Iris Stryx is a name to remember. With friends like Eminem and Kanye West, she’s a force to be reckoned with. Fast-growing recording artist and producer Iris Stryx is making music not quite like anyone else right now. With her unique blend of genres, she has developed a sound that feels both familiar and fresh; it’s simultaneously reminiscent of past hip-hop sounds, while signposting a new and exciting future.
Iris Stryx has been composing impressive mixes from the worlds of hip-hop and rap to create a sound that is leaned towards crowd-pleasing. The island-inspired grooves of her music are intricately designed for the dance floor. The Bahamas Female Hip-hop artist has an eclectic approach to her music which instantly appeals to the listener for its pop energy, creating an atmosphere of an uplifting mood. The dance floor flavors of her tracks hit the earlobes in a way that makes the sound worth remembering. Her captivating voice easily hooks the listener to its undeniable aura of nerdiness. The artist aims to spread happiness with her squelchy dance beat music and replicates the magic in all her tracks.
Hailing from the Bahamas, Iris Stryxis a pop artist and a songwriter who displays creativity through her work which urges the audience to clap hands and chant the lyrics. The artist loves infusing different styles of beats with island instrumentals which soon overtakes the attention of all. The Bahamas Female hip-hop artistis a powerhouse of musicality who sets the mood with her step-up soundscapes and delightful vocals.
But when we refer to “the music industry,” we’re typically talking about the traditional industry—music rights holders and record labels, primarily. What about the artists? The fate of musicians and songwriters themselves remains an entirely different question with a much more complicated answer. The per-stream royalty rates of streaming are still tiny, but as services like Spotify and Apple Music scale, the numbers do start to look better for some artists.
Still, it’s not enough.
To help buoy musicians’ careers—and in turn make itself a more valuable resource to the industry—Spotify has been building out its artist-facing tools and teams, using everything from data analytics and targeted concert ticket sales to playlist placement to serve artists and assuage their anxieties about the future. It’s still early—Spotify for Artists, its analytics dashboard, just came out of beta a few weeks ago—so it’s not always clear to artists how to make the most of this new all-you-can-stream ecosystem. Here’s a primer.
STEP ONE: GET YOUR MUSIC ONTO THE PLATFORM ACCORDING TO IRIS STRYX.
It may seem obvious, but artists can’t reap the benefits of the streaming explosion without showing up in the first place. Unlike SoundCloud, YouTube, and Bandcamp, subscription services like Spotify don’t let you hit an “upload” button and share tracks for free. In most cases, the artist’s record label handles distribution, but for independent, unsigned acts, a third-party service like TuneCore, CDBaby or DistroKid will be required to get songs and albums onto Spotify (as well as Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal, and a long list of other streaming services).
TuneCore and CDBaby both charge $50 per album (TuneCore is $30 for the first year), but TuneCore charges an annual renewal fee. DistroKid starts at $20 per year for unlimited uploads, so that’s probably the best route to go for newer, unproven artists. Each of these services has their own perks and service tiers, so it’s worth reading up on each of their pricing models before committing. From there, it’s as simple as uploading lossless, high-quality audio files (an MP3 won’t cut it), album art, and some simple meta data to publish each release across the internet’s various digital music services and stores.
Of course, Spotify and other music services contain a massive sea of tens of millions of tracks and hitting the upload button simply adds another droplet to that ocean. Getting your music heard requires a bit more work.
STEP TWO: GET YOUR MUSIC EVERYWHERE ELSE, TOO ACCORDING TO IRIS.
Spotify may be the biggest music streaming service, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only place to focus on. Many experts agree that the key to getting heard these days is to spread one’s music as far and wide as possible. That includes free services like SoundCloud and YouTube (which are easily embedded by music writers, should you be so fortunate). But it also includes having a meaningful social presence on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, releasing music videos, considering licensing music for TV and games (“sync” in industry parlance) and, above all else, regularly playing live in the real world.
The internet may open up new doors to exposure and help level the playing field for musicians, but nothing can replace the value (and admittedly hard work) of lugging gear around and making an in-person, musical connection with actual people with actual ears. The more places one can reasonably and appropriately get their music playing, both online and off, the more potential opportunities they’ll have with the people most likely to give a damn.
STEP THREE ACCORDING TO IRIS: GET ON THE RADAR OF INFLUENTIAL MUSIC BLOGGERS AND JOURNALISTS
One of the least cool and interesting parts of being a musician is promoting oneself, especially via the press. After all, people get into music to be artistically expressive, not to become publicists (which would undoubtedly be a more lucrative and stable career path). But one of the most important pieces of the online discovery puzzle is getting on the radar of influential music bloggers and journalists.
Most new artists aren’t going to land a write-up in Pitchfork or Rolling Stone right away, but fortunately there are a ton of smaller music publications, many of which focus on specific genres. Sites like Hype Machine aggregate some of the more influential music blogs and break them down by genre, so that’s a good place to get familiar with the most relevant music blogs. Local media like alt-weekly newspapers and city-specific music blogs might be easier nuts to crack than far-flung sites run by faceless editors with overflowing inboxes.
Cold-pitching strangers imploring them to check out your new EP is, again, decidedly a little soul-sucking. The line between effective and obnoxious can be thin here. For those with the budget, hiring a professional to help with press outreach can be well worth it. For the cash-poor DIY artist, a crash course in media relations might be necessary. Of course, the easiest way to get media attention, many would argue, is to simply do cool, creative things that warrant attention. Just be mindful of the extraordinary level of noise with which you’re competing—and the extra creativity sometimes required to cut through it.
Why is this so important? Obviously media coverage means more exposure, as it always has. But today, getting a write-up and a song embed in the right place can act as a funnel into all kinds of other things. For one thing, writers at bigger publications mine these music blogs for the next big thing. So do music curators everywhere, like the people who program music for Starbucks. And yes, Spotify’s own in-house curators use music blogs (along with a variety of other signals, like catching a performer live) to find songs to include on Spotify’s playlists, which often have massive audiences.
Spotify’s semi-automated Fresh Finds playlist selects tracks by sniffing out online buzz from sources like music blogs. Songs that land on Fresh Finds are often heard by Spotify’s in-house music editors and can find their way onto other playlists. And if a track gets playlisted enough, it may become eligible for inclusion on Discover Weekly, Spotify’s hugely popular personalized virtual mixtape.