After hitting 75 billion streams on the platform, Drake has proposed that artists should get bonuses from Spotify.
Drake made the proposal in an Instagram Stories update on Wednesday, notably after it was revealed that he had become the first artist to hit that number across all credits.
“We should get bonuses like athletes to motivate the future artists to be consistent and competitive,” Drake wrote in an Instagram Stories update. “[S]o feel free to send me a Lebron sized cheque. I have enough dinner plates.”
See the post in full below.
Drake’s seemingly halfhearted remark, of course, points (perhaps inadvertently) to a larger issue permeating the streaming era. Namely, working class artists and those who simply aren’t as embedded into the mainstream infrastructure as Drake have long criticized how much money they’re able to make on Spotify and other streaming providers.
The Union of Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW), specifically, has continued to work toward raising awareness around this issue, including by previously sharing a list of demands that has since been signed by more than 28,000 artists.
“The company behind the streaming platform continues to accrue value, yet music workers everywhere see little more than pennies in compensation for the work they make,” UMAW said of their previously launched Justice at Spotify project.
Just this week, Spotify confirmed that it had surpassed 200 million subscribers.
