Snoop Dogg has urged artists to boycott streaming services in response to low payouts following the Writer’s Guild of America strike in Hollywood.
The West Coast legend spoke on a panel earlier this week alongside his business partner, former Apple Music executive and now Gamma founder Larry Jackson, as well as Variety‘s Shirley Halperin.
“[Artists] need to figure it out the same way the writers are figuring it out,” Snoop said. “The writers are striking because [of] streaming, they can’t get paid. Because when it’s on the platform, it’s not like in the box office.
“I don’t understand how the fuck you get paid off of that shit. Somebody explain to me how you can get a billion streams and not get a million dollars?… That’s the main gripe with a lot of us artists is that we do major numbers… But it don’t add up to the money. Like where the fuck is the money?”
Snoop then took aim at YouTube after Jackson revealed Gamma received just $16,000 from 500 million streams through YouTube Shorts. “YouTube, y’all motherfuckers need to break bread or fake dead!” he barked.
The Writer’s Guild of America began their strike earlier this week, which has resulted in shows like Saturday Night Live going dark.
Unfortunately for rap fans, that means Lil Uzi Vert’s SNL debut has been put on hold. The Philadelphia rapper was slated to perform on this weekend’s show, with Pete Davidson on hosting duties.
Snoop Dogg inked a longterm partnership with Larry Jackson’s Gamma in March, through which he brought Death Row Records’ catalog back to streaming services. The deal also includes two future Snoop albums.
Gamma was also quietly behind the release of Death Row’s catalog on TikTok in February, which came roughly a year after Snoop became the new owner of the label and subsequently pulled some of its music from streaming services over gripes with artist payouts.
Snoop hasn’t been shy in voicing his frustration with streaming services when it comes to their payouts, which he expanded on his during his interview with Drink Champs last year.
“First thing I did was snatch all the music off those platforms traditionally known to people, because those platforms don’t pay,” he explained. “And those platforms get millions of streams, and nobody gets paid other than the record labels.
“So what I wanted to do is snatch my music off, create a platform similar to Amazon, Netflix, Hulu. It’ll be a Death Row app, and the music, in the meantime, will live in the metaverse.”
Exactly how much do you expect to get from streams ? They are free. Nobody watches the ads or gets “influenced” to buy the products that interrupt youtube videos or spotify plays. The advertisers can only pay so much, cuz how they gonna make a profit. Streaming destroyed the music industry. Go back to CDs and MP3s and make “owning” music cool again. This online library shit is lame. And if your favorite artist gets banned, youre fucked. But thats what they want, control. You couldnt ban CDs cuz you couldn’t force a local shop or website to sell or not sell something. Streaming gives big tech control of the music industry that they didnt have with CDs or MP3s. Yall allowed it to happen.
Streaming will never end because it is a necessity. If the industry didn’t adopt it, it would of died. This is because streaming is a convenient alternative to piracy. If they abandon it and go back to CDs, people will go back to downloading albums. Nobody has got to time to be carrying around a bunch of CDs when one small device that can fit in a pocket can contain an entire library of CDs.
I still don’t stream. You’re dead on. Streaming was the answer to piracy. I’m old-school, I like downloading stuff to my phone.
Finally. Snoop with some light. Why y’all think the last Blackstar album came out the way it did? But a lot of artists too comfy in their zones. Detach from the corporate and earn your damn earned money while connecting with the fans. Tidal stepped in the right direction, but now y’all need no middle man if you plan accordingly. That’ll do Dogg…That’ll do 🙌🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
this dude believe stream numbers are real? newsflash snoop 500M means 50M 1M means 1000 actual people actually listened to it and even less will buy, you can fit every song every produced on a 30 dollar microsd card only complete morons stream radio been free thats what it is internet radio