Michael Walker: All right, I'm excited to be here with my new friend, Chris Johnson. Chris leads artist discovery and development as the Head of A&R at SoundCloud, shaping the future of music. He brings 15-plus years of expertise from top-tier roles at 360, Roc Nation, and Monstercat. He's played a key role in elevating stars like Deadmau5 and Frank Ocean.

He has a passion for empowering artists at every stage of their music journey. I'm really excited to have him here today to dive into the foundation of how to identify and build an audience for your music, which is really at the core of what it takes to do music full-time.

It's an interesting time in history right now with the internet and independent music distribution. I’m really looking forward to having a conversation with you and hearing your insights and perspective on how artists can best connect with their fans. Chris, thank you for taking the time to be here today.

Chris Johnson: Of course. It's a genuine honor. Thank you for having me on. I need you to introduce me on every call and everywhere I go. That was incredible. If you could just roll with me at all times, that would be great.

Michael: We should create an app.

Chris: Exactly. There you go.

Michael: Like an intro app, and people can just pull it out—

Chris: Everyone I meet, just like this.

Michael: Well, Chris, maybe to kick things off, could you share a little bit about your background and the story of how you came to work as Head of A&R at SoundCloud and worked with artists like Deadmau5?

Chris: Yeah, absolutely. I've been doing this for 15 years now. Honestly, taking it back, I'm one of those people—music is all I've ever done. I worked a bar job to support my internship. I had a telesales job for three months before getting let go for making beats at my desk when I was supposed to be selling insurance. All I've ever known is music.

I grew up in and around London, making music very early on. I was making music for friends, for myself. I went to a music technology college in the UK. I did three years there—music tech and business. By the third year, I was doing a lot of the business side of it. Ironically, now being in the business, at that time, I didn’t like it as much. I was a studio rat, trying to record drums, bands, MCs, and just make a lot of music.

After that three-year period, I was determined to work in music—whatever it took. That’s what it takes to crack into this business. When I graduated, I spent about 12 months, every single Friday, writing and hand-delivering letters to studios and labels. I used to turn up at Universal Music in my dad’s suit to drop off my resume.

Eventually, I was lucky enough to get an internship at 360 Group. This was around 2010, when dance music was just starting to break in the U.S. 360 was managing Deadmau5 and Calvin Harris, who were two of the biggest players at the forefront of that movement. I got thrown into the deep end of the music industry very quickly.

For the first six months of my internship, I worked on a lot of record labels. I worked on Chris Lake’s label, Michael Woods’ label, and Deadmau5’s label. The first project I ever worked on was Skrillex’s Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites. My first-ever job was uploading that to Beatport in my first week as an intern.

I got this amazing deep dive into what it takes to run a label—not just from finding and signing artists but also communicating with the artists who run the label, understanding their vision, and learning about royalties, accounting, metadata, and label copies.

After about 18 months of working a bar job alongside my internship, I came out with a lot of label experience. That became my lane. I was lucky enough to turn that internship into a full-time job. I worked closely with Deadmau5, running his label, Mau5trap, which was having a bit of a renaissance at the time.

I got to work with incredible artists like Skrillex, Feed Me, Foreign Beggars, Mogwai, and Noisia. I also helped usher in a new generation of artists under Deadmau5’s camp, like Rezz and ATTLAS. I toured a lot during that time, getting behind-the-scenes experience in production.

Around 2017, I joined Monstercat. I had friends there, and it was a totally new challenge. It was another label with a passionate fan base, which I love—being in that pressure cooker. But they operated differently, with a subscription model and a gaming model. I wanted to take the challenge and learn a new lane. I was there for a couple of years.

Then SoundCloud came knocking. I’ve been at SoundCloud for four years now. This was around my 10th year in the industry, and it meant so much to even get a chance to interview at SoundCloud. When I got the job, my wife and I had this running joke where I’d randomly say, “Remember when I work at SoundCloud?” because it was just the coolest thing to me. I felt like I’d made it.

I’ve been a SoundCloud kid from day one, so it was a full-circle moment. I started as a Senior A&R, and I’ve been lucky that they’ve trusted me with more responsibility over time. Now, as Head of A&R, I get to lead an exciting team.

My team is split into two parts, and this will make sense once I explain it. We have our A&R side, which is your traditional A&R team. They’re out in the studios, in the metaphorical streets, speaking to artists every day. Then we have a Talent ID team. They focus on data—analyzing our platform daily, tracking movement on charts, and identifying which artists or scenes are gaining momentum.

The Talent ID team feeds that data back to A&Rs, almost like leads—saying, “Hey, check this out, something is happening here.” That setup has been really exciting.

And that brings us to the present day.

Michael: Let's go. Holy.

Chris: That was a lot, eh?

Michael: That's a very cool journey. Yeah. And both starting with, yeah, from like the internship and just sort of like a plus one to the whole concept of internships in general, of getting things started.

I think, in a lot of cases, especially in the music industry, there are different paths you can take. But it seems like a tried and true path has always been to jump in the deep end, surround yourself with the people who are doing it, and learn from it. So, that's awesome.

Chris: That jump-in-the-deep-end bit, absolutely. Like, for me, I've done my 10,000 hours. I'm very comfortable in that sense. And I did them in the deep end.

That's always one of my bits of advice to people—take your safety nets off and jump in the deep end because growth happens beyond comfort. It doesn't happen when you're in your comfort zone.

So, deep end for sure. That's where I've done my whole career and loved it.

Michael: Awesome.

So, having experience for 15 years of doing this and having both personal experience with the record labels, with these artists, and also working with SoundCloud and managing this whole roster, I'm curious—what's your perspective on the current scope of the music industry?

What are some of the biggest challenges, opportunities, or issues you see artists struggling with right now?

Chris: Yeah, great question, because I think there are so many components and answers to it. I'll talk about the ones I obviously know and are close to my heart.

I was actually listening to a podcast, I think last year or so, and they were talking about whether it's harder to be an artist now or easier compared to maybe 10 or 20 years ago. I kind of land on the side that it's easier to be an artist in terms of being able to get music out there.

Like, you know, SoundCloud—you can upload music in two minutes and have it live in the world. That didn’t exist even 10 years ago, maybe 20 years ago.

However, on the flip side, because of that—because there is so much access and the gate has been lowered—there is so much music being uploaded.

And I think the challenge has become, how do you break through a little bit? How do you find your community? How do you crack that first 2,000 listeners and turn 2,000 into 10,000 or 20,000?

Yeah, it's kind of become harder to break through in that sense. And that's where I'm very excited about what we're doing in that sense as well.

I will say, I think there are two other elements. I think making money off streams has become quite tough. We know the royalty rates across the board.

And I think if you are looking to just make money off your music, you might be struggling. And that's why it's really important to build these communities that allow you to access different revenue streams—dropping vinyl, putting on shows, and finding other ways to make money.

I think the last and biggest one for me—because I've had my ups and downs with it throughout the years—is mental health.

Because there is so much access, so much information, you upload your music, and you see hundreds of other people uploading music right there and then.

The mental health side of this game—both trying to make it and then trying to sustain it—has become a lot tougher.

We see very big artists having to take breaks from tours regularly. These are artists with full management teams, labels, and PR teams helping them, and they're still having to take breaks.

This game is tough. The mental health side of it is something I'm quite passionate about—helping down the line and trying to find opportunities for people to talk and get support.

So, those are the three things that are close to my heart on that question.

Michael: Awesome.

So, maybe we start and just tackle those one at a time.

The first one that you shared was around how we're kind of in the golden age of making music and putting it out, distributing it.

Because of platforms like SoundCloud, you can literally just create something, and there’s no gate. You can just upload it, and boom, it's on the internet.

Chris: Even just all the software and the VSTs and stuff.

When I was making beats—I was making grime beats 20 years ago for my really bad rapper friends to rap on, myself included—I had no idea how to plug MIDI in. I couldn't go on YouTube and learn stuff.

I couldn't go on Reddit and find a community. I couldn't go into SoundCloud DMs and speak to people.

The access to everything has just become, like you said, really great in that sense.

If you want to learn, you can learn on the internet. It's right there for you.

Michael: That's so true.

And it seems like, at the time of recording this, AI has really exploded over the past couple of years.

Obviously, in music in particular, and in the art world, there are still discussions happening around AI and its ethical uses.

There's maybe some fear around whether it's going to replace artistic freedom.

But you can't argue that these tools are making it extremely easy to create content—create more music faster and easier than ever.

Which leads to increasing that issue—more and more noise, more and more music, more and more stuff.

How do you cut through?

So, I would love to hear your perspective on that.

For an artist who's listening to this right now, who's maybe in that early stage—they have a passion for their music, and they want to build an audience—but they're struggling to figure out how to actually find the right people and connect with them, what would your advice be for them to start out?

Chris: I think you touched on it again—that word passion. Oh, I would base my career and my success on passion. I'm a very passionate, stubborn individual, which are two qualities that really work well in the music industry, it turns out. I think leaning into your passion is the first thing. Don't be afraid to take some of those safety nets off. Don't be afraid—don't hide your passion. Don't apologize for your passion.

If you love music and you want to make music or work in music, watch documentaries, speak to people, join a Reddit community, join a local community, and just don't let that passion get swept away by someone else's opinion. I really say that when we talk about jumping in the deep end—jump in the deep end with your passion.

On the more SoundCloud side of things, I look at SoundCloud as a sandbox. I look at it as an RPG. It's a pick your own adventure, Goosebumps–type scenario. You are not having to—like we said, you can upload stuff. If I wanted to right now, I could upload a song in 60 seconds. You're not having to work through an aggregator. You're not having to sit there and really hope that your song gets matched to the right Spotify profile or whatever it might be.

I really say, embrace that sandbox approach. I think everyone knows the benefits, right? You need to be releasing quite constantly. And I was actually watching some of the other podcasts, and you had an artist talking about the idea of releasing every four to six weeks to keep that momentum. I absolutely agree. But I think there's a more—especially with my SoundCloud bias—I think there's just a much more forget the rules approach. Forget what you've been told. If you've been told you need to release every single four weeks, just embrace the random chaos of SoundCloud and the freedom of it. That will translate with your audience.

I know very big artists who have burner accounts, and they upload music for 24 hours and then take it down. And the fans who have been able to find those burner accounts get to experience the uniqueness of it. But the artists—they're testing stuff. They're testing the reaction. They're testing how it sounds. They're testing how it looks in a waveform. They're testing what the fans say around it.

The artists that usually hit my radar or really pique my interest are artists—I think I'm massively influenced by Deadmau5 because I think Deadmau5 was the king of doing this in his 2014 SoundCloud days. Just embrace the ability to upload things. Upload an idea and take it down. Upload your acapellas and let artists work with it. Upload your stems. Upload a mixtape out of the blue.

I think we've all been slightly preconditioned, including me and how I used to do release strategy, into being very by the book. And I think we're seeing now that the freedom in between the lines—being able to take charge of when you drop music and do whatever you want in that sense—really feeds your fan base. It's exciting.

If I'm waiting for an artist and they drop a single, and then I know I've got another five weeks until another single drops, am I coming back in five weeks? Well, if you're chatting with fans in your comments, you're uploading random bits of music, you're testing stuff out, you're active in that sense as part of your community—you’re a genuine member of your own community.

It's just so exciting to fans. And I think that way, you get this Oh my God, so-and-so just dropped a whole mixtape overnight! Where did that come from? I really think just embrace the sandbox chaos approach of SoundCloud. Go crazy in it. Experiment and have fun.

Michael: Awesome. Yeah. So what I'm hearing you say is that a lot of times, it feels like we have to follow the rules or do things like release a song consistently every four weeks or six weeks. But if you let it be more interactive and organic—do things that are kind of off the wall, inspired by the spur of the moment—then that's a great way to create spontaneity, connect with your community, and build a relationship.

Rather than them predicting and knowing, Okay, this is exactly what I can expect, you can create these surprises and these little moments that make something special for them—where you do the unexpected.

Chris: Absolutely. Fans aren't idiots. Especially fans on SoundCloud—they are super passionate, educated music fans. And if you're dropping by the books, they're going to know it's by the books. If you're doing everything very formulaic, they're going to feel that.

I think you lose a sense of artistic expression. You lose a sense of creativity. And you lose a sense of fun in that. Now, like I said, there's absolute value in being in the market consistently, and you should be trying to build and drop stuff often. I'm not taking that away. But I think there's just so much free space to have fun between those lines.

Fans aren't idiots. They'll pick up on it. I can very quickly see when an artist is having fun with their music, and that makes me have fun alongside it.

That genuine member of your community approach—if you're in there with fun comments, responding to people, and being part of the community—you're not just sitting on a throne above it. Fans love that these days.

Michael: Good stuff. Yeah. So it sounds like the key to it is really just enjoying yourself, having fun, and following your passion.

Chris: Yeah.

Michael: You're doing the things.

Chris: I'm always going to come back to following the passion because that's what got me to where I am now. The people on my team—I'm one of those mission-commitment leaders. For me, if you're missing some skills, I'll help you with those skills. But what I need to see is the passion.

Are you committed to the music? Do you love this? Are you willing to put yourself outside your comfort zone and learn? I'd rather take someone like that, both as a member of my team and as an artist, than someone who's got all the skills but no passion. If they're just doing it by the books, I can't relate to that. I just don't understand it. So that's what clicks for me.

Michael: Good stuff. Your advice really reminds me of Follow Your Bliss by Joseph Campbell and the concept of the hero's journey. If you use that as a compass, it's going to lead you in the right direction.

I'm curious—knowing that passion is arguably the most important thing, the thing that's gotten you where you are, and the thing you see leading artists to build communities, connect, and do what they love—what do you think gets in the way of that? Do you think everyone has the passion inside of them but they're just not fully expressing it?

Chris: Yeah. I mean, I can only speak for myself, right? Some people might listen to this and not have their brains wired the same way mine is. Being a real member of your community—logging on every day, talking, engaging—is not for every artist, and that's okay.

I think there are two elements to it. The first goes back to what we touched on earlier. Quite often, the passion is there, but people are scared to express it. Or they've tried to express it in the past and felt insecure about it. They upload an Instagram story, and two hours later, they're thinking, "Oh gosh, do I look silly for posting that?"

That's why you almost have to deep-end your passion. Everyone knows me as a very passionate person, and I wear that proudly on my sleeve. It's who I am, and I don't apologize for it.

The other part I see a lot is people hitting a wall with their audience. They'll be uploading music, maybe following all of my advice—releasing every couple of weeks, dropping music consistently—but it's hard to break through.

I see a lot of artists with really good songs that have 2,000 streams. Then I come back a month later expecting them to be at 20,000, and they're at 2,100. That’s when you start to see that the artist has hit the end of their bubble. They’ve spoken to the same fans repeatedly, uploaded their music, and then struggle with finding that next 1,000 listeners, that next 10,000, and converting them into 1,000 hardcore, repeating fans every month.

That’s what I see, and that’s what I’m trying to work to solve. It’s also what SoundCloud has been gearing up for in the last six months and pushing hard on this year. We see artists with great songs who have been putting effort into their communities. We recognize it. So we step in and say, "Let us put you in front of a few more eyeballs. Let us give you an opportunity to reach new fans."

From there, we see if the artist is putting in the work to convert those new listeners. A hard truth is that a lot of artists feel like they’re doing everything they should be doing. And I'm speaking with a SoundCloud bias here. They’ll say, "I uploaded my album, dropped a mini mix, and replied to a couple of comments for the first week."

Then I go back through their profile with them and say, "Look, dropping music and being active for four days—that’s not what it takes. We're talking about commitment and passion here. Did you reply to all those fan comments? Did you send private links via DMs to your most engaged fans so they feel special? Are you chatting with your community and fellow artists in DMs?"

Quite often, the artist will go, "Actually, no, I haven’t. I haven't commented on any of my music in three months."

Well, we see spikes in traffic, streams, and engagement from comments. And I can tell you, as a passionate music person yourself—if 15-year-old me got a reply from Eminem, I would have printed that out and put it on my wall. That would have made me 10 times more passionate than I am now.

Artists sometimes get so caught up in trying to make it themselves that they forget what their art means to people. You might release a song that really speaks to someone, that gets them through a tough time. They leave a comment, and if you don’t reply, that’s okay. But if you do reply and say, "Thank you for listening. I love that you love this section. I worked on it this way," that could make or break someone’s year.

That’s the power of art, but it’s also the power of community. Being a genuine member, being invested in your own community, and ticking every box—it makes a difference.

Don’t be afraid to go by the books. The stuff that works, works for a reason. Commenting and DMing does work. Everyone listening to this—please trust me. It works. Spend 10 minutes a day on your phone chatting with people.

Again, you can hear the passion coming out here, but that’s really what I believe—being invested and making sure you’re checking all the right boxes can be the difference.

Michael: Awesome. So what I'm hearing you say is that there are a couple of things that sometimes can get in the way of building a successful career and community. Generally, as it relates to passion, one of the big ones is just the fear of really putting yourself out there. When you first post something, it's easy to look at it and be like, "Oh, I didn't say that right. That was embarrassing," and kind of pull back.

Yeah. So first, just having a willingness to show up and follow your passion. Even if it takes some time, not expecting it to happen overnight but continuing to do it. And then the other thing that I heard was just a willingness to connect and a focus on engagement—replying to people, having conversations back and forth.

Another thing that I picked up from what you said earlier and what you just said now was this sort of dichotomy between following things "by the book" and doing things that you know work—like replying to people, commenting, engaging—but also being willing to break the rules and do things differently.

Chris: Yeah, it's funny because I semi-contradicted myself in that sense, but if you look at it, if you put those two pieces together, you're going slightly off the grid. You're not following the rules. You might be dropping a mixtape out of the blue, uploading some acapellas, testing a demo.

But when you're doing that, be involved in your community. Don't break the rules and then disappear. We're talking about artists early on in their careers—that’s the stage I'm looking at here. Fans aren't idiots. They're going to see if you love what you do. They're going to see those replies, they're going to see those uploads.

I like artists who upload music and then take it down because you'll see fans go to the comments of other songs and say, "Re-upload that song, you idiot! What are you doing?" That right there is when you've got an engaged fan base who wants to have fun alongside you.

So, make the rules, but tick the boxes at the same time. You have to. I prepared for this podcast, right? You kind of have to tick the boxes and be prepared. And then I trusted that my passion would carry me through, which hopefully it does.

Michael: It absolutely is. And you're right—both of those things might seem like a paradox, but they actually are both true.

What came to mind was this concept of "emulate, then innovate." It reminds me of when you're learning to do anything. If you want to do it well, first, you find people who are already doing it really well, and you emulate them. You learn cover songs, you do what they're doing. You're like, "Okay, they're doing this for a reason. They put in their 10,000 hours. I'm just going to do what they're doing."

But at a certain point, if that's all you do, it kind of falls flat because there's nothing unique to it. There's nothing surprising or personal about it.

So I definitely think both of those things that you just shared are really important. Connecting with your fans directly seems like arguably the most important thing for building a community.

As it relates to that specific topic of connecting with your fans, it sounds like SoundCloud is really going all in on helping artists build communities, identify their fans, connect more, and monetize their music. So I'm curious—where's your passion at? Looking at 2025 and the future, where do you see things headed? What excites you about what you're currently working on?

Chris: Yeah, it's funny. There are two things: there's the element of what I'm working on at SoundCloud, which we'll get into. And then, you touched on AI earlier—I'm very excited about it now that I've seen it in action.

I'm in my thirties. I came up in the '90s and early 2000s, and I had a certain view of what art should be—maybe a bit old-school in that sense. A lot of the time, we find songs on SoundCloud, and we have to ask, "Is this AI or not?" Because that's the world we live in now.

At first, I was skeptical, but now I'm excited about the possibilities because I've seen it in action. I decided to sit in the middle of it. Over the past few months, I thought, "Let me actually see how musicians are using AI—not just how the music industry views AI."

So I went into a studio session with a couple of really, really good hip-hop producers in LA who are geniuses in their space. They were all using AI. They’d write some chords—old-school musicians, right?—then put it into AI to see what AI added. They'd be like, "Wow, I really like that piano line coming down," or, "That drum fill is incredible." Then they’d go back into the studio and recreate those elements.

They were using it for inspiration, not just copying and pasting. That totally opened my eyes. These were real musicians—guys with serious cuts in the industry. I expected them to say, "Nah, I don't like AI." But it was the opposite. They were like, "Why would I limit myself when something could add more creativity and knowledge to what I do?"

So I'm excited to see where AI takes music creation and how people can learn from it.

As for the SoundCloud element—I use this "rungs on a ladder" metaphor a lot. The industry, myself included in the past, has been guilty of helping artists at rung five. Like, "Oh, you’ve got a bit of a fan base, you’ve got some shows. Let me jump in and help you now. Let me manage you. Let me put you in a playlist."

But I'm really excited to start helping at rung one. We're building something at SoundCloud where your very first uploads could land you in our Buzzing playlists, could land you on our A&R team’s radar. And that is happening. We’re scouting 50 to 100 new songs and artists each week.

My real excitement is in creating opportunities from rung one—being featured in our Buzzing playlists as a stepping stone to our editorial playlists, launching a merch store, testing artist-to-fan merch.

I'm passionate about helping artists who are looking around thinking, "Oh, that’s Billie Eilish. I’m not Billie Eilish. I’ve only made a few songs." But if they see a peer get featured on SoundCloud, land on a playlist, or get involved in a program like "First on SoundCloud," it sparks something.

That FOMO, that drive—seeing opportunities happen for their peers—it makes them commit more. It makes them say, "Let me give that extra 20%. Let me get in the studio and write more music. Let me upload this mixtape I’ve been sitting on for five years."

I'm so passionate about creating those early opportunities. And the level of music we hear every week, Michael—it’s incredible. So many talented artists, incredible records just waiting to be heard and change people's lives. That’s where we come in.

At SoundCloud, we lead what’s next in music. I have a running joke—if any A&R tells me I'm too early, good. If I'm too early, that means we’re leading what’s next.

I once had a big A&R guy tell me, "This is too early." And I was like, "Good. I’m there before you." He laughed and was like, "Okay, I see where you’re coming from now."

For a long time, people were looking for a ready-made, "hit it out of the park" artist. But we ignored genuine artist development. And I'm excited to lead the charge in bringing that back at SoundCloud.

Michael: That's super exciting. Yeah, it definitely seems like, based on our conversation so far, what you're talking about—the biggest challenge being cutting through the noise and getting started—being able to serve artists at rung one of the ladder is a great way to help solve that core issue that exists right now in the industry.

Okay, awesome. So, I think one final topic that I would love to hear your perspective on is specifically related to monetization. We talked about it a little bit earlier, like with Spotify streaming—that's one of the biggest challenges for a lot of artists, just figuring out how to make it sustainable.

You know, how do I do music full-time? How do I transition from a day job to focusing full-time on music? And so, I'd be curious to hear your perspective on this—for an artist right now who's listening to this, who has no doubt in their mind that their passion and heart is in their music. It's the thing they wake up excited about. They're willing to hustle. Every day, they're replying to people.

What do you recommend for them in terms of ways to start generating income and being able to provide for themselves and their families?

Chris: That's a really great question. I talk about jumping in the deep end—I think you need to prepare to almost be unprepared, if that makes sense.

If you're starting off and you want to really commit yourself to music, prepare for that. Maybe you need to work an extra three months at that bar job to put the money together to get a bit of equipment. Or give yourself a safety net—knowing that you can spend the next nine months fully committed to music because you've saved up enough to support yourself.

That allows you to jump in the deep end, but not sacrifice yourself completely.

Michael: You jump in the deep end, but you have a little floaty, or you have an instructor so that you're not going to drown.

Chris: Exactly. You're not jumping into a deep current and getting swept away. Prepare to allow yourself to have that freedom.

I think we've all made mistakes where we're like, "I'll just wing it." And when you get in there and try to wing it, and it goes wrong, there's nothing more embarrassing. But there's also nothing more of a learning lesson in those moments.

So prepare for that commitment. Give yourself the extra three months at that job or whatever it might be.

I think, then, it's a concept I've heard you touch on. It's a concept that one of my mentors, Tracy Chan, really put into my head when he was at SoundCloud, coming from Twitch—this idea of 1,000 fans.

A very committed, repeat fan base. Fans who are going to buy that vinyl when you drop it. Fans who are going to jump in their car with their buddies for a four-hour road trip to see your show.

It is much better, in my mind, to have 1,000, then 2,000, then 10,000 dedicated fans rather than just sitting in a couple of playlists with a few hundred thousand passive listeners.

So, I would say definitely gear yourself toward that mindset—how do I hyper-service and build a very tight fan base? Because they're the ones who will spend a couple hundred dollars on you rather than just passively listening in the background.

And then, obviously, monetization—turn it on.

I mean this in a genuine sense—I can't tell you how many artist profiles I've looked at in meetings where they forgot to monetize 20 songs in their back catalog. They missed out on thousands of dollars in revenue or the opportunity to be playlisted with those songs.

What we're doing now as part of our education at rung one is making sure artists know early on—"Hey, we've discovered your music through the community, through the fans. You're on our radar. Here are some tips. You need to get your music monetized."

We've had artists turn on monetization, and without putting in any additional effort, they’ve made an extra $500 a month.

This is why I go back to my earlier advice—sure, break the rules, but make sure you're ticking all the boxes. Monetize your music. Turn it on. Add your PayPal account. That's step one.

From there, what we're experimenting with—and something our incredible CEO, Eliah Seton, is very passionate about—is creating other avenues for artists to sustain their careers outside of streaming.

We've been testing a merch store—seeing how that works with fans, how it works with artists. We want to continue building in that lane.

We're working on ideas to really step out of the way—providing the tools and space for artists to engage with their fans, but then pulling out as the middleman.

We have a program called First on SoundCloud that operates in that lane. And I think that's something we're really striving to bring back—these rung one opportunities.

But yeah, I'll say it again—monetize your music, people. Just make sure it's done.

It takes 60 seconds, and it makes a difference. If we want to playlist a record we love, and you haven't monetized it, you might miss out until the following week. And that's a week you're behind just because you didn’t check that box.

So, it's basic advice, but it's an area we're experimenting with and deeply believe in.

Michael: So good. Yeah, it seems like that age-old wisdom of just showing up and putting your hat in the ring.

Like we just said—you’ve got to turn it on. You actually have to ask. You have to make an offer. If you don't make an offer, if it's not an option, then no one can say yes to it.

Chris: Exactly. Head to your dashboard. Down the left-hand side is monetization. Jump in, get your payment details there, and make sure your music is monetized.

It's such an easy way to stay on top of things. A bit of caretaking that might give you peace of mind—"I've done my caretaking, now I can go make some random beats for the rest of the day."

Just cover the basics. Make sure you're operating with a bit of a business mindset.

Flip it this way—if you had an artist manager and found out they hadn’t monetized your music, how annoyed would you be?

So, take that responsibility and ownership yourself.

Michael: Fantastic.

Chris, man, it's been great connecting. I really appreciate you coming on here to share your lessons and wisdom.

For me personally, SoundCloud—it's an honor to have you on the podcast. I use SoundCloud. It's the only place I have my new album right now, and I share it with my friends and family.

I have a song I wrote for my daughter called Hello Willow, and we play it for her every night before she goes to sleep.

Chris: You're going to have to send that to me afterward now. You know that, right?

Michael: Okay, I will.

All of the plays you see on that song are just from me playing it for Willow every night. She's four years old.

Your platform has made it possible to have those moments with my daughter, so I'm very grateful.

For anyone listening right now who's interested in these early initiatives or looking to take the next step with SoundCloud—where do you recommend they go to dive deeper?

Chris: Follow me and find me on social media. I'm Chris underscore Robin—R-O-B-Y-N—because I was trying to be unique at the time I came up with my Instagram. Apparently, you can find me on there. I would definitely follow the SoundCloud channels. They've gotten really good at balancing promotion with advice for artists.

Jump on the socials—they will show you how to monetize your music. They will show you how to use DMs and private links. There's a lot of information to learn straight from the source here.

I think in terms of the bigger SoundCloud world—just get on there. Like you said about SoundCloud, I take so much pride in being at SoundCloud and in what we're building because I was a genuine SoundCloud person. I signed and found all my music on SoundCloud.

If you're not on SoundCloud, if you're not uploading your music, and that beat of yours is just sitting on a hard drive, I'm not going to come knocking. Every single week, we're finding new artists. We're reaching out to artists who didn't think SoundCloud would reach out, and they’re getting calls from me.

So get your music on there and keep having fun with it. If it doesn’t click this year, it could click next year, but get stuff off your hard drive and have fun.

Michael: Awesome. Well, as always, we’ll put the links in the show notes for easy access. Chris, thank you again for being on the podcast today.

Chris: No, seriously, it was an absolute pleasure. Thank you for that intro, thank you for the questions, and I really hope your audience found some value in this.