This incremental shift of major artists toward indie distribution suggests that the idea of a level playing field in the music business is not as far-fetched as we may think.
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“Three days after we finished the album, it was up on every major platform, and now I know exactly how much money I’m making from it.” “It was the perfect slam dunk: we cut up the revenue pie evenly and easily without any transparency issues so that we could just focus on our creativity,” said Jeff. Similar to DistroKid, Stem’s main selling points are its clean, artist-friendly dashboard interface and its automated, consensus-based model for royalty splits. The Los Angeles-based startup touts a more public profile in the tech world than most other distributors, having raised $4.5 million in April 2016 from the likes of Upfront Ventures, Gary Vaynerchuk and artist-management magnate Scooter Braun. Stem gained recognition that same month as the distributor behind Frank Ocean’s album Blonde, whose stealthy release strategy circumvented the major-label system and sent shockwaves through the music industry. “I don’t normally get that emotional on projects, but when we finished up the album and I sat down and listened to it from beginning to end, I broke down.”
#BLONDE IN LUDACRIS VITAMIN D VIDEO FULL#
“I’ve been doing music professionally for over 30 years, and this was the first time I ever had full creative control,” Jeff told me. Jeff not only documented the entire recording process on Facebook Live but also decided to release the album independently through a distributor called Stem.
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Rewind to February 2017, when prolific hip-hop artist DJ Jazzy Jeff, who first rose to fame alongside Will Smith as DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, worked with over 30 collaborators to record his new album Chasing Goosebumps in just seven days.