songs for Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlists to composing royalty free music with Jukedeck, applications of AI in music have evaded the long-standing challenge of directly mapping words to music.
This is because, as a form of expression on its own, music resonates differently to each listener. The same way that different languages struggle to perfectly communicate nuances of respective cultures, it is difficult (if not impossible) to exhaustively capture all dimensions of music in words.
MusicLM takes on this challenge by generating audio clips from descriptions like “a calming violin melody backed by a distorted guitar riff,” even accounting for less tangible inputs like “hypnotic and trance-like.” It approaches this thorny question of music categorization with a refreshing sense of self awareness. Rather than focusing on lofty notions of style, MusicLM grounds itself in more tangible attributes of music with tags such as “snappy”, or “amateurish.” It broadly considers where an audio clip may come from (eg. “Youtube Tutorial”), the general emotional responses it may conjure (eg. “madly in love”), while integrating more widely accepted concepts of genre and compositional technique.
What you expect is (not) what you get
Piling onto this theoretical question of music classification is the more practical shortage of training data. Unlike its creative counterparts (e.g. DALL-E), there isn’t an abundance of text-to-audio captions readily available.
MusicLM was trained by a library of 5,521 music samples captioned by musicians called ‘MusicCaps.’ Bound by the very human limitation of capacity and the almost-philosophical matter of style, MusicCaps offers finite granularity in its semantic interpretation of musical characteristics. The result is occasional gaps between user inputs and generated outputs: the “happy, energetic” tune you asked for may not turn out as you expect.
However, when asked about this discrepancy, MusicLM researcher Chris Donahue and research software engineer Andrea Agostinelli celebrate the human element of the model. They describe primary applications such as “[exploring] ideas more efficiently [or overcoming] writer’s block,” quick to note that MusicLM does offer multiple interpretations of the same prompt — so if one generated track fails to meet your expectations, another might.
“This [disconnect] is a big research direction for us, there isn’t a single answer,” Andrea admits. Chris attributes this disconnect to the “abstract relationship between music and text” insisting that “how we react to music is [even more] loosely defined.”
In a way — by fostering an exchange that welcomes moments lost in translation — MusicLM’s language-based structure positions the model as a sounding board: as you prompt the model with a vague idea, the generation of approximates help you figure out what you actually want to make.
Beauty is in breaking things
With their experience producing Chain Tripping (2019) — a Grammy-nominated album entirely made with MusicVAE (another music generative AI developed by Google) — the band YACHT chimes in on MusicLM’s future in music production. “As long as it can be broken apart a little bit and tinkered with, I think there’s great potential,” says frontwoman Claire L. Evans.
To YACHT, generative AI exists as a means to an end, rather than the end in itself. “You never make exactly what you set out to make,” says founding member Jona Bechtolt, describing the mechanics of a studio session. “It’s because there’s this imperfect conduit that is you” Claire adds, attributing the alluring and evocative process of producing music to the serendipitous disconnect that occurs when artists put pen to paper.
The band describes how the misalignment of user inputs and generated work inspires creativity through iteration. “There is a discursive quality to [MusicLM]… it’s giving you feedback… I think it’s the surreal feeling of seeing something in the mirror, like a funhouse mirror,” says Claire. “A computer accent,” band member Rob Kieswetter jokes, referencing a documentary about the band’s experience making Chain Tripping.
However, in discussing the implications of this move to text-to-audio generation, Claire cautions the rise of taxonomization in music: “imperfect semantic elements are great, it’s the precise ones that we should worry about… [labels] create boundaries to discovery and creation that don’t need to exist… everyone’s conditioned to think about music as this salad of hyper-specific genre references [that can be used] to conjure a new song.”
Nonetheless, both YACHT and the MusicLM team agrees that MusicLM — as it currently is — holds promise. “Either way there’s going to be a whole new slew of artists fine-tuning this tool to their needs,” Rob contends.
Engineer Andrea recalls instances where creative tools weren’t popularized for its intended purpose: “the synthesizer eventually opened up a huge wave of new genres and ways of expression. [It unlocked] new ways to express music, even for people who are not ‘musicians.’” “Historically, it has been pretty difficult to predict how each piece of music technology will play out,” researcher Chris concludes.
Happy accidents, reinvention, and self-discovery
Back to the stubborn, unforgiving question: Will generative AI replace musicians? Perhaps not.
The relationship between artists and AI is not a linear one. While it’s appealing to prescribe an intricate and carefully intentional system of collaboration between artists and AI, as of right now, the process of using AI in producing art resembles more of a friendly game of trial and error.
In music, AI gives room for us to explore the latent spaces between what we describe and what we really mean. It materializes ideas in a way that helps shape creative direction. By outlining these acute moments lost in translation, tools like MusicLM sets us up to produce what actually ends up making it to the stage… or your Discover Weekly.
Tiffany Ng is an art & tech writer based in NYC. Her work has been published in i-D Vice, Vogue, South China Morning Post, and Highsnobiety.
When introducing myself as the vp of marketing and wellness at Guin Records, a title that doesn’t conform to the usual melody of the music industry, I’m often met with raised eyebrows and intrigued inquiries. This blending of roles — pairing the vibrant, creative world of marketing with the crucial, human aspect of wellness — might seem unconventional to most in our industry. Yet, this combination isn’t just possible. It’s essential and, I would argue, long overdue.
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The responsibilities of my role involve walking the line between two worlds. I champion and promote the music our artists create, steering the narrative to connect deeply with new audiences and core fans. Simultaneously, I cultivate an environment that nurtures the mental and emotional well-being of our artists and staff.
At Guin Records, we embed wellness into the very fabric of our ethos and values. We recognize that the creative process, while exhilarating, can also be emotionally taxing. We acknowledge the highs and lows, the euphoria and the vulnerability that come with artistic expression. Therefore, we prioritize the well-being of our artists, empowering them to create and share their music in a sustainable and healthy way.
Why is this important? Because music is profoundly human. The music that touches our souls, the lyrics that resonate with our experiences and the performances that captivate our senses — all are born from the hearts and minds of individuals. Artists, like all of us, require support, care and an environment conducive to their growth and well-being.
How do we accomplish this? By acknowledging that an artist’s well-being is not a peripheral concern but a core element that directly impacts their art as well as our bottom line. As a concrete step, we offer non-recoupable wellness stipends to our artists. This financial support allows them the freedom to invest in their mental and physical health without burden.
Moreover, we maintain a strong alliance with non-profit entities like Backline, ensuring our artists and team members have readily available mental health resources. We’ve proudly signed the “Breaking The Barriers” pledge, committed to helping knock down long-standing roadblocks that often keep BIPOC communities from getting the mental health care they need. To further our investment in our team’s well-being, we’ve instituted a “Mental Health Day Policy.” This grants our employees the liberty to take much-needed breaks for personal rejuvenation; fostering a culture of prevention against burnout. After all, in nurturing our people, we nurture the music.
So I call on my industry peers to turn the volume up on this crucial conversation. Let’s recognize that a healthy artist creates better music, and a team that feels supported performs better. Let’s shift our industry narrative to one that doesn’t just produce beautiful music but also upholds the well-being of the beautiful minds behind it.
By prioritizing wellness, we’re setting the stage for a more sustainable, empathetic and human-centered music industry. By championing the music we love while investing in the well-being of those who create it, we pave the way for a sustainable industry that supports everyone involved. It’s not just about the end product but about the process, the people and the passion that fuel it all.
Brandon Holman is vp of marketing & wellness at Guin Records, whose artist roster includes Asha Imuno. Holman is also co-founder of The Lazuli Collective, an experiential wellness agency that delivers wellness and mental health programming to audiences around the world through events, music and consultancies including the Coachella Arts and Music Festival.