Metro Boomin to stop releasing songs on streaming services
St. Louis producer Metro Boomin has let fans know he doesn’t plan to release any more projects on streaming platforms. The beatmaker recently teamed up with Future for their album series We Don’t Trust You, followed by We Still Don’t Trust You.
However, bar his next album, the musician has let fans know via Instagram that he is frustrated with the music industry’s streaming system and doesn’t want to take back control of the distribution of his music.
Last year, the Missouri native worked on the soundtrack of a Sony Films superhero movie, and his collaborative album with Future, We Don’t Trust You, was the catalyst for the battle between Drake and Kendrick Lamar following the latter’s verse on the track ‘Like That’.
Metro Boomin is a brand and artist in his own right, and, as such, he doesn’t merely want to appear as a feature on everybody’s songs but wants to have the full rights to his material.
Many of his LPs have reached platinum certification, and he is starting to realise the power of his brand. On June 24th, Metro Boomin took to Twitter/X, where he posted a screenshot in response to a post about “industry math”.
He explained how little artists make from streams on platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music. The post read, “A fan needs to stream an artist’s music 20 times a day for a whole year for that artist to make $25 from that fan.”
Boomin agreed with the tweet and stated that this is why he doesn’t plan to release his music on streaming platforms in the future. He explained how his profit is so tiny that it isn’t worth releasing his projects in this manner anymore.
Taking to Instagram, he wrote on his story, “This is why my next album will probably be the last one streaming.” The St Louis musician didn’t delve into the details of his next album but did suggest that it will be the last project so freely available.
Last year, Metro Boomin decided to sell part of his publishing catalogue to Shamrock Capital for $70 million, and many artists of even higher calibre have made similar decisions as they struggle to see revenue from their streaming numbers.
