3 ms·

> Facing paltry YouTube revenue, many lo-fi hip-hop channels have ventured beyond just curation and founded their own record labels, in order to build up a cata

> Facing paltry YouTube revenue, many lo-fi hip-hop channels have ventured beyond just curation and founded their own record labels, in order to build up a catalog that can be monetized elsewhere (e.g. on Spotify and Apple Music) in a more lucrative manner. Most of these labels sign non-exclusive deals with individual singles, rather than albums — meaning that artists can choose to release said singles with other labels as well, which can be useful for getting featured on several lo-fi compilations and mixes at once. Pardon my ignorance, but what is the incentive driving artists to work with these record labels rather than self-publishing? Is it not possible to "self-publish" to Spotify and Apple Music without a record label? Is it strictly to increase exposure in the way mentioned in this paragraph, i.e. to have their music included in various mixes/albums from different labels? Finally, what is the barrier to starting a record label that anyone would want anything to do with? I would (in my ignorance) think that an artist would have more leverage here, since they already belong to the community

atat7024 6y ago
Clout. Discovery. Making great shit with like minded people without caring about the equity. Tech community here could take a lesson.
- DC1350 6y ago
  There’s nothing noble about giving your money away for free to middle men.
  - albertsondev 6y ago
    While rent-collecting is a major problem in the music industry, this is a rather reductive statement. Especially when it comes to more niche genres, such as lofi, a label can be a major help to increase name recognition for smaller artists just starting out, especially when said label allows such non-exclusive publishing deals and still offers the artists fair compensation. In this regard, they often serve as, essentially, incubators. This is also a common way for much larger, more well-recognized artists within a niche to give back to the community, by providing their own name recognition to (or even starting) a relatively small label that launches other artists in similar genres, in spite of the fact that said label is less likely to give that artist in particular more value-add than another, larger one.
- carb 6y ago
  The community that birthed the open source software movement and organizations like the Free Software Foundation?
hbosch 6y ago
>Is it not possible to "self-publish" to Spotify and Apple Music without a record label? Of course it's possible. Good luck getting any streams, though. We're talking about "milennial muzak" here. It's consumed by playlist first, as background noise. For the most part certain artists don't merit their own solo fanbases.

atat7024 6y ago

Clout. Discovery. Making great shit with like minded people without caring about the equity. Tech community here could take a lesson.

DC1350 6y ago
There’s nothing noble about giving your money away for free to middle men.
- albertsondev 6y ago
  While rent-collecting is a major problem in the music industry, this is a rather reductive statement. Especially when it comes to more niche genres, such as lofi, a label can be a major help to increase name recognition for smaller artists just starting out, especially when said label allows such non-exclusive publishing deals and still offers the artists fair compensation. In this regard, they often serve as, essentially, incubators. This is also a common way for much larger, more well-recognized artists within a niche to give back to the community, by providing their own name recognition to (or even starting) a relatively small label that launches other artists in similar genres, in spite of the fact that said label is less likely to give that artist in particular more value-add than another, larger one.
carb 6y ago
The community that birthed the open source software movement and organizations like the Free Software Foundation?

hbosch 6y ago

>Is it not possible to "self-publish" to Spotify and Apple Music without a record label? Of course it's possible. Good luck getting any streams, though. We're talking about "milennial muzak" here. It's consumed by playlist first, as background noise. For the most part certain artists don't merit their own solo fanbases.