More Music Means More Growth: The New Job of Distributors

What is a music distributor actually responsible for in 2026?

This week on the Music Tectonics podcast, we’re focusing on distribution and artist services as a revenue multiplier. It used to mean one thing: getting your music onto Spotify and Apple. Now the companies doing that are pitching marketing, financing, even A&R, and we’re asking what’s real and what’s marketing.

First, Daouda Leonard of CreateSafe traces how we got here, from physical distribution through companies like Koch, to TuneCore’s 2009 launch as the first real self-upload on-ramp, through the SoundCloud and blog era, to the “gold rush” of 2013 to 2018 when the playing field briefly leveled between independent artists and major labels  He also argues that most of what distributors pitch today is still a myth unless real capital backs it, and breaks down how some are starting to structure what looks like a record deal (minus the part where they take your copyright). 

Then, Isaac Miranda, global marketing director at ONErpm, joins to talk about what a company he calls possibly the last large independent music company operating at scale actually turns on for an artist once they sign, from paid media and sync to fan engagement. We revisit the story from the Emmanuel Zunz episode back in May and pick it up from the marketing side, including a stat from a recent ONErpm audit that found 70-80% of artists in emerging markets weren’t collecting their publishing rights. 

This episode is part of the Rising Tide miniseries, working through the revenue multipliers that grow the value of the music industry, all leading up to the Music Tectonics Conference this October in Santa Monica.

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Episode Transcript

Machine transcribed

Daouda Leonard

[00:00:00] Dmitri: Daouda Leonard is a philosopher at the forefront of the creator empowerment movement. With a decade of service in the entertainment industry, Daouda has worked as a manager, publisher, p- producer, A&R, and creative director for Grimes, DJ Snake, Skrillex, Bloodpop, and more. his creative contributions have generated over 15 billion global media impressions and sales to date for cultural leaders including Lady Gaga, Drake, Madonna, Ms.

Lauryn Hill, The Weeknd, and Justin Bieber. Daouda is currently the founder and CEO of CreateSafe Inc., a music technology company that provides SaaS and premium services for music artists, managers, and record labels. Daouda, welcome to Music Tectonics.

[00:00:42] Daouda: Hey, Dmitri. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:44] Dmitri: Yeah, thanks for joining.

So many people in the music business like to say that distribution has become commoditized, and there are a lot of distributors now, and we'll get into how they're trying to differentiate as well as add more value for their artists and labels. But let's acknowledge that they've opened the door for a lot of independent artists and artist-driven labels to build their businesses and enter the market.

I'm curious from you, Daouda, what roles have distributors played in growing the overall market of music?

[00:01:12] Daouda: Well, I've been in the music business now for, like, 23 years and, up until about, I would say, like, probably, like, 2009, you know, distribution was something that was for people who already were, like, selling records out the trunk of their car.

 they were already spending money producing goods and selling them and they needed a distributor and, you know, they were sort of, like, hot in the streets and those types of deals weren't really, like, what the average, you know, artist trying to, like, get into the music business were looking for, asking for, negotiating for.

 but around two- I think it was, like, 2008, 2009 is when TuneCore came on the scene and, I mean, like, look, I used to deal with companies like Koch, and, um, Lanspeed. Those were the first distribution companies that I ever worked with, and they did allow me and my partner Clinton at the time to, like, do independent music, you know, business.

 you know, making albums and putting them out, without sort of, like, the need to get, like, some fancy record label to give us a deal.

[00:02:16] Dmitri: And that was primary phys- You're talking about physical at that point, right? Koch was known for that.

[00:02:20] Daouda: That was physical and it was also digital to a certain degree because that was when, you know, I think, and I don't know, I don't remember the year iTunes, launched, but we, we were doing a little bit of digital distribution by way of, iTunes.

[00:02:39] Dmitri: Right. Okay. Got it.

[00:02:40] Daouda: Um, but it was primarily physical, like CDs, vinyl, et cetera.

[00:02:46] Dmitri: Yeah.

[00:02:46] Daouda: And so 2008, 2009, TuneCore comes around and it was the first time that I could just, like, we, you know, we could make a record and just upload it to the internet and get it on iTunes, um, and start selling your music. And that did open up the floodgates.

It was like that along with, like, the blog era, of music and SoundCloud. the, you know, I th- I don't think sometimes people talk about the blog era and SoundCloud as, like, the underground digital distribution that actually broke up... I think that, like, widened the pie. Like, clearly people were not really making money, distributing their music in their ways, but they were finding and developing audience.

[00:03:30] Dmitri: Mm-hmm.

[00:03:31] Daouda: Um, so it was like the f- you know, a form of free digital distribution. And, so I think, like, what that did was it gave everybody now, you know, almost like s- you know, I guess like 16 to 17 years later, the ability to, get their music to stores.

[00:03:50] Dmitri: Mm-hmm.

[00:03:50] Daouda: and I think it's important that people really understand that's what really distribution means today.

 like, when people, you know, think that they're getting, a distribution deal, I think a lot of times people think that they are, now going to be marketed to the masses.

[00:04:06] Dmitri: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:07] Daouda: That they're now going to get A&R services, that they're now gonna get to work with, like, other creatives and help them, like, build their career, when distribution is really just a service that gets your music from your computer to the computers of Spotify, Apple, YouTube, et cetera, et cetera.

 the meta platforms, t- the ByteDance platforms, and it's just getting you on the shelf.

[00:04:36] Dmitri: Right.

[00:04:37] Daouda: so it's giving people the ability to get their music on the shelf quickly and fastly at extremely cheap cost. Like, it could be nine bucks a month, $100 a year or something like that 5%, 10%, 15, t- all the way up to, like, you know, 50%, depending on what you're negotiating for on top of just getting your music to these stores.

[00:05:04] Dmitri: So let me ask you something. That, I think that's a really great point, and we haven't brought it up on the podcast or on this miniseries yet, that it's really, it's not necessarily that distributors are growing the market. The first thing they're really doing is just creating the on-ramp, just allowing independent artists to even participate.

[00:05:21] Daouda: That's what it is.

[00:05:21] Dmitri: Do you, do you think... And you mentioned, like, well, SoundCloud blog era kinda led to, that was the first on-ramp, in a sense, of sorta like just put your music up, basically-

[00:05:30] Daouda: Yes

[00:05:30] Dmitri: ... and get people to hear it or hear about it on the blogs. Do you think that, And, and then you sort of implied, like, you know, severalteen years later, now that that music, that pathway is there for totally independent artists to have their stuff in the stores, on the stores, the streaming services, the social media platforms, et cetera, now there's an opportunity to monetize.

I guess what I'm saying is, do you think independent distributors pave the path for a growth of the whole pie because of that pathway? Or was it people are listening to less commercial pop music and more independent grassroots music?

[00:06:02] Daouda: No, like, like, like, yeah, like th- w- for sure distributors paved the path for the pie to grow.

[00:06:09] Dmitri: Okay, cool.

[00:06:09] Daouda: Like it's, that's a, like that's a sheer... It's like, if you think about 2013 through 2016, you have DistroKid, TuneCore, let's throw CD Baby in there, and let's throw even Stem in there at a certain point in time, like I think they're like 2015, '16.

But l-like let's just say now you have like four or five platforms that you could just sign up for and put your music out at a time period where streaming becomes the dominant way in which people are consuming music. And you have two platforms that help you make the money, which is Spotify and Apple Music, and then you've got two other platforms that sort of like get you wide audience, which is like SoundCloud and YouTube.

They don't, at the time, they're not really like, you know, helping you make a lot of money in that sense. YouTube, to a certain degree, if you're like putting out videos that were like generating revenue, or like lots of views. And like these, intersected at a moment where like those platforms were growing in terms of people using them, and then now you have these platforms that are enabling anyone to get their music there, right?

Just as fast and as quickly as it takes RCA Records or Interscope Records to get their music there. And that's a comp- like that's a moment in time where like- the playing field was almost leveled. an example of that is, like, 2015 I started a project that was called With You.

It was, like, me and two, like, three other producer friends. And, we put out a record called Ghost featuring Vince Staples, and it was sort of like this electronic hip hop sounding record. And I also, I just happened to know certain people who were working at Apple Music at the time, and I also had a friendship with this guy Justin Lobliner at Darkroom Records.

He ended up finding Billie Eilish later and breaking her as an artist. But it was like he understood how to, like, really, like, get things into the sort of like hype machine blog zeitgeist and, like, get it in front of people's faces. And my buddy Sean Glass really liked the record. He was over at Apple Music and he, um, socialized it to enough people in the Apple Music you know, building that, like, we got this, like, premium placement with Apple Music.

Like something that would've normally been reserved for a record label and we also got this, like, shot in the arm in the sort of like blogosphere. so it was like right conditions that like nowadays, right now people are trying to look for these types of what you would call distribution marketing moments-

[00:08:56] Dmitri: Yeah

[00:08:56] Daouda: that are few and far in between. But because of the platforms that existed, like I was using a service called Foundation at the time, which I still work with this company, Foundation. they're one of the premier top independent distribution companies. You can't sign up for them. It's kinda like if you know, you know.

 and they were a, they are like a premium partner. Like if you go on Spotify's, I think, I don't... You could probably find this website today. there's a page on Spotify's, platform that shows you these preferred distribution partners. And what that really just means is you are delivering what they call professional high-quality, music to the services.

 and to dig a little deeper, what that means is your metadata is properly being delivered, like the files, like the f- like, like how you actually deliver that data to Spotify or Apple, et cetera, they look at that. When it comes in their system, they're like, is this, organized properly?

 did they get, like a certain amount of data that we require, and make sure that it's like delivered, legibly in, in some ways?" Like, that's the best way to put it.

[00:10:03] Dmitri: Yeah.

[00:10:03] Daouda: Um, and Foundation is/one of those, and, you know, like ONErpm, you, you can look, like DistroKid is on.

there's tons of companies that are on there, but that's where you can go and you can see like, okay, who does Spotify or Apple consider to be like the top preferred services of delivering the content to them? And following their so, quote-unquote, "rules." yeah, so all that to say, like, all these conditions got met at, uh, between 2013 and 2016, where anyone could get online and start building an audience and making money with that audience, because the...

Like, not everybody You know, like when Spotify first came around, not everybody understood it. Not everybody was, like, jumping to it. Not everybody, you know, was developing relationships with the artists and resident services. Like, I had a good friend, his name was DA Wallach. He was a artist, um, he was a part of a band called Chester French.

A- you know, post that band, he was one of the people who helped bring Spotify to the US and he created the Artists in Residence program, which is now what we call Spotify. It's the whole ecosystem of what we see as Spotify for artists and labels and manager services and all that stuff. And they had to go around and convince people to wanna get their music on Spotify.

So if you were one of those people that were convinced, then you were getting on those playlists. you were getting that, inventory that now is like, you know, now it's hyper-competitive.

[00:11:32] Dmitri: Yeah.

Yeah.

[00:11:33] Daouda: But I will say from 2013 to 2018, it was like the gold rush you know, of music distribution and streaming, in my opinion.

[00:11:44] Dmitri: I wanna ask you about that because you're really talking about there's this moment where, where it's, the on-ramp's being created. There's kind of this parallel universe of SoundCloud and, and blogs where discovery or a free kind of version of some of the distribution was happening. , But then to get into, like, the actual stores where monetization could happen, you'd partner with distributors.

There's a lot of different tiers of distributors. But now it's changed again. You've mentioned the, playlisting side of it, how that's become really competitive. So for a while, distributors were really pitching hard, like, "We can get you on playlists. We can get you on playlists." It seems like that's gotten so competitive.

There's been another evolution. I'm curious, what's changed in the recent couple of years around distribution? How do distributors differentiate now that there's so many options? What are they pitching to artists as, "Yeah, we're not just a distributor. Anybody can distribute you. Now we blankety blank"? I'm curious what your thoughts are on what, what's changed and, and how they're differentiating.

[00:12:39] Daouda: I think that point blank, they are all beginning to offer, let's call it artists and lab- like, like, like, like... Uh, what's the best way to put it? Marketing and promotions and creative services, right? Those are the th- like, the creative services are like the A&R/brand development, like money to help you, create your brand to make your music, et cetera.

That's the financing for that. financing/people who can, help you with marketing and promotions. Two different things, you know, like marketing is like when you create a bunch of marketing assets and you decide to like send them to a bunch of places, whether that's like Instagram on your own accounts or other like, people in your, in your sort of like, management team, record label team to get it to as many people as possible.

And then promotion is like when you're on these other platforms like a radio station or you are using influencer mar- you know, like, like content creators for them to go and then push your music to their audiences or whatever. two slightly different things, but anyways, they are beginning to offer those as services as a part of a deal to, use their service versus another service.

[00:14:02] Dmitri: Right.

[00:14:02] Daouda: Um, but, like, I would say quite frankly that it is a myth still. I believe that, unless you are doing a deal where a distribution company is spending enough capital that they then also need to provide you with, like, team re- human resources, right? Whether that's in the market that you're already based in or globally, you don't really get those services from any of these distribution companies.

They're all really just, like, technology companies. They're just really, like, they get your music from point A to point B, they collect the mon- they, like, where those services monetize it, they collect that money and then they pay you, and sometimes they have, like, payment splitting technology where you don't have to go about paying, all your collaborators and stuff like that, which is also a service.

Payment splitting technology, like most of, uh, some of these distribution companies do not offer that. and then that is a pr- that's a service that you have to do if you have to pay for samples, if you have to pay for featured artists, you have to pay for producers, et cetera. if you sell physical goods and you have to pay the publishing on that, like, that's a full service that you need to figure out, like, who's gonna do that job.

 and so I think that the thing that people are pushing towards now, United Masters has sort of begun to offer that, where you can, you get these, like, artist partnerships deals, um, which is technically just calling it a record... It's like, it's a record deal, but maybe without taking, your copyright in perpetuity, or a large piece, a larger p- you know, like-

[00:15:41] Dmitri: so you're saying, like, the, the evolution a lot looks like part of a record deal, but not like owning your masters, for a period or, or your copyright, but more like, we'll give you advances and then we'll collect more until you recoup on that advance, but you'll still own your copyright.

Is that sort of the main way that things are changing with some distributors, with artists that they feel they can invest in in advance?

[00:16:04] Daouda: I think so. I think, and what I mean by that is, like, TuneCore Believe, for instance, like, they're stepping into that space. as I just explained, UnitedMasters, I think that companies like, Too Lost, , Empire, but Empire even more so some- sometimes feels more like a record label service business than a, just a distribution company.

But they are starting to, like, scale and begin to offer their distribution technology to record labels per se and say, "Hey," like, "just use our distribution infrastructure as a record label and you go and do your job as a record label."

[00:16:42] Dmitri: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:42] Daouda: Um, I think that is also what is the new trend.

Most of the, like, whether it's, like, Virgin, The Orchard or ADA, um, or Concord, what they're looking to do is partner with executives, artist executives/executives and managers, people who develop the talent. And so they wanna give those types of companies deals, so they can go and build up catalogs and keep them within their, you know, market share so those are the kind of the,trends I'm seeing.

Like most people who are like managers that I know, artists, most of the time people are like, "Yo, there's no distributor that is like actually doing more than just sending your music from point A to point B."

[00:17:26] Dmitri: have more services now ...

[00:17:28] Daouda: yeah, like, because it is really hard to service from, on a human level, the amount of people who are putting their music out.

I'm not saying that they don't want to or potentially do this with some of the high touch clients. I think it's more so you have to s- like we're at the age where some of the new distribution marketing artist labels, whatever you wanna call it, partnerships, technology is starting to be built. Like that's the era that we're in.

It has not been developed completely yet, but I think with the advent of, coding, , agents, agentic, , you know, product development, you... we are starting to see that happen. we are starting to see companies, like a, a company that I really like is Co-Brand. when you like look at what Co-Brand is building, it starts as like sort of like a, a marketing platform, a way to like connect with content creators, see how your music is being used on Meta and ByteDance platforms, do direct to fan capture and also distribute your music.

So it's like when you think about that, like the direct to fan capture and, communication part is A part, as a marketing service. You know, someone would normally do that for you. Same thing with, like, paying for content creators or doing digital ad buys. I think they do digital ad buys on there.

Like, those are three different services that a record label would typically offer now productized.

[00:19:04] Dmitri: Hmm. Yeah.

[00:19:04] Daouda: Right?

[00:19:04] Dmitri: Yeah. And I guess that's sort of where I, I see some... you mentioned, like, the funding, the advances piece of it with distribution, but I'm hearing a lot of distributors talking about other little marketing service, whether it's content creation, like video-related things or, marketing technology to help them expand the reach of their audience, segment their audience, target their audience to get the link in bio type stuff to drive people towards monetization as well.

So I'm seeing, like, there's the companies like you're describing, CoBrand, that are independent... Well, I was gonna say they're independent of distribution, but you said they also have a music distribution-

[00:19:35] Daouda: They do have distribution ...

[00:19:36] Dmitri: component-

[00:19:36] Daouda: Yeah, yeah, yeah

[00:19:37] Dmitri: ... as well. But they're starting from a marketing perspective.

There's a lot of interesting music tech platforms emerging that handle, maybe it's, primary data leads capture for fans, maybe it's, CRM, managing your emails and mobile addresses of fans, whether it's for recorded music or live performance and ticketing, and then helping you segment and reach them and engage them in other ways.

We've had this company OpenStage on the podcast before that does that kind of thing, or the, like the Lelos that have the drops or the Symphony OS that have the advertising, support for, artists, the, Rivets, things like that. So there's these independent companies, and then some of distributor, distributors are are, like, m- either doing deals with those companies and merging that as kind of like the artist services or the marketing tech services things like that as well.

Um-

[00:20:23] Daouda: I, I would bet money that all of those companies either become distribution companies, if they're not already, or they get bought by distribution or major label groups to be a, the technology aspect of that, that they can then offer that as a service as to why you sign to their distribution.

But I don't see them being like-

[00:20:46] Dmitri: Is, is that because it's just crazy to have like, "Oh, this is my distribution partner, this is my this kind of marketing, this kind of marketing, this kind of monetization"? is that why? Is it just too much friction or is it because there's more money if you're connected to the distributor and ultimately they'll have to do distribution in order to survive?

[00:21:01] Daouda: I think it's more friction for the end user who's a artist sometimes. Like, why would you wanna... at some point in time you just wanna make music and put it out and release it-

[00:21:09] Dmitri: Yeah

[00:21:10] Daouda: ... and focus on that, those creative aspects of your business. and you w- you want to work with a company that can do a lot of those things for you as you become more successful.

 I think that there are independent entrepreneurs, like the people who wanna build record labels, who are maybe more open to using like, like building a stack, that they can then be like, "Okay, I'm using Symphony, I'm using, EVEN, and I'm using Too Lost." Let's just, just random, "And that's my stack."

 but like I think as a business, you have to sort of have that mindset and also skillset. Like it's like learning, like a lot of these tools, like I don't care how, simple everybody thinks even AI is nowadays, there's a learning curve to a lot of this stuff when it comes to like operating at a high level.

 you know, there's a difference between like ChatGPT free and Codex. Like this is two very different learning curves and, And I say that to say same thing with like a lot of the music technology platforms that exist today. I think that they have been built for, executives and not necessarily artists, and why should they be like a, like...

I just, it's a very weird world where you're asking artists to do all this like work work, and they just wanna make, they wanna like do things that pertain to like- you know, expressing themselves, making the art. Maybe like there's a artistic and creative aspect of marketing that they also wanna participate in and are totally down to participate in, going out and promoting their record and different things like that, and then doing shows, engaging with fans, et cetera, et cetera.

They, like, asking them to do spreadsheet-style work is just, you know, it j- it just feels like that's not what people sign up for when they sign up to be an artist. Um-

[00:23:02] Dmitri: Yeah. Yeah,

gotcha. Yeah, yeah

[00:23:04] Daouda: ... managers and marketing directors and project managers and et cetera do, and it's like, all right, like what stacks can you build to build out a, you know, a music business ecosystem that supports an artist in a major way?

[00:23:17] Dmitri: Yeah. Speaking of stacks, a lot of what people come to our Music Tech Talents Conference to do is to build their tech stack for music. You mentioned CoBrand. Real quick, are there two other music tech companies or services that you found valuable for artists? Let's do just a quick speed round on a couple, 'cause I really wanna get to ask you about your Grimes AI project before we run out of time.

But, let's start with those two. Are there two other services or music tech companies that you think have done well for artists?

[00:23:44] Daouda: I really like the product Untitled.

[00:23:46] Dmitri: Hmm, what do they do?

[00:23:48] Daouda: The Untitled is a, place for storing, music that has not been released. And, like for many years, like most people, like in my position where like you're always looking for like a way to listen to music, store the music, I don't like I don't necessarily...

I'm not using Untitled for the purposes of like storing the files of the music, but it is, has one of the cleanest interfaces closest to like, let's say like iTunes or Apple Music, um, in terms of like it feels like a music listening product and specifically for unreleased music

[00:24:26] Dmitri: So, like to share among collaborators and colleagues and pitching internally in the industry, not to consumers?

[00:24:31] Daouda: Yes, yes.

[00:24:32] Dmitri: Nice.

[00:24:32] Daouda: And, and-

[00:24:33] Dmitri: All right

[00:24:33] Daouda: ... um, but they have functionality where you can order vinyl, you can, like, now you can go from being unreleased to released on their platform. So it's a-

[00:24:43] Dmitri: Wow

[00:24:43] Daouda: ... it, it's a, they're building some of the functionality-

[00:24:46] Dmitri: Of a Bandcamp

[00:24:47] Daouda: for pre-release marketing. Yeah, yeah. Like-

[00:24:49] Dmitri: Damn

[00:24:49] Daouda: ... like a, like a new type of Bandcamp. So-

[00:24:51] Dmitri: Interesting.

[00:24:51] Daouda: Okay ... you know, like watch what they do in the near future.

[00:24:54] Dmitri: Nice. Daouda... One more. Do you have one more music tech company that's helps artists, especially around like revenue growth or monetization, artist services, things like that?

[00:25:04] Daouda: and I can't promote my own company, right?

[00:25:06] Dmitri: Well,

you can. Yeah. Tell me, tell me.

[00:25:08] Daouda: I mean, look-

[00:25:09] Dmitri: Let's do it ...

[00:25:09] Daouda: we, we, you know, CreateSafe, like technically we have distribution as a service. but basically what CreateSafe is, a metadata management company.

[00:25:19] Dmitri: Mm.

[00:25:20] Daouda: We help you take all of the data you have about your business and leverage it.

 and an example of that could be, taking all the information about your songs and figuring out, like what are unregistered songs, and-

[00:25:34] Dmitri: Mm

[00:25:34] Daouda: ... those songs that need to get registered so that you can collect that revenue that's just being generated because you've put out songs on DistroKid and TuneCore, et cetera, but you haven't registered them with the MLC or PRO, et cetera, um, or SoundExchange.

 another example of how we, how our tools are used are to do like complex, financial forecasting, like figuring out how much money you need to spend on marketing, on, the, production of the music. so budgeting, expensing, long-term forecasting, catalog valuation. so like, yeah, music metadata is like gold and oil.

 and so it's all the files, you know, your royalty statements, your song splits, you know, information about your collaborators, your audience, you know, your fan, data, putting that all in one place in order to leverage it and build, and build a, a plan around how you're going to, run your music business.

[00:26:29] Dmitri: Wow. I'm, actually glad you explained that because when I read about CreateSafe in the past, it was associated with the Grimes AI project. Can I ask you real quick about that since we do have a conversation going about, how generative AI can lead to more money in the industry, but mind if I ask you about that one?

[00:26:44] Daouda: Yeah. So look, we, you know, in 2023, this was coming off of our initial, seed round fundraising to build, you know, a new distribution platform, off of what we had built in terms of metadata management. And the idea was that, like, p- new platforms, new products, and new ways to monetize music are gonna exist, and what are gonna be those new ways to distribute your metadata into these new platforms, products, et cetera.

 mid 2023, around, like, April, is when the AI boom started to happen, and it started to happen in music around people cloning voices and making, you know, songs with other people's voices. And what we did is we built, um, Grimes ended up, seeing sort of what was happening around, like, people cloning Drake and The Weeknd.

And where other people were saying, "No, I don't want anyone to use my voice, my name, image, likeness," Grimes, posted a tweet that said, "Anyone who wants to use my voice, feel free as long as you compensate me 50/50." Similar to how most, like, recording featured artist agreements are done. Like, someone wants to, like, have you on their song, most times the artist or a record label will charge 50% of the net profit that comes off of that master recording And so she was just sort of putting what, what insiders know out there saying, "Hey, if you wanna do this, you can do this with my voice."

But, um, there were all these voice cloning platforms that were out there, but there was no way to actually get the music onto the platforms, split that revenue properly, and ensure that Grimes got paid and the people who were making music with her voice would get paid. And so we took one of our initial distribution products and direct-to-fan capture products, and we combined them to create what we called the music game at the time, called elfTECH.

And what elfTECH was, was know, you sign in, it looked like her computer, almost like where you go and make music, and you upload your vocal, you turn it into Grimes' vocal, um, you make your song, you upload it back to the elfTECH product with clean metadata. You, you know, the same way like, like you would use any distribution service.

And we distributed to Spotify, Apple, et cetera, and we split the revenue, , with the fans who used her voice. And, um, we did a partnership with TuneCore as well, so that anyone who used TuneCore as a distribution service could use T- TuneCore and split the revenue back to, you know, to, to Grimes as well.

[00:29:13] Dmitri: I mean, I love the model because, like, right now the conversation is generative AI companies that have not licensed music, they're scraping music. There is no model in place for attribution or paying artists back. But this was one where it was artist-driven and it could potentially create a whole other revenue stream for an artist.

So I'm curious, what did you learn about the potential for that revenue stream with the Grimes, experiment?

[00:29:37] Daouda: Well, what, I think what we learned is that, like, fans just wanna engage with their favorite artists. Like, like I don't think that anybody cared that much that it was AI per se.

What they cared about was engaging with their favorite artists. what we also learned is that, like, we're very early in this sort of like AI cycle, so like there's still to this day not a lot of people who want to do this, so it was like a very one-off sort of idea. and the last, I think the most important thing that we learned is that technology can be used to create, or to, augment how we do old, inefficient processes like featured artist clearances or licensing data.

Like, essentially what we built was a robust backend that anybody can go in and, on, you know, on Team Grimes or whomever is using this type of product and, approve songs for distribution. they can review them. they could respond back with like alternative terms. this is just sync licensing.

This is the thing that typically happens in a day-to-day business where you, like someone's trying to figure out how to sample someone's song, how to collaborate with them, and if you have this front-end interface that's linked to your website, that's your brand's web- you know, like your artist's name, image, likeness, you can give people the opportunity to sample your music.

 and it's as simple as that. Like, you don't, like, yes, AI can be a part of it, but this is now just opening up the licensing pie-

[00:31:11] Dmitri: Yeah

[00:31:11] Daouda: ... in general. Um-

[00:31:14] Dmitri: I

[00:31:14] Daouda: love it

... and so, and AI will be, it is, can still be a part of it, right? Like you can still, through this system that we built, you can license your music, and data to an AI model, right?

 like that is something that people are not talking about. Like- the paradigm that we're in, there should be technology, which we've built a version of that and we're gonna continue building. There should be technology that allows artists to control their name, image, likeness, and data associated that on any platform.

They should be able to say, "Hey, here's my S3 bucket." Right? They don't have to, they don't have to know that language. We'll come up with new language around it. But- An

[00:31:55] Dmitri: AWS server, basically .

[00:31:56] Daouda: Yeah. Here's my AWS server lo- you know, API credentials, MCP, that has all of the data and instructions on how to use my data.

 The same way you have a DistroKid account or an Instagram account or a et cetera type of account, you should have a CreateSafe metadata account that allows people to access your data with certain permissions.

[00:32:19] Dmitri: See, what I, what I like about this is It comes from the artist rather than coming from the AI company.

You know what I mean? It's, it's saying, like, "This is my creative world. This is my name, image, likeness. This is my style. This is the world that I created musically and all the things around it. I now give you permission to use it in certain ways. We're gonna share in the revenue," versus, "Hey, the Internet's a playground.

Let me get everything I can. Look, everybody likes playing with everything. It's like Instagram for music," except you haven't asked the people that you've trained everything on, and so all of a sudden it's... So it's really, it feels much more like artist permission. it's not just opt-in. It's, like, really collaborative at the licensing level.

And it's... I'm with you. I feel like if Beyoncé and Taylor Swift are doing what Grimes does and they say it's kinda like a remix or a cover song contest, but it's not with musicians, it's with their fans. Their fans don't have to say, "Oh, I need to learn how to play the guitar to do a cover song."

Instead, they're just, like, logging into an app or something, and there's like, "I've always wished that she did a song like this. I'm gonna do it," you know?

[00:33:24] Daouda: Totally.

[00:33:24] Dmitri: "With her voice."

[00:33:25] Daouda: Totally.

[00:33:25] Dmitri: You know? So I appreciate you sharing that. Let me ask you one more question, and then I'll let you go. This has been super fascinating. We started someplace different. I'm so happy we've been having this conversation. Here at Music Tectonics, we're pushing forward this idea that everyone in the music industry should start rowing in the same direction to get more people paying for music, whether it's this interactive engagement stuff we've been talking about, or for new uses of music, new types of licenses.

Daouda, what else should we be thinking about to grow the value of the music industry? I'd love to get your, hot take on that before we wrap things up.

[00:33:58] Daouda: Well, I, I think, look, I started out in this business doing direct to fan. I was, you know, the first thing I did was use Constant Contact to help build the email list.

 and I think that as primitive as, CRM technology and stuff could be, I think that, like, that's where the, Everybody should be rowing in that direction, which is like, figuring out how to do fan engagement and fan o- you know, ownership of your fan data in a more efficient way, instead of just relying on, you know, these, platforms that set the rates for how you're gonna, your, your music is monetized.

I think that, like, that's like the radio, but, like, people learning how to sell music to their fans, their audience, to different partners, I think is the biggest opportunity right now. Like, we should be teaching classes on how to sell music to anyone, right? Like, the average person doesn't know how to ask, "Hey, I wanna get paid a dollar.

I wanna get paid $2 for X, Y, Z." I think, like, sales, you know, and marketing classes, you know, should be something that, like, distribution companies and record labels and even publishing companies should be teaching, management companies, like, what is the way to sell music? Because for the last 10 years, we've definitely been taught, like, give your music away for free.

 and then the second thing is, like, put your music on these platforms and let these platforms sell your music for however much they wanna sell it, versus, wait, when did we stop learning how to sell our art in general? Like, that's the job.

[00:35:42] Dmitri: Yeah. Love it. Love it. That's perfect. Daouda, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on Music Tectonics. You've really contributed to this rising tide conversation. We've got upcoming episodes that will cover things that you just brought up, direct to fan and e-commerce, marketing tech that helps you segment and collect your first primary data so that you can reach out to folks.

But it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me.

[00:36:04] Daouda: Thank you.

Isaac Miranda

[00:00:00] Dmitri: So we've been talking about this rising tide theme, if you've been listening to the podcast, this whole episode, this whole series. And, as you've seen, when we get to these different eight revenue multipliers, I like to bring in specific examples. So we talk about it in general, and then we get more specific.

This one we've been talking about is really about distribution, but the new definition, the evolving definition of how distributors can work with artists and labels to basically unlock all the other revenue multipliers, which is super cool. So I'm here today with Isaac Miranda, the global marketing director for oneRPM.

Hey, Isaac, how are you?

[00:00:37] Isaac: I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on.

[00:00:40] Dmitri: Yeah, great. Thank you for joining. I know the time zones between me in Portland, you in Malaysia, quite a difference. I bet it's pretty late there, but let's dive into this, Isaac. I'm so happy to have you. Back in May, I interviewed your CEO of oneRPM, founder Emmanuel Zunz, on the podcast.

So listeners can go back to that episode if they missed it. It was called 'The Label of the Future: How oneRPM Scaled Without Investors,' which is cool because there is a whole technology conversation there. But if some of our listeners aren't familiar with oneRPM, Isaac, how do you describe it to artists, labels, and managers?

[00:01:11] Isaac: I think the elevator pitch for us is really that ONErpm is a full-stack music company, right? We're modern, we're innovative, we cover everything from distribution services to add-ons, including marketing. We have a global presence, and I would say that we are the last large m- independent music company operating at scale.

[00:01:37] Dmitri: Wow, okay. Great. That's perfect. Then I've got the right guy for this. What would you say, is there anything else unique about the ONErpm approach? I mean, if people just say, "Oh, they're a distributor," what do you think is most unique about ONErpm in the market?

[00:01:50] Isaac: I think what's most unique about us is that because of the way that we operate, because of our independent structures, and also because of how in touch we are across the globe, uh, we're able to come in and provide a lot of added value to artists, no matter what stage of the career they're in.

We're able to come in and help artists who are just building up from the ground up, but we're able to service them with models that we have trained over the past 16 years. We're able to come in with infrastructure that we've built for clients who are, you know, 100 times their size, and we're able to give them that same level of tech support and that same level of knowledge, to help further their careers.

[00:02:32] Dmitri: Got it. Okay. And it is interesting. I mean, with you in Malaysia, when I first met Emmanuel from ONErpm, we were doing PR for Brazilian releases that he was putting out, Brazilian hip hop, which was decades ago. Um, so I definitely feel that global sense and, uh, it's interesting to think about, yeah, what kind of knowledge you get as a result of that, as well as the technology piece of, all of this.

When we look at the shifting role of distributors and this theme that I've been talking about, the growing the value of music and the industry, what role do you think companies like ONErpm play beyond just getting music to DSPs?

[00:03:04] Isaac: I think that we are a partner that can meet artists wherever they are, right?

Which is something that is necessary in order to navigate, number one, how quickly the industry changes, every year, every month, every day almost right now. And because of that, we're able to come in with, you know, strategy. We're able to come in with ideas. We're able to be a partner that can use our leverage across the world to find the right partners for artists, to market to Whether it's for their new releases or whether it's backing up their content.

And that allows us to really hone in on not just finding viral moments, but also when it comes to bringing artists across borders, where we have, you know, over 40 offices across the world at this point, and much less bureaucracy than you'd find in terms of if an artist wants to find the right partner in Japan as well as, you know, maybe Nigeria for the same release.

 that's something that we're able to very easily tap into with- within our own ecosystems for one. but also in terms of, I think because of the experience that we have, for artists from different genres, from different cultural backgrounds, we're able to help build careers as opposed to just focusing in on trying to get something to pop, you know, today or tomorrow.

[00:04:30] Dmitri: Hmm. Hmm. You know, you mentioned at the beginning that, that it's kind of widened out beyond distribution through these marketing elements and, and now you're mentioning this career element, this strategy stuff. What are these kinds of like carve-out services or add-ons or additional things that artists and independent labels can be looking at beyond just getting their recordings to DSPs?

And, you know, which of those can they do like within oneRPM as a springboard, or that they might wanna pair with distribution?

[00:04:58] Isaac: Sure. So I think distribution is just step one, right? There are something like 150,000 songs being uploaded, onto streaming platforms on a daily basis right now. Beyond that, you need people to come in and help with strategy.

 I strongly believe that the first stage for any artist is going to be artist-led social strategy across Meta, across TikTok, across all your short-form platforms. And then from there, it's a fork. You can go into paid media, uh, when it comes to, you know, things like Spotify Showcases or boosting things on Instagram, on TikTok, which we have- You know, teams who are able to come in and best advise how to do that.

We also have networks of, UGC influencers, creators who can help boost things within a specific, uh, a specific niche or to provide more exposure. And then beyond that, there's, you know, there's sync, which also provides, an avenue for your music to travel into different mediums. There's also obviously publishing, making sure that all your rights on that front are collected.

It's not just releasing the music, but it's monetizing it and trying to make it a sustainable career. I could go on about this, but I think suffice to say, like, as you pointed out, distribution, the initial pipeline is just the first step, right? There are all of these other, things that artists and managers and labels need to be thinking about in order to fully maximize, their entry into market.

[00:06:22] Dmitri: So within ONErpm, are there kind of like features that you can turn on to get access to like the social media creators, the advertising, the Spotify placement, the sync, support or the editorial support? Is that something like you turn on or do you get-- you have the opportunity to like do the kind of arrangement where you have like a strategist or a product manager who's working with you?

[00:06:44] Isaac: So with every artist that we sign today, if they're coming in and they're doing a full service deal with us, they will have access to this, to all of these teams. the way that we function is with a hubs and cells model. We've got people on ground, business units that are focused on, you know, building local cultural narrative, and all these teams are also working with our hubs, which are, you know- I would classify them as like global or regional centers of excellence almost, where, you know, we've got paid media teams that are servicing the US and the LATAM markets, the Europe and African markets, the APAC markets that also all speak to each other.

And these things cover digital partnerships, paid media, YouTube marketing. And so if something is popping off, in a specific market, say I have an artist from Malaysia who's growing and we're seeing something that's, maybe reacting in the US, our paid media team may want to talk to the artist and immediately we can get, a response from the US side as well about what we can come in with in terms of partnerships or in terms of leverage, uh, on that front.

[00:07:49] Dmitri: Got it. Wow, it sounds almost like a scalable record label in a way, because you're like enacting these kind of SWAT teams who have different expertise, different regional hubs, and they can just apply what they need to to artists that you guys have that kind of full service deal with.

[00:08:03] Isaac: Exactly. Uh, I think that's one of the reasons why we have been able to grow, at the pace that we have, especially when tapping into newer markets.

Uh, it's because we are leaning on, you know, the expertise that has been generated over years, and generated through, you know, reinvesting and finding the best marketing people, to come in and provide these services to our artists and partners.

[00:08:24] Dmitri: Nice. I mean, that really, what you just said, I think helps us understand the shifting role of a company that's been formerly known as a distributor.

[00:08:32] Isaac: Yeah

[00:08:32] Dmitri: ... and, uh, now you say it's a tech-enabled music company, you know? Global, scalable-

[00:08:37] Isaac: Yeah

[00:08:37] Dmitri: ... you know, it's like has, has these like broader definitions. but that, I think that really does shift the mindset and I think it speaks to why I wanted to put this distribution/artist label services category as one of the revenue multipliers because it opens the door for independence of all these other uses of technology to multiply revenue.

[00:08:56] Isaac: I think like, just to, just to add on to that, right? because of the way that we operate, we're not really stuck to any particular type of deal model. we have clients who are massive labels in their own right. They may have their own marketing teams, and where we come in is maybe the international piece, getting that music across borders and activating on behalf of them where they may not have a local team present.

But we also have deals with high-performing individual artists who need us to fill the gaps, and we have different structures for those models, but all of our artists, no matter what size they are, have access to these tools, to these strategies, to these, as you said, revenue multipliers.

[00:09:41] Dmitri: Given your seat, having worked at this global company in a variety of roles, I'm sure you have lots of thoughts for artists and labels, and I wanna ask you for your tips.

But before I do that, I wanna widen out and also from that perspective ask you, what are new revenue streams that you think are starting to have an impact for artists and labels now or over the next couple of years? Doesn't have to be quantifiable, although if you've got numbers, that's great. But if, if you can just help us see through like, okay, now that things are growing beyond just get your stuff on DSPs, you're doing the marketing, you're doing the cross-territory collaboration, you know, you're thinking about editorial and sync and so forth.

What are new revenue streams that get you excited?

[00:10:20] Isaac: I think that one of the biggest things that we've seen, and there already is so much discourse on this, is the whole super fan situation. And it's something that, you know, I've had a great view of, especially out in Asia, where platforms like Weverse, for example, have dominated the market in a particular niche or genre.

And we can really see how this increased engagement leads to fans who are more excited about, products, about releases, but most importantly about the artist themselves.

[00:10:51] Dmitri: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:51] Isaac: I will say that that's not the only model that needs to be followed strictly. Every artist, every audience has a particular type of fit.

And sometimes, you know, if you're a band thatis a bit less social savvy, it doesn't mean that your fans, necessarily need that content the same way that a K-pop fan would, produce content, for example.

[00:11:12] Dmitri: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:11:12] Isaac: So I, I think it's worth exploring a little bit more because streaming revenue compared to merch, compared to tickets is paltry, right?

When it comes to a listener, per listener basis. And this is one of the best ways to make sure that your fans are engaged and that you're monetizing your audience, fully.

[00:11:31] Dmitri: Love it.

[00:11:31] Isaac: Um, something that we've also seen that isn't so much of, like, a new revenue stream per se, but is something that I do think needs to be paid more attention to, is going back to the basics.

We, we did a recent audit of, I think about 5,000 artists in emerging markets, and something like 70 or 80% of them were not collecting their publishing rights.

[00:11:54] Dmitri: Hmm.

[00:11:55] Isaac: Right? And that also brings up, a ton of other issues when you're talking about eventually moving to sync or micro sync or trying to tap into other potential revenue streams that may be coming in.

And I think maybe one more would just be making full use of, native in-app social commerce tools. selling and managing your inventory so that you're able to immediately get the impulse purchases for vinyls, for CDs. Because the people that will do this when- after discovering you are also going to be your evangelists.

They're also gonna be talking about you when they receive the product, when they take pictures of those things, or, sharing the music with their fans because they now feel a sense of ownership.

[00:12:38] Dmitri: Love it. Lean into the, to the super fan in the sense of create some engaging ways to find other revenue opportunities.

Go back to the basics. Make sure you're getting your publishing revenue, not just your master, revenue. And, what was that last one?

[00:12:54] Isaac: lean into social commerce.

[00:12:56] Dmitri: Yeah. Yeah. Directly on app with the s- social commerce. Love it. Isaac, this has been great. Uh, I feel like we really got a great picture of how OneRPM fits into this, but you also told the story of what's shifting in really tech-savvy distribution companies that are way beyond that, and I feel like you've got the, your finger on the pulse of a lot of relevant stuff for artists and labels.

Thank you so much for taking the time. It's been great to have you on the podcast.

[00:13:19] Isaac: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me

Let us know what you think! Find us on LinkedIn, and Instagram, or connect with podcast host Dmitri Vietze on LinkedIn.

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Weekly episodes include interviews with music tech movers & shakers, deep dives into seismic shifts, and more.