Artists have to produce a lot more content to keep up in today’s streaming music industry, Grammy Award-winning singer Ashanti says.
Artists have to produce a lot more content to keep up in today’s streaming music industry, Grammy Award-winning singer Ashanti told CNBC on Wednesday.
“You have to continue to put out new records. It’s way faster pace now. You can’t really wait because there are so many other artists dropping different things, the consumer will get bored,” she said on ” Power Lunch.”
Streaming has transformed the industry and has led some musicians to push for streaming services to pay more money to artists .
Ashanti, whose full name is Ashanti Shequoiya Douglas, said she likes Jay-Z ‘s service, Tidal, because it pays a little more.
Apple, Pandora and Spotify expose musicians to millions of people, but they “don’t pay the best,” she said.
“You have to put all of your eggs in different baskets. You want to be the artist that’s on every single streaming service so that you can get the most amount of people involved and knowing and aware about your music,” said Ashanti, who is also a songwriter, record producer and actor. According to a report by Digital Music News, Tidal pays artists 0.01682 cent per play. Meanwhile, Spotify pays 0.00397 cent per stream, according to the report.
Spotify, which went public last month, reported first-quarter revenue of 1.14 billion euros ($1.35 billion) and a net loss of 169 million euros. The music service has a user base of 170 million, with 75 million paid subscribers.
Musicians have complained about the need for streaming services to pay more. Most notably, pop star Taylor Swift left Spotify in 2014 after complaining the company didn’t pay artists enough. She returned in 2017 and also made her music available on Pandora, Amazon.com and Tidal. Her catalog had previously only been available on Apple’s music service.
When asked if touring was the way to make money these days, Ashanti said: “Absolutely, for me 100 percent. You touch your fans. You make some money.”
Ashanti’s self-titled debut album came out in 2001 and won the Grammy Award for best contemporary R&B album.
— Reuters contributed to this report.
