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Legendary hip-hop artist Busta Rhymes says it's time music streaming platforms like Spotify (SPOT) sing a different tune when it comes to paying the creators that power their platforms.
"I don't think we've figured [how to make money in streaming] out yet, unfortunately, in the way that business is being done today," Rhymes said in a new episode of the Power Players with Brian Sozzi podcast (video above; listen in below). "I'm talking about like us as artists, producers amongst our peers. We're all facing a very similar frustration with streaming. It's imperative that they find a way to respect the value of the artist and the artist's creations."
Major streaming platforms pool user subscription fees and allocate payouts based on an artist's share of total plays rather than directly compensating the specific musicians a user listens to.
This system inherently favors megastars and major labels, leaving independent musicians with per-stream payouts of fractions of a cent — typically between $0.003 and $0.005 on Spotify. It often amounts to next to nothing. But even well-established artists like Rhymes struggle with the economics of the model.