What if your friends were better at music discovery than any algorithm? Eric West, founder of Music League, joins the show to talk about gamifying music taste, building community around shared listening, and what happens when artists connect directly with their most dedicated fans. Nearly 200,000 monthly active users across 160 countries are already playing. This is what discovery looks like after the algorithm.

Ferris Bseiso of Cipher Music joins Jade Prieboy at SXSW to break down how TikTok rewrote the economics of sync licensing and why major brands keep getting sued for using music on social media. Cipher is building a legal library of trending songs designed for the creator economy. Plus Dmitri recaps Music Biz and Mo Forum covering AI voice cloning, style laundering, institutional catalog investment from Apollo and Primary Wave, and what the KISS hologram deal means for the fut

ONErpm's Emmanuel Zunz built one of the fastest-growing independent music companies across 40 territories without a single outside investor. In this episode he breaks down what independence really means, why the label and distribution worlds are converging, and what the label of the future actually looks like when you build it around technology and scalable deal structures instead of big advances.

Rob Sealy, co-founder of OpenStage, joins Music Tectonics to explain why artists don't know who their fans are and why that gap is costing the music industry billions. From a Scottish band selling 6,000 tickets with 30,000 followers to Oasis keeping tickets off the secondary market, Rob shares what happens when artists own the fan relationship directly. Plus part two of our AlgoRhythms AI series.

What if the most surprising thing in music right now isn't what AI is creating, but what fans are reaching for instead? This week we bring highlights from AlgoRhythms 2026: Olivia Jones of MIDiA Research on why fans are buying physical music again, Val Salomaki of Edge Sound Research on technology that makes music something you feel in your body, and attendees answer: does AI make you hopeful?

What happens to music when everyone is only listening to what they made themselves? In this episode, Jade Prieboy sits down with Adam Neely, composer, bassist, and YouTuber educator with over 1.8 million subscribers. They go deeper than the usual AI debate, exploring what we actually lose when music stops being something we share. Adam draws a clear line between stem separation tools he genuinely uses and commercial generative AI platforms like Suno and Udio, explaining why l

What if every fight over music technology throughout history has actually been the same fight, and we’re just now facing a version of it we’ve never seen before? In this special episode, Dmitri shares a keynote he gave at the Algo Rhythms conference last month called “Is Music Making Up For Grabs?” Drawing on four hundred years of disruption in music, from the harpsichord to amplification, Dmitri traces the pattern of how every generation has fought over new tools and every g

What happens when a beat-selling side hustle accidentally becomes a social media phenomenon? In this episode, music producer and content creator Hunna G (@hunnagbeats) joins Dmitri to talk about building “Take a Seat, Rap on the Beat,” a series now sitting at over 150 million views and more than a million followers. Hunna G covers the origin story, the most memorable guests (like 2 Chainz and MGK to name a few), what the music creator economy actually looks like, and

Dom McLennon, former vocalist and assistant producer for BROCKHAMPTON, joins Dmitri to talk music technology, community, and creative strategy. We cover gesture-based instruments, music education, independent artist access, and why community outreach beats chasing virality. Dom also shares how he's integrating the Orchid by Telepathic Instruments and the Tembo by Musical Being into his creative process in ways their makers never imagined.

What happens to an artist’s reputation the moment they admit they used AI? Does admitting how they used AI make a difference? New research suggests the stakes are higher than most realize, and the answer is far from simple. This week on the podcast, Dr. Joel Carnevale, assistant professor of Management at Florida International University, joins Dmitri to break down the findings from his recent article in The Conversation that put that question to the test. Using a music

Is gaming really the next frontier for music, or is that just wishful thinking? In this episode, Dmitri sits down with Jenn Garcia, co-founder and CEO of Metamoki, the mobile gaming studio behind Mob Wars and Wiz Khalifa’s Weed Farm. With nearly two decades of experience in mobile gaming, social gaming, and community building, Jenn brings a fresh outside perspective on where the music industry is leaving opportunity on the table. If you work in music tech, music marketing

What happens to a rock band’s legacy when the touring stops forever? When Pophouse acquired the KISS catalog, brand, name, image, and likeness rights, they didn’t just buy music. They bought the blueprint for keeping one of rock’s most iconic bands alive indefinitely through digital avatars, biometric data, and AI-driven live experiences. This deal, built on the success of ABBA Voyage and developed in partnership with Industrial Light and Magic, may be the most forward thinki

Where does AI stand in the music industry as we move through 2026? In this conversation, Dmitri talks with Mike Pelczynski, Chief Strategy and Impact Officer at Voice-Swap, about the evolution from fear to curiosity around AI in music, and why building ethical AI systems from the ground up creates long-term value. Mike shares about how his work architecting fan-powered royalties at SoundCloud connects to his current mission of building fair, creator-centric AI voice models. M

For the next two weeks we’ll be talking about all things NAMM and getting into some of the exciting innovations we spotted on the show floor, along with some trends that we noticed this year, starting with AI's inflection point in the music industry. Last year, the conversation around AI was tense with creators expressing fear over being replaced by AI. This year, we saw more AI tools designed to support creators, and in some case, become integrated directly into software and

When AI artist Breaking Rust released "Walk My Walk" sounding strikingly like Blanco Brown, the "Git Up" hitmaker did something unexpected: he re-recorded it himself. This week, Dmitri talks with Blanco about reclaiming an AI-generated track, questions of voice ownership, and why he believes soul and lived experience can't be replicated by technology. A compelling conversation about artists embracing rather than fearing AI's creative future.

This week, we're wrapping up 2025 with three rapid-fire interviews from last month's conference. First, Rachel Francine of SingFit pioneers music as medicine in senior living communities. Next, Matt Sherman from Str3amcore Labs explains how blockchain manages music catalogs, building on his family's century-long music legacy. Finally, John Gearty from PulseJet reveals immersive VR experiences, including a Björk album where you walk inside the music. Three innovations showing

This week, we’re kicking off 2026 with our opening keynote from last year’s Music Tectonics conference: “Optimization is Not Enough: Are You Ready for Streaming’s Reckoning?" In this keynote, Tatiana Cirisano from MIDiA Research joins Dmitri to ask a provocative question: Is the music industry so focused on optimizing streaming revenue that it’s missing what comes next? Tatiana argues that

This week, we're exploring the future of direct-to-fan commerce with Joshua Stone, the CEO and Co-Founder of Stuff.io and book.io. Josh has some serious backing, including names like Mark Cuban, Snoop Dogg, and Charles Hoskinson, the co-founder of Ethereum just to name a few, and has been working on building Web3 infrastructure that lets artists sell media directly to fans that fans can own and not just rent. We talk about why streaming doesn't pay most artists, how direct-to

This week, we're exploring the future of direct-to-fan commerce with Joshua Stone, the CEO and Co-Founder of Stuff.io and book.io. Josh has some serious backing, including names like Mark Cuban, Snoop Dogg, and Charles Hoskinson, the co-founder of Ethereum just to name a few, and has been working on building Web3 infrastructure that lets artists sell media directly to fans that fans can own and not just rent. We talk about why streaming doesn't pay most artists, how direct-to

AI models can truly capture the essence of musical creativity. (Wait. Really?). Join us as Tristra interviews Dr. Christopher White from...