Spotify has announced an update to its royalty terms but its significance is far more than just money
A new minimum threshold that determines whether an artist gets paid or not
In its inception, streaming was a reactive measure. At the turn of the century and as the ‘00s wore on, digital bootlegging became ultra-ubiquitous, as the internet became a mainstay and pirating sites provided unlimited access to any and every song with a digital presence. As long as it had been recorded and publicly shared or archived on the internet, the public had access to it. As played out in Netflix’s drama miniseries, ‘The Playlist’, the unbridled—albeit slightly buggy—access to bootlegging almost any and mostly all music inspired Daniel Ek to found Spotify, undeniably the leading platform in global music streaming.
With the advent of Spotify, and similar streaming sites and apps, the music industry had to conform to an online piracy problem that was eating into potential profits. Now, streaming has become the primary means of music listening: Any internet-supporting device and a few clicks, and you can listen to millions of recorded music. For the vast majority of the listening public, we’re living an absolute dream; for many artist, it’s relative.
One of the main tensions in the ‘The Playlist’ revolves around artist compensation. In the show, the fictional character Bobbi T takes Ek to task on Spotify’s royalty model, a side of the show that asks questions without giving viewers any clear cut answers even through a time jump into the near future. It’s understandable, because there really isn’t any satisfactory solutions—except scrapping streaming and forcing listeners to go back to buying music, which won’t happen. At the moment, Spotify, as with the several popular streaming platforms around, employs the pro rata system in paying artists, dividing the pool of incoming revenue according to the number of plays songs get. On the face of it, that’s quite uncomplicated.
At the end of every month, the streamer gathers income of subscribing listeners and ad-generated revenue, pulling out operational cuts like taxes and billings, and divides the net revenue amongst rights holders—labels, publishers, distributors—based on the proportion. Basically, a song gets a fraction or percentage of the monthly net revenue in relation to the total amount of streams from listeners in a month. So, if a song by artist Y racks up a million streams, that number is divided by the total streams in a month, and the resulting fraction is factored against the total money to be divided.
Simple math, right?
While this payment model means pay-outs differ on a month-to-month basis, calculations have cited about $0.003 to $0.005 per stream, on average. This means it would take somewhere around 200 plays for a song to earn five cents. Compare that to digitally buying music, where albums sell for around $9.99 and singles sell for around $1.79. So, a song has to be played by a listener about 8,000 times to equal the value of buying the song. I can place a healthy bet that almost everyone who streams music has yet to play a song up to 8,000 times.
Amidst the unending conversations on whether the payment method in streaming needs to be fixed, Spotify has made a momentous announcement: A new minimum threshold for streams before any track starts generating royalties. Starting from Q1 2024, a song will have to be streamed at least 1,000 times before it can start earning money for its creators. According to reports, this new change is one of three to be implemented in order to “combat three drains on the royalty pool.”
The other two: financially penalising distributors when fraudulent activities is noticed on uploaded tracks, and a new minimum length of playing time for non-music “noise” tracks to generate royalties. For the former, it’s a measure to further combat stream farming, while the latter is an attempt to crack down on those who upload ambient tracks in fragmented forms while taking advantage of the 30-second revenue trigger for songs. According to Spotify, all three changes are a way to redirect the drains in the royalty pool to “working artists.”
Of all three measures, the minimum streams threshold for songs is brow-raising, and not exactly for positive reasons. While the details aren’t altogether neatly ironed out, it’s been reported that the Spotify plans to exclude songs that don’t reach the 1,000-minimum annual threshold will have their potential revenue reallocated to more popular stuff. It might seem minuscule, considering that the songs that fall within this category make up about 0.5% of the music on Spotify and a few million dollars in the revenue pool, but it’s a sinister approach in taking from the meagre and giving it to those better off.
Undoubtedly, this impending measure is going to affect independent artists. There are millions and millions of artists and creators on Spotify. There are two opposing ways to look at it: That number is an effect of the low barrier of releasing music in the streaming era, but the oversaturation makes it hard for many artists to gain modest to wide listenership. Sure, there are a lot of artists with gaudy to respectable number of Spotify, spotting millions and thousands of monthly listeners. The numbers their songs rake in are reflective of that. At that, there are also those with few listeners and not that many streams. What this minimum threshold rule threatens to do is determine their art as worthless, simply for not being popular enough.
In an interview with Music Ally back in 2020, Daniel Ek basically told artists to work harder. “Some artists that used to do well in the past may not do well in this future landscape,” Ek said. “You can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough. The artists today that are making it realise that it’s about creating a continuous engagement with their fans. It is about putting the work in, about the storytelling around the album, and about keeping a continuous dialogue with your fans.”
The immediate reactions from many artists to those statements were far from kind, with many citing the paltry compensations they receive from Spotify. The interview and subsequent rejoinders frame the relationship between artists and streaming platforms—not just Spotify. Considering that the Swedish streamer is one of the least paying platforms for music, none of that exchange feels particularly unwarranted. Now, with this minimum threshold measure, Spotify isn’t just dictating the terms of payment, it’s pretty much telling artists that they have to meet a criteria that goes beyond making and dropping music.
From a more parochial standpoint, it could be even more biting. In Nigeria, Spotify’s premium tier is pegged at N900, which means the net revenue pool is significantly less for many nascent (and “unpopular”) artists, especially when you factor in that paid streaming is still a modestly growing phenomenon. Also, without official numbers, it is difficult to know how many listeners are subscribed to Spotify, and in comparison to the earlier entrance of Apple Music and the rapid ubiquity of Audiomack, its presence can’t exactly be qualified as dominant.
For a rising or not-so-popular Nigerian artist who has to promote across streaming platforms, there’s the real possibility that songs might not crack over a thousand plays on Spotify alone, which means losing out on revenue, even if it’s very tiny. I have a new indie rapper friend who dropped an EP a while back, and I remember that he made a joke that he could order a plate of food worth about N3,000 with his quarterly check from streaming. Now, that amount just got smaller, since only one song of his has crossed the thousand stream milestone.
The truth is, making money off streaming isn’t easy—especially when you’re not Drake, Taylor Swift, BTS, and them. For the underground acts and the most unpopular of the unpopular artists, these tiny payments are a form of validation, one that helps the artist keep creating while holding on to a dream. Even for those who might be creating recreationally, it’s still flat out unfair that their work won’t be deemed as having any worth, simply because they’re not playing the popularity game Spotify has inevitably thrust on them and set the rules for.
Many people have already called on Spotify—and other streamers—to adopt a better, ‘artist-centric’ model, which is artists directly earning out of the subscription of listeners who play their music. That will be more complicated than the current pro rata system, and even more aggressive, as seen in the impending partnership between Deezer and Universal Music Group. There’s no ideal fix as far streaming is concerned, but deciding against paying musicians and song creators based on arbitrary number feels unethical. Yes, whatever is popular will and should earn the most, but every stream has a value, and its value should be assigned to its creator.
WHERE WERE YOU: SPOTIFY WELCOMES CREATORS TO STREAM ON 2023
What OdumoduBlvck’s Greatest School Tour Could Mean For Touring In Nigeria
The rapper’s decision to embark on a local university tour of this nature could go on to become a...
There’s no denying that OdumoduBlvck’s 2023 mixtape ‘Eziokwu’ established his musical genius. While the half dozen projects that preceded ‘Eziokwu’ almost served as target practice, largely showcasing the early iterations of Okporoko music – his unique melodious rap fusion – it was his major label debut that truly grounded the rapper in Nigeria’s rich Hip-Hop lineage. The album’s far-reaching success culminated in a historic joint tour with fellow 2023 breakout star Shallipopi, which saw the two share the stage across 9 cities in the United States. Similarly, riding the high of his latest mixtape, ‘The Machine Is Coming,’ the Anti-World Gangstar head huncho recently announced a new tour. This time, however, instead of taking his new collection of infectious bangers to stages abroad, the rapper decided to visit different universities across the country for what he calls the ‘Greatest School Tour Ever.’
Touring in Nigeria is a subject that has become somewhat controversial over the last few years, splitting opinions amongst many fans, industry experts, and artists themselves. Back in the mid-2000s to early 2010s, local touring was very much the norm. Platforms like Star Music’s ‘The Trek,’ as well as a few prominent local promoters, enabled some of the biggest names like 2face, Olamide, and M.I to hold annual nationwide tours. These tours included stops in cities like Warri, Makurdi, Owerri and many other places that artists are less likely to visit today. University tours were also popular as they presented an avenue for these artists to connect with their younger audience, who mostly served as the bedrock of their fan base.
The rise of digital streaming platforms, which has partly informed the industry’s rapid evolution over the past decade, coupled with other economic and infrastructural issues, has, however, forced a sharp decline in local touring, making it an almost altruistic endeavour in today’s Nigeria. Afropop gaining global exposure meant that the international market immediately became more viable and lucrative to our biggest stars, and this reshaped their priorities. The extensive, multi-city shows became reserved for diaspora fans, while the local audience, in most cases, are treated to a solitary annual show.
OdumoduBlvck looks to buck this trend with the ‘Greatest School Tour Ever,’ prioritizing his primary audience before tending to those abroad. In truth, the Lagos-born rapper is not the only one who has embarked on this type of tour in recent times. A couple of years ago, UK-based rapper Kida Kudz and Ckay also went on similar campus tours, with the latter making stops at 10 different universities across the country. Llona, one of the breakout stars from last year, is also currently on a nationwide tour coming off the success of his impressive debut album ‘Homeless.’ The ‘Greatest School Tour Ever,’ is however, peculiar and momentous because of its timing and OdumoduBlvck’s standing as one of the biggest names around.
At the recent 17th Headies Awards, the rapper became the latest recipient of the Next Rated award, a highly coveted plaque that’s historically reserved for standout acts whose music defines the zeitgeist at a given period. He received the award just two days after he gave an electrifying performance at Afe Babalola University. His latest mixtape, ‘The Machine Is Coming,’ a precursor to his highly anticipated forthcoming debut, currently sits at the No. 2 spot on the Turntable Top 50 Album charts. It is unheard of in recent times: that the Headies Next Rated act, who has one of the top projects in the country, is on a local university tour. The Abuja-native has, however, shown on numerous occasions that he has never really been one to abide by existing standards. The famous opening lines from his breakout single “Declan Rice” (I can do without their Policy I Know), did not only serve as a message to gatekeepers and naysayers but also as a manifesto that declared his mode of operation going forward.
At the time of this writing, the rapper has only made two stops on his ongoing tour, but his decision to embark on a local tour of this nature already looks to be paying dividends. The first two shows have produced viral clips that capture his star power, the hysteria of his headline shows and his rapidly growing influence, especially amongst younger listeners. The viral clips have already created an increased demand for shows, with many young fans harassing the rapper to add more dates to the tour. With the release of ‘The Machine Is Coming’ and his recent crowning moment at the Headies, it’s safe to assume there’s more attention on him now than ever. While it is, of course, still early days, the rapper’s decision to embark on a local university tour, especially given that he’s currently experiencing a career high, could go on to become a significant moment, one that potentially inspires a shift in the touring landscape in Nigeria.
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NATIVE PREMIERE: Tanika Is Stepping Out On Her Terms With The Kida Kudz-Assisted “FAST FWD”
From working her way out of London’s Myatt’s Field, Tanika is now setting her sights on the bright lights...
Across a career that’s in its second decade, Tanika has proven to be a force in her own right, holding her own on collaborations with Black British stars like Stormzy and Wretch 32, as well as popular record producer Naughty Boy–working with the Grammy-nominated beatmaker on his acclaimed ‘Hotel Cabana’ album.
Following a stint as an actor, she returned to the studio in 2021, releasing a new extended play, ‘333,’ in 2023. The project carried all the hallmarks of Tanika at her tantalising best: lilting cadences, well-paced narratives, a songwriting that reaches for the heart of the matter.
On her latest song, “Fast Fwd,” she’s growing into her own and stepping into a new era. In many ways, “Fast Fwd,” a hypnotic, sultry anthem, is landing just in time for summer revelry. Produced by her longtime collaborator, Naughty Boy, her silky vocals land effortlessly on the mid-tempo instrumental and pulsates with her desire for her love interest.
Joined on the song by her fiancé, Kida Kudz, they make an interesting duo and replicate the synergy they had on “Nobody,” off Kudz’s 2021 ‘Top Memba.’ Distinctively marked by use of neon lights, the video for the song captures the effervescence of romance that Tanika hums about throughout the song.
From working her way out of London’s Myatt’s Field to becoming a star with millions of streams, Tanika is now setting her sights on the bright lights of superstardom. Ahead of the official release of the single, we had a brief chat with Tanika about her career, the influences for “Fast Fwd,” and working with KIda Kudz on it.
Her answers, which follow below, have been lightly edited for clarity.
How would you describe where you are in your career right now?
I’m just enjoying the journey.
What does the release of “Fast Fwd” signify for you?
It signifies love.
Why is Kida Kudz a fit for the song? (
To be honest, we didn’t plan to do another song together. I have worked on two records with him before (“Nobody” and “Tasty Time” ) but we never thought to shoot a video for it.. “Fast Fwd” felt like a real testimony of our present moment in the relationship.
You’ve worked extensively with Naughty Boy and he’s helped with “Fast Fwd,” what’s your relationship like and why does it work?
Naughty Boy knows me very well. We’ve known one another for over 10 years, so he knows what fits me musically. We gel. I think him knowing me and being a fan of Kida’s music made it all work. Naughty Boy does his listening before he makes a beat for you. A lot of producers don’t really understand the importance of knowing the artist musically but he does.
What were you aiming for with the video?
To be honest, I’m aiming for nothing. I’m just enjoying the journey. It’s been a very long road and I know I still have a long way to go.
Catch an exclusive view of “Fast Fwd” below.
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Vlisco’s “The Garden Of Sisterhood” Campaign Comes To Life in New “MAYANGA” Video
A celebration of creativity and cultural
Dutch textile brand Vlisco recently unveiled its latest campaign ‘The Garden Of Sisterhood,’ as part of its women’s month celebration. The campaign, which looks to extend Vlisco’s rich legacy in African fashion and its ongoing celebration of creativity and cultural storytelling, takes inspiration from Congolese musical icon Fally Ipupa’s latest single, “Mayanga.” The song’s accompanying music video was shot in the Ivory Coast, and seamlessly balances Ipupa’s signature soulful Rumba music with intricate floral motifs and soft, elegant colour palettes that celebrate the strength and individuality that blossoms through community.
In addition to Fally Ipupa, Vlisco also tapped up Ivorian fashion designer Loza Maléombho and Nigerian director Daniel Obasi to contribute to ‘The Garden Of Sisterhood’ campaign. Maléombho’s unique designs and Obasi’s striking storytelling helped contribute to actualising Vlisco’s distinct aesthetic and vision of merging heritage, creativity and fashion.
In a statement discussing the collaboration with Vlisco, the Congolese superstar described it as a beautiful experience. “They understood my vision of working with talented artists and honouring the beautiful women who wear Vlisco fabrics. By creating exclusive designs for me and the remarkable women in the cast, Vlisco really brought our artistic vision to life, harmoniously fusing music and fashion,” he said.
Similarly, Marlou van Engelen, the creative director of Vlisco, expressed that it was an honour working with Fally Ipupa. “His song ‘MAYANGA’ perfectly reflects our admiration for the women who shaped us, inspire us, and mean so much to us. For us, it’s not just about fashion; it’s about the stories told through our beautiful prints. And I believe the best stories are always told together,” she said in a statement.
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