Every label in music right now knows how to go viral. Almost none of them know what to do the week after. That gap is where broke Records has built its business.
The numbers say virality is the label's home turf. The Source reported that broke had more TikTok-charting singles than any other label in 2024. The company put more than 15 singles on the Billboard charts that year. Ndotz's "Embrace It" and Sevdaliza's "Alibi" both reached Spotify's Global Top 50. The catalog did more than 15 billion Spotify streams in the past year, as reported around the vaultboy signing. But ask co-founder and CEO Andre Benz about the viral part, and he shrugs it off.
"The viral part is solved," Benz says. "It is table stakes. The business is everything after."
His argument is that a viral record is distribution, not a career. "The algorithm hands you an audience for about ten days," he says. "What you do in those ten days, and the ten months after, is the actual job. Most labels treat the viral moment as the finish line. We treat it as the starting gun."
The first move, he says, is the second record. "An artist with one viral song and nothing behind it is a trivia question by spring," Benz says. Broke's A&R team is in the studio with the artist while the first record is still climbing, because the follow-up has to land while the audience is warm. "Momentum is perishable. You either convert it into a catalog or you watch it expire."
The second move is the show. "Records make fans," Benz says. "Touring makes careers. An artist who can sell tickets in three cities is a business. An artist with one viral song and no live footprint is a screenshot." The label pushes its artists toward stages early, he says, because the room tells you things the comments never will.
The third move is ownership of the long tail: publishing, neighboring rights, the catalog that keeps paying when the feed moves on. Broke launched its publishing arm for exactly this reason. "The viral moment pays once," Benz says. "The catalog pays for decades, but only if someone administers it properly from the start."
None of this is theory. Sevdaliza turned down a major-label deal with Republic Records to stay independent with broke, a decision Benz attributes to speed, efficiency, product ownership, and intuition. Julia Cole arrived with 600 million global streams and a real audience, and the label took her into country music through a partnership with BBR and BMG Nashville. "Artist development means following the artist," Benz says, "not the genre we started in."
Benz's read on the next five years is blunt. The labels that matter will not be the ones with the best viral marketing, because everyone will have that. They will be the ones that know how to turn a moment into a career: second record, live show, catalog, repeat. "Virality is the audition," he says. "The career is the job."
About broke Records: broke Records is an independent record label and music marketing company founded in 2023 by Andre Benz and Brandon De Oliveira. Operating under Create Music Group with offices in Los Angeles, New York and London, broke develops artists across hip-hop, pop, electronic and country.
Complex newsroom and editorial staff were not involved in the creation of this content.
