Warner Music Group (WMG) today announced it has entered a partnership with influential music streaming and discovery service, Audiomack, marking the platform’s first licensing deal with a major label. The two will work together on content concepts and explore ways to break emerging artists, connecting avid music fans and tastemakers with rising talent before they hit the mainstream.
“It’s important that we take a principled but adventurous approach to empowering entrepreneurialism,” said Allan Coye, Vice President of Digital Strategy & Business Development, Warner Music Group. “We’re pleased to have found an innovative way to structure a commercial partnership with a discovery platform like Audiomack. The service is a terrific addition to our ecosystem, opening up exciting avenues for our emerging artists to directly engage an active audience thirsting for new music. We’re very much looking forward to working with David, Dave, and the entire Audiomack team.”
“We’re extremely excited to embark on this revolutionary deal with WMG,” said Dave Macli, CEO, Audiomack. “Warner has helped to break thousands of artists to a broad audience and our partnership with them will only foster the growth of their burgeoning talent by connecting them to Audiomack’s eight million monthly users.”
Launched in 2012 by Dave Macli and David Ponte, Audiomack quickly became known as a breeding ground for rising talent. Originally focusing on the mixtape community, it was the first platform to feature music from some of today’s most popular hip-hop artists, including A Boogie wit da Hoodie, Migos, Fetty Wap, Kevin Gates, and Chance The Rapper. The service has grown to encompass exclusive releases across a variety of genres, including hip-hop/rap, R&B, Latin, electronic, Afrobeats, dancehall/reggae, and more. Audiomack has achieved 210 percent year-over-year growth in daily active users over the last 12 months, and exists as a service that is completely free to independent artists, including the ability to upload an unlimited amount of music.
Audiomack also creates original content through its Trap Symphony series, which pairs an orchestral ensemble with hip-hop stars to create reimagined versions of their top songs; the Fine Tuned series, where artists pair up with live instrumentalists to create intimate renditions of their latest releases or biggest hits; and a number of other video and editorial offerings.
In 2015, the platform rolled out its Audiomack Monetization Platform (AMP), which combines ad revenues and distributes to artists by stream count, and later added a premium subscription tier for listeners, which costs $4.99 per month and offers added functionality in addition to removing ads.
