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In a series of tweets shared this morning, artist Chance the Rapper gave some insight into how Apple Music exclusives work for artists. His mixtape, Coloring Book, was an Apple Music exclusive for two weeks after it launched in 2016.
To garner exclusive rights to Coloring Book, Chance the Rapper says Apple paid him a total of $500,000 and funded a commercial designed to promote the new album. In exchange, Apple had sole access to offer Coloring Book for a two week period, at which point it became available on other music services.
Apple has done multiple exclusive launches since the debut of Apple Music in 2015, but until now, there's been very little insight into what Apple offers artists to entice them to offer up exclusives on the music service. Prior to now, both artists and Apple have kept deal terms tightly under wraps.
Apple has inked exclusive deals with a wide range of artists, from Drake and Taylor Swift to Frank Ocean, The Weeknd, and Katy Perry.
I wanna clear things up. @apple gave me half a mil and a commercial to post Coloring Book exclusively on applemusic for 2 weeks https://t.co/dMWwptrHHH — Lil Chano From 79th (@chancetherapper) March 17, 2017
Chance the Rapper says he shared the info because he wants to "remain transparent." He went on to say artists can gain a lot from streaming wars by remaining in control of their own product (Chance the Rapper is not signed to a label). "If you come across opportunities to work with good people, pick up cash and keep your integrity, I say Do It," he wrote on Twitter in reference to Apple Music.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)only to be available on every piracy site for free 1 minute later and missing out on all those users willing to "pay" for it on other streaming services. idiots
Not everyone steals things.I'm sure the stockholders are thrilled with such a well thought out use of their money.
What a waste. They wouldn't even make a return on that investment. But oh well, i'm sure people like exclusives more than new Macs.
What's your point? By that logic Apple should give me $100,000 just because, who cares that's couch cushion change. I think that's a terrible investment decision regardless of whether they had the money to make it.
Do the maths. Apple takes $120/year in revenue per Apple Music subscription. Let's assume they have margins of 10% (it's probably more, but whatever), so that $12/year per person.So they'd only need 50,000 extra subscribers to more than cover their investment.
A quick check on Twitter, and Chance has 3.5 million followers, so it'd only take 1.5% of those fans to sign up for it to be a rock-solid investment.
Regardless of your taste in music, those cold, hard stats don't sound like dumb business choices to me. Quite the opposite.