Re: Must-Read Article<\/p>\n
Hi Bob,<\/p>\n
I’ve been a subscriber since I first started in the industry back in 2008.\u00a0 Long-time listener, first-time caller!\u00a0 It was a little surreal to see you reference the NYT write-up on Phonk, our label,\u00a0Black 17,\u00a0and one of our artists, Hensonn.<\/p>\n
Yes, the vertical video play counts are outrageous.\u00a0 And yes, many of our artists have generated substantial wealth from their music.\u00a0 I want to give you a little more context \u00a0–<\/p>\n
We have over 1,500 frontline recording artists and have built organically a catalog comprising more than 25,000 tracks.\u00a0 Most of these artists are under 25, and roughly half are either Eastern European or South American\u2014meaning much of this music is born amid political and socioeconomic conflict.<\/p>\n
To your point, the music speaks for itself.\u00a0 It has to.\u00a0 Many of our artists prefer anonymity and aren’t terribly social.\u00a0 Phonk is outsider music.\u00a0 And what the NYT article didn’t elucidate is that Phonk has a rabid and deeply connected fanbase, not just a passive vertical video audience.\u00a0 The Spotify PHONK playlist has 11.4M followers.\u00a0 We collect revenue in 250 countries.<\/p>\n
Black 17 was founded in 2015 in the Sony RED office.\u00a0 Tyler and Bryan were product managers fresh from the mailroom, Jake was in client services, and I was lower-mid-level finance (and not officially on the B17 team until years later).\u00a0 Safe to say we weren’t especially pedigreed.\u00a0 We dreamed of being important in the office, part of the crew that would take top labels out for drinks with Alan Becker and Bob Morelli.\u00a0 The thesis was to imitate the distribution models David Macias and Missi Callazzo had mastered: find great artists en masse, ensure artists maintain ownership, and fight like hell for them.\u00a0 Black 17 cut its teeth on SoundCloud rap and then meme rap, learning the game.\u00a0 It was obvious that music tailor made for the current distribution channels had a greater chance of being heard, and social media was as important a distributor, if not more so, than the streamers.\u00a0 It was also obvious that transparency, a monthly royalty payment cadence, and not recouping superfluous marketing\/promo expenses would earn strong word-of-mouth endorsement.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to the present.\u00a0 We have an incredible team. \u00a0INCREDIBLE TEAM!\u00a0 A band of outsiders uncompromising in achieving results, unburdened by title silos or corporate hierarchy limitations.\u00a0 We have no office.\u00a0 We spend 2% of net revenue on marketing.\u00a0 We are spread across North America, from Miami to Timmins, Ontario, from New York to Los Angeles.\u00a0 Our content creator is a Lithuanian expatriate living outside of Dublin whom we hired from a factory job.\u00a0 And his influence on the genre’s visual aspects is unmatched.<\/p>\n
We are still with Orchard\/Sony (RED merged in 2017), and we are so grateful for their partnership.\u00a0 It’s humbling and quite a thrill to be one of the labels the C-Suite and Alan Becker host for dinners.\u00a0 Full circle.\u00a0 Family.\u00a0 It’s also fuel to push further.<\/p>\n
Diplo was the first major artist outside of Phonk to give us a shot.\u00a0 It’s been a great success.\u00a0 And while we won’t abandon our roots, we are confident that our methodologies translate across genre, and we welcome the opportunity.\u00a0 As Tyler mentioned in the article, in the last 5 years we’ve paid out over $140M to artists, and we look forward to multiplying that number in the next 5.<\/p>\n
We appreciate all you do Bob, and thank you for spreading awareness.<\/p>\n
Cheers!<\/p>\n
Boo White<\/p>\n
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