Introducing 'Lately': The Globe and Mail's business and tech podcast

This episode introduces "Lately," a new podcast exploring the ever-evolving realms of business and technology, focusing on the music industry's current challenges and transformations.

1. Streaming Economics: Artists face significant challenges from streaming platforms, which pay minimal royalties compared to the actual consumption of music.
2. Concert Dynamics: Ticket prices and availability are increasingly influenced by secondary markets and corporate practices, affecting fans' access to live events.
3. Industry Shifts: The conversation touches on how technological advancements and corporate strategies are reshaping the music landscape, impacting artists' creative output and earnings.
4. Legislative Responses: There's a discussion on potential regulatory responses to ensure fair compensation for artists amidst the dominance of streaming giants.
5. Future of Music: Cadence Weapon shares insights into how artists navigate this new terrain, emphasizing the importance of maintaining artistic integrity and connection with audiences despite economic pressures.

1: Introduction to 'Lately'

A new podcast by The Globe and Mail that explores significant shifts in business and technology, particularly focusing on the music industry's evolving dynamics. Vas Bednar: "Welcome to Lately, a Globe and Mail podcast."

2: The Streaming Struggle

Discusses the inadequate compensation artists receive from streaming platforms and the impact of corporate practices on music distribution. Cadence Weapon: "You'd have to get a million streams to get $4,000, or less than half a cent per stream."

3: Live Music and Market Dynamics

Explores the challenges and experiences related to attending live music events in the current economic climate. Katrina Onstedt: "It was worth $200 to stand on a lawn at the very back, looking at a dot that may or may not have actually been Neil Young."

4: Regulatory and Market Responses

Considers potential legislative actions to address the disparities in music streaming revenues and discusses market reactions to high ticket prices. Vas Bednar: "Canada recently announced that as part of Bill C Eleven, streamers are expected to contribute 5% of their Canadian revenues."

1. Support artists directly by purchasing merchandise or music directly from their websites.
2. Engage with artists on social media and share their work to increase their visibility.
3. Consider the impacts of streaming on artists and explore more direct ways to support them, such as attending live shows.
4. Stay informed about the dynamics of the music industry to better understand the challenges artists face.
5. Advocate for fair compensation for artists by supporting legislative changes that aim to improve their earnings from streaming.

Introducing ‘Lately’: a new weekly podcast from The Globe and Mail about the intersection of business and technology. Every Friday, host Vass Bednar dives into the defining trends that shape our lives.

This episode’s guest is author and Polaris Award-winning artist and producer producer Cadence Weapon – the tech skeptic behind the new album Rollercoaster – who breaks down the depressing economics of an industry governed by Ticketmaster trauma, streaming algorithms and an AI invasion.

Subscribe to the Lately newsletter, where we unpack more of the latest in business and technology.

People

Vas Bednar, Cadence Weapon

Companies

Spotify, Ticketmaster, Live Nation

Books

Bedroom Rapper by Cadence Weapon

Guest Name(s):

Cadence Weapon

Content Warnings:

None

Kit Kat
We all know Kit Kat bars taste delicious, but what about how they sound? It's not just a catchy jingle. It's the satisfying crack of breaking off a piece of Kit Kat followed by a crisp crunch.

Oh, we forgot one other sound that accompanies Kit Kat bars, too. It's.

Or maybe it's more like altogether, Kit Kat bars are music to our ears and yummy flavors to our mouths. Have a break. Have a kitkat.

Vas Bednar
Hi, everyone. I want to introduce you to Lately, a new Globe and Mail podcast about the rapidly changing worlds of business and tech. It's hosted by Vas Bednar, an expert in digital public policy, and she interviews thinkers and newsmakers.

This episode of Lately is a conversation with music producer, author, and Polaris Prize winning hip hop artist Cadence Weapon.

He knows all about the economics of the music industry, a world now ruled by algorithms and skyrocketing ticket prices. Him and Vass talk about what the future looks like in music.

You can subscribe and find other episodes of lately wherever you find your podcasts. Hope you enjoy it.

Vas Bednar
Welcome to Lately, a Globe and Mail podcast. I'm your host, bas Bednar.

Katrina Onstedt
And I'm Katrina Onstedt, executive producer of lately. Vass, what was the last concert you went to?

Vas Bednar
I wish I had a more recent example. We've got to throw back to last summer, 2023. I went to the always show in Toronto, was outside, and I was a newish parent at the time, so I had to sneak in my dual action, hands free breast pump.

Katrina Onstedt
I know rock and roll.

Vas Bednar
Take it home in my cooler. Yeah. How about you?

Katrina Onstedt
I actually. I just saw Neil Young in Toronto recently.

Vas Bednar
Oh, you're so cool. That's why you asked me, so you could see.

Katrina Onstedt
Yes, I did. It was a leading question, I fully admit. See, Neil Young's like a duty as a canadian citizen.

Vas Bednar
That's true.

Katrina Onstedt
But buying tickets was so dodgy, there was nothing available on Ticketmaster. So we got them through this shifty secondary resale site. And the whole time we're waiting to go in, we're standing in line with all these people in a similar situation, looking at their phones, going, God, are these real, or have we just been scammed? But we did get in. It was a fantastic show.

Vas Bednar
Nice.

Katrina Onstedt
$200 to stand on a lawn at the very, very back, looking at a dot that may or may not have actually been Neil young. But it was worth it. And it was just a few blocks from where we live. So here's another leading question. Do you know anyone who's hopped on a plane to see a band this summer.

Vas Bednar
Hmm.

Well, now I'm gonna strike out again, and it's gonna seem like not only am I uncool, but I apparently need fancier friends. I cannot confirm nor deny whether I directly know someone who's done this, but I have been reading about it.

Katrina Onstedt
Yeah. I think we both saw this article in the Times of London, a recent report that thousands of North Americans are traveling to Europe to see big acts like Taylor Swift this summer. And some fans are claiming that it's actually cheaper for them to see their favorite artists abroad than at home. And that article featured an interview with a mom from a canadian family who said that she bought three vip tickets very close to the stage to see Taylor Swift in Hamburg, Germany, for about $646 each. Meanwhile, to see Taylor Swift in Toronto, she could get nosebleeds for over 3000 canadian each on resale sites.

Vas Bednar
Okay, well, you know, good for her. An interesting calculation. I sometimes find that stuff is like girl mathy because travel is also quite expensive when you add it all up, but.

Katrina Onstedt
And hotels. Yeah.

Vas Bednar
100% food.

And this got us thinking, what is going on with the music economy? And lately we've had this running list of issues under this heading of music. Right. We have the Ticketmaster lawsuit in the US. And recently, JLo and the black keys have been cancelling tours. And of course, AI always shaping what and how we listen.

Katrina Onstedt
Yeah. So we wanted to know what it's like to be making music in a moment when the industry is in turmoil, transition, crisis. Pick your word. And we wanted to talk to someone who is calling from inside the building.

Vas Bednar
And we didn't get inside his building with him. We got him on the line. But we did call the absolute perfect person, cadence weapon. Now, he also makes art using his other name, a given name, Roly Pemberton. He's a writer, rapper, producer, poet, and activist. His new album, Rollercoaster, is right on time. It feels like a direct response to this moment, looking at how tech exploits, benefits, and challenges artists.

Katrina Onstedt
Yeah. Cadence Weapon has lived through massive shifts in music, which makes him sound a lot older than he is. He's still pretty young, but a lot has happened in his industry in a very short time. And the biggest shift, which you two talk about, is, of course, the delivery of music, this transition to streaming. But since it's taken over, a lot of artists have declared that there's been little payout for them.

One industry estimate put Spotify's payout rate for recordings at about $4,000 per million streams, meaning, like, you'd have to get a million streams to get $4,000, or less than half a cent per stream.

Vas Bednar
Yikes. That's a lot of streams. And in response to this kind of eroding or depleting monetization model, we have been seeing some policy experimentation from different governments. The US has proposed something called the Living Wage Musicians act, which would mandate that artists receive a minimum of a penny per stream.

Katrina Onstedt
A full penny.

Vas Bednar
Yeah, this would be progress, right? But it would be.

Katrina Onstedt
Yeah, it would.

Vas Bednar
Canada recently announced that as part of Bill C Eleven, the online streaming act, it does expect streamers to contribute 5% of their canadian revenues to support various funding programs that in turn support film on television production, news and music. Some are already concerned that platforms like Spotify are going to start passing those costs on to us so that the price will go up further. And for artists, I mean, it doesn't change that they're not getting paid enough money and could make it challenging if they can't directly access these funds.

Katrina Onstedt
Yeah. Well, I wonder if there's going to be a course correction. We started off talking about concert tickets, and there's been some reporting about not just cancellations, but low ticket sales for really big acts like Billie Eilish and Justin Timberlake in this summer concert season. Maybe there's a bit of a hard no out there for these ridiculous ticket prices. At last, like, we were willing to pay those exorbitant prices post lockdown, and that appetite caused what's been called funflation.

But maybe it's enough now, right? Maybe prices will have to come down if consumers are pushing back, exerting their power by not paying for tickets at those costs. Or maybe they're just going to find better friends and fly to Paris to see a concert there.

Vas Bednar
Oh, yeah.

Cain's weapon won the 2021 Polaris Music Prize for his album Parallel World. His debut memoir, Bedroom rapper, was published in 2022. Currently based in Hamilton, he was a former poet laureate in his hometown of Edmonton. His new album, Rollercoaster, is out now, and Cadence weapon has a new song about the Edmonton Oilers. This is lately.

Let's start at the beginning.

Could you tell me the quick story of the day that you signed your first recording contract? Because that's kind of the teenage get discovered, sign a contract, become a star.

What was the reality like?

Cadence Weapon
Yeah, I mean, I was pretty early on putting my music on the Internet, and I was very productive in reaching out to people. And I put it on some mp3 blogs and I got a lot of attention from that, including from this one label, and they ended up wanting to sign me to a deal. And so back then, this is how long ago it was. They sent the contract through as a fax.

That's how long ago.

Vas Bednar
Nice.

Cadence Weapon
It turned out to be actually not a very good record deal for me. They didn't end up working in my best interest, so it was still a bit of an old school horror story record label situation.

Vas Bednar
When was that? Like, what time period or.

Cadence Weapon
Oh, that would be like 2004.

Vas Bednar
Okay. The good old days.

Cadence Weapon
Yeah, yeah. When I first started in music, there was no YouTube.

Vas Bednar
Okay.

Cadence Weapon
It was really challenging to get your music across, but there was a leveling of the playing ground. Back then, I would say, like, I was able to reach an audience without it being throttled in any way. Like, you could just post something and anyone on the Internet could just look at it. And it was a very direct thing. And it was a lot more novel to be an artist who made music on their computer, because back then there was no garage band. I remember when I would make music and I'd show it to people and they're like, yeah, so you made these beats on, like, a computer. On. It's like a desktop computer, like a word processor. You go on the computer, people didn't get it at all.

Vas Bednar
Yeah.

Cadence Weapon
People would be like, what? Are you going to bring a desktop computer and put it on stage with you?

And it's funny now, it's like you can't find a live show, really, that doesn't have a computer involved on stage.

Vas Bednar
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're going way back to when there was just garages and vans.

Flash forward to today. The single my computer is very nostalgic for the earlier days of the Internet. Maybe the ones we're talking about now, that free open web. And it's critical, the whole album is of how polluted it's become.

Cadence Weapon
Complicated, compromised consciousness, commodified.

Vas Bednar
Could you tell us a bit about the spark for that song?

Cadence Weapon
So I felt like with my computer, I wanted it to be a bit stream of consciousness. Like you're going through a YouTube or Wikipedia wormhole and all these topics and subjects and things are just, like, buzzing by you. And I really wanted to have the kind of overwhelming feeling that I sometimes get when I'm online. I think a lot of the themes on my album, rollercoaster, I'm discussing the idea of there's a different way that we can be living our lives online, and we've experienced it in the past, but I think for younger people who weren't around back then when people were faxing contracts and stuff, they won't be aware of the fact that, yeah, you actually didn't have to give all your data and all your information to these companies. You could just have your own website, and people would come there. And we had a lot more control of the means of production than we do today.

Vas Bednar
I want to describe your new album, rollercoaster, as being tech skeptical. Is that fair? And was there a moment or a breaking point in your life where you thought, I need to come at technology in my music?

Cadence Weapon
Yeah, I think that's an appropriate way of putting it. Is tech skeptical? Because it's not necessarily totally negative. Like, I feel like I'm very reliant on technology. I mean, we're talking over some technology right now.

Vas Bednar
True.

Cadence Weapon
Say my career also is very reliant on technology from the very beginning. Like, everything I made was with these pirated programs that I used to use when I was a kid.

But I feel like the point of the album is really just to remind people of their agency, and it's really easy to get stuck in this loop where it's like, okay, what do I do when I go on the computer? I go through this loop of programs. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter. And I'm in this constant feedback loop. So I gotta make my TikTok today. I gotta do my Twitter. I find I'm spending more time making social media than I am actually making art or making music.

Vas Bednar
Yeah.

Cadence Weapon
It feels like often that we're just employees for these tech companies. Like, I work for Instagram, and it's like I've got to clock in every day and make my scheduled amount of posts to create revenue for this corporation.

And I feel, like, definitely less connected with my audience than I ever have, especially just through the throttling. I feel like every time you post something, if I say something and it says the word music, I know it's going to get shadow banned. Like, no one's gonna be able to see it.

Vas Bednar
What's shadow banning? You mentioned this in your album, too.

Cadence Weapon
Yeah. So the social media companies will say that it's not a real thing and that they don't do it, but basically say I was, like, a conspiracy theorist or something, and maybe I am. If you listen to my album, I kind of am. If I was talking about some weird stuff, if I post a link on certain social media platforms, it immediately downgrades the quality of my post. So it won't be boosted by the algorithm.

Vas Bednar
Right. We're all kind of subject to these algorithms. What is it like for you as an artist, to see your music or your posts be vulnerable to streaming algorithms?

Cadence Weapon
Well, it's really frustrating, because the whole idea of me being on these platforms is I bring my audience here and you benefit from it, the corporations benefit from it. Everyone benefits except for me, because I don't actually get to share information with the people who are following me. It's very frustrating, particularly on x nowadays, ever since Elon took over, it's really deprioritized my place and people like me. And it feels like something I would have posted back in the day that would have just went hugely viral. It doesn't have the same legs as it once did.

Vas Bednar
So then, how would you describe the power and influence that these algorithms have, both in terms of, I want to bring it to music recommendations and kind of discovery, but also just voice of artists. And these attempts to connect with audiences.

Cadence Weapon
Well, honestly, they're very powerful. A lot of these different algorithms, especially with streaming apps, the way that they determine what random song you're going to hear next, if you have the autoplay going, it's not as random as you might think.

Vas Bednar
Oh, yeah.

Cadence Weapon
And we know Spotify, it's partly owned by all the different labels, so it's just not an equal playing field in so many different ways. And it's just extremely frustrating.

Vas Bednar
And it's not transparent. I mean, there's been some music journalism that looks at, why are we seeing the resurgence of certain songs or certain bands? And is it because their music mimics or, you know, sounds very, quote unquote, normal?

Cadence Weapon
I mean, now, I think the way that these streaming apps, what they incentivize are tracks that are not gonna make you cut off the app.

Vas Bednar
Right.

Cadence Weapon
So I think there has been a mass softening and homogenization of music, and I would say probably art overall as a result of this.

As somebody who tries to make experimental, forward thinking, like futuristic music, I feel like these apps are not really for that. Like, it's really just for keeping you on the app for as long as possible, and you're not gonna stay on the app if you hear a freaky song that you didn't want to hear.

Vas Bednar
What do you think that does to us as listeners, in terms of our habits or our expectations of music?

Cadence Weapon
I think one of the most important things about being a fan of music, or being a fan of art in general, is that feeling of surprise and delight.

Right. Like, some of the best experiences I've had is when I was surprised, I went to a show I didn't know who's gonna be playing, and then the opener blew my mind or something. Yeah, I feel like that's equivalent to times I've just been on YouTube, and it recommends something that's actually unlike anything I've ever heard before. And I used to have that experience often, and I feel like it's becoming more and more rare.

Vas Bednar
Let me be devil's advocate for a second with some of these platforms. What about the upside? Is there any for you as an artist? For instance, don't some of these technology companies share some data and information back to the artists that can be informative? I'm thinking of Spotify's artist dashboard.

Cadence Weapon
No, that's true.

There are some beneficial tools that they've created. Like, they have a thing where you can see what playlists have played your songs or whatever. Right. But I recently got a message being like, we're gonna be erasing all that data as of this point.

Vas Bednar
Why?

Cadence Weapon
So they're taking away data we used to have. Oh, like, there's another thing that they have called Spotify Marquee, where you can pay extra and get your music promoted within the app. So sometimes you'll get a pop up that's like, hey, here's some new music recommended for you. And they imply that it's because. Because of the music that you've been listening to. But it's actually just somebody who paid.

Vas Bednar
Yeah. Sneaky ads. Sneaky ads. Well, in order to go to a show and listen to a mind blowing opener, you probably have to buy a concert ticket. So let's talk about Ticketmaster for a second. In the US, the Biden administration has an antitrust lawsuit. Now we're in my home court, you know, against Ticketmaster, trying to break up the Ticketmaster live Nation Monopoly. What does it feel like to be a musician in this Ticketmaster era?

Cadence Weapon
Live Nation. During the pandemic, they bought up a bunch of the small and mid sized venues.

So if you're a touring musician of a certain size, you have to work with them in a lot of markets, so you don't really have a choice. I think one of the most frustrating things about it is because Ticketmaster and Live nation, they've cornered so much of the market, it's made the smaller companies and smaller promoters copy their business tactics. So that's when you start seeing. You're playing at some small diy venue with 100 people in it, and then they're, like, trying to take a merch cut from you.

Vas Bednar
We're also seeing tour cancellations by otherwise big artists. Jennifer Lopez. For some reason, it doesn't feel normal for me to just say j lo, but I suppose I should have, right? Black keys. What do you think's really going on? Is this because streams don't really mean people will come to a concert?

Cadence Weapon
No. I'll tell you exactly what's happening here. And it's a problem with the music ecosystem in general. So you have a band like the black keys. They are very successful band. They're like a pretty big rock band. Somewhere down the line, their team is encouraging them to play these stadiums. You make more money if it's in a bigger venue. Everyone around you makes money. The promoters, the venue, the booking agent, your management.

And you have all these voices being like, I think it's time to start playing these stadiums. And you're like, are you sure? I don't know if I can really play in a giant coliseum. We usually play 5000 person venues, 2000 person venues. I don't know if we're ready for that. And everyone's pushing you to do it. So you're like, fine, we're going to do the stadium tour. And then now we're in this time where there's an economic crisis. People can't afford to go to every show like me to go to a stadium show, it's got to be one of my all time top, top, top artists. Like, I got tickets for Charlie XCX, I gotta go to that, right? But then there has been a lot of controversy that some of those shows she's playing like a stadium in Denver didn't sell any tickets, right? Which I'm not surprised that she doesn't have a massive following in random midwest state.

We gotta really think about the whole music ecosystem. A lot of it feeds into the artist's ego, right? Where it's like, you wanna believe that you're this stadium artist, even though you don't have the proof for it. And it's happening on every scale of music right now. I think a lot of people and bands are coming out and thinking they can play the same venues that they played a few years ago and realizing that the entire market has changed, circumstances have changed, ticket prices have changed. And I think the problem is there used to be room for the middle class of musicians and artists, and there used to be a bit more balance in the industry. And now I think what you're having is there's the megastars who are taking up a lot of oxygen, and these are the people like Taylor Swift and Beyonce who everyone is going to buy tickets for that show for sure. And then that basically leaves not a lot of room for somebody to buy another stadium ticket that year, right?

Vas Bednar
Mm hmm. On your album, on roller coaster, you come at this moment of maximum optimization. Like in the song press eject. I'll just say one line, I will not.

Cadence Weapon
You should rap it, though.

Vas Bednar
No.

You know how Spotify wants people to listen to the end of the playlist? We want people to listen to the end of the episode.

Cadence Weapon
Right.

Vas Bednar
Everything we do just boosts their stock price. This feels like a mindset that has been ported over from tech. Constant growth. Bigger, more.

How does this play out for you or for musicians?

Cadence Weapon
That's a really great question because I consider myself to be an artist. I'm just trying to make the most beautiful, thoughtful piece of art that I can when I'm making music, I don't think of it as a commercial endeavor, but unfortunately, we have music and we have the music industry.

They are not the same thing, but they have to work together. And in this case, there's so many things that are encouraging me to get into that growth way of thinking. It's like, you got to have more fans than you had your last album. You have to have more followers, more and more. More, more like, I try not to, like, feed into it. I don't really look at the streams, but it is really hard because everything's become gamified and it's become this thing where it's like, okay, I'm trying to get the most monthly listeners on Spotify. Of all my friends, I feel like all those statistics that you were talking about that we can see, they don't really benefit us that much. It's really just something that allows us to pit ourselves with each other.

Vas Bednar
You mentioned buying merch earlier, and I think a lot of fans, depending on what show they're going to, will buy something like the t shirt or the book bag, because they love the artist and they think that that's a good way to show their love.

You've been involved in a big campaign called my merchandise. What changes are you looking for? What changes have you already seen? And what's the problem there?

Cadence Weapon
So the. My merch campaign was something that I did with UMA, the union of musicians and Allied Workers. So the idea is we're advocating against the practice of merch cuts, which is when a venue will take fifteen, twenty to thirty percent of the money that we make from selling albums, selling shirts, selling anything at our shows.

And in my experience on this campaign, like, it worked, I think, pretty well over 100 venues signed up and said that they weren't going to take merch cuts anymore.

Vas Bednar
That's amazing.

Cadence Weapon
Yeah, no, I was really happy to see that. And I just wanted to talk about just what it feels like, though, the merch cut thing. This is so weird because we're in a music ecosystem where we all have to work together. Right? Everyone benefits from what we're all doing, but particularly what the musician brings, right? There's no show without the musicians. The weirdest thing is you go to the venue, you're having a great conversation with the promoter, and then the people who are helping you and like, everyone is like super happy and nice.

Vas Bednar
Yeah. Everyone's like, woo.

Cadence Weapon
And then it's the end of the night and they're just like, where's my cut?

Vas Bednar
Right.

Cadence Weapon
You know, it just feels really bad. It feels like you're getting shake down.

Kit Kat
We all know Kit Kat bars taste delicious, but what about how they sound? It's not just a catchy jingle, it's the satisfying crack of breaking off a piece of Kit Katie followed by a crisp crunch.

Oh, we forgot one other sound that accompanies Kit Kat bars, too. It's.

Or maybe it's more like altogether, Kit Kat bars are music to our ears and yummy flavors to our mouths. Have a break. Have a kit Kat.

Vas Bednar
I want to talk about your feelings related to artificial intelligence. Let's pick one company. Suno. It's a generative AI audio platform. Recently announced that they raised $125 million USD in funding. Maybe one of the tech bros that you mentioned on your album had a hand in this for fun or. Because I guess we were curious. We used Suno to write us a lately theme song in the style of cadence weapon.

It was really terrifying and I wanted to ask if it would be okay for us to play it for you.

Cadence Weapon
Oh, of course.

Vas Bednar
Okay.

Cadence Weapon
I'm dying to hear this.

Vas Bednar
Okay.

Cadence Weapon
Every episode, they slay in the office or cafe with Laylee. I stay cray. It's crazy.

Did he say you feel cray?

Man, I would never say that.

Vas Bednar
I know.

How do you feel about companies like Suno and other AI companies in the music space?

Cadence Weapon
So I find it really funny.

I feel not very threatened by this because I think Nick Cave had the best answer to the whole AI thing, where you can only make something based on what I've made in the past.

The lyrics. It seems like similar themes to my most recent album, but all my albums are different and they're all inspired by my experiences and my human nature that really is going to be difficult for them to replicate. So I'm not super threatened for that. But the one thing I am really concerned about, and particularly for new artists, is this technology. The reason why I think you're seeing so much funding and so much enthusiasm around it, is there's this idea of, man, it sure would be great if we could get music without the musicians, right?

Vas Bednar
Really?

Cadence Weapon
Yeah. No, I think the problem is, say, if you're a corporation that wants to have some music in a film, in a commercial or whatever, they find it a little annoying that they have to get your rights, we have to sign off on it, and you have to deal with humans and other companies, and they're like, man, this is so annoying. It'd be great if we could just get this app to make it for us.

Vas Bednar
Right?

Cadence Weapon
And the thing that I always compare it to is when you go to shoppers drug Mart and there's the kiosk, they want to do that to musicians. They want to turn it into the kiosk so they can get rid of.

Vas Bednar
A job, a self checkout, displace that person. You hinted at this earlier. I've been reading a little bit about this risk of fake music, fake artists, where these platforms, you as a musician have a smaller body of work than a streaming platform who can kind of absorb listener habits and all the music information that they have to potentially produce a song that is fake but that they don't tell you is fake and that they put in their playlist.

Is there a kind of vibe or a sense of what that's feeling or looking like in your artist community?

Cadence Weapon
I mean, when we see things like that, the first thing I think about is this is fraud. Right, right. There's the criminality that sometimes is behind the music industry is just chain shape. Like, I talk about it in my song bots, whereas, like, payola's still rolling, they just changed the name up, and they're doing it in all these, like, clever ways where it's like, oh, yeah, we have this artist. Nobody's seen or heard them before, but they have all these amazing streams. They're based in Sweden. Go figure.

Yeah. So we are concerned about that. They're moving the goal posts and they're trying to get people used to paying for a subscription rather than paying artists directly.

Vas Bednar
When I was doing some research on the price per stream, I noticed that Peloton ended up having one of the higher payouts. In 2019, it was 3.1 cents per stream, which still is not a lot of money.

Do you know why that is? And how do we get a cadence weapon ride?

Cadence Weapon
We definitely need the cadence weapon. Peloton ride. Holler at me if you're listening. Peloton. My sister is a proud member of the Peloton family, but I don't know why. It varies from platform to platform. But even the best thing still is satellite radio pays very significantly more than that, and radio pays way more than that. But the whole idea of streaming is trying to reorient everyone's listening away from these platforms that actually pay a significant amount of money.

Vas Bednar
Interesting, because I sort of think of radio as like, kind of an algorithm, too. There have been various attempts to democratize the music industry to make it more fair for artists in the streaming era. I'm thinking of things like vault backstage. Ditto music. We've also seen this radical release style by the artist Cindy Lee, who posted their music on a Geocities website. There are no physical copies of the album. It was released for free with a kind request to e transfer.

Why hasn't this model or some of those other platforms, why haven't they really caught on? What are they missing?

Cadence Weapon
I love that. I thought it was, and, you know, it's a really great record. I love that distribution method, but it doesn't work for every artist. Yeah, that's the problem with a lot of these answers that people have, like vault, and you have James Blake on there, and it's like if you sign up, you get all this James Blake subscription, right? But it's like he already has an amazing, massive audience, and it's not the same for like a new artist who, what? He's going to go around to his family and friends and be like, can you subscribe to me and pay or whatever? It's going to be hard for them. And I think also the idea of all these different apps that are supposed to be solution to the problem is really just a band aid that isn't dealing with the core problem, which is the value of music has been lowered dramatically by the streaming companies. We really need to have streaming reform totally. And we're seeing Spotify, they're raising their monthly prices, but that isn't translating more money for artists now they have audiobooks, but then that means even smaller cut is going to artists now because they've added this new thing and you realize they're not a music company. It's not about music, it's about content and whatever. They're going to get the best return on.

Vas Bednar
So in your substac, you were reflecting on your recent tour with Hot Chip, and you wrote that we don't really have a strong music or arts culture in mainstream Canada, and yet we do have these legislative interventions, like the online streaming act, where we're trying to invest in and protect culture and kind of stand up to digital giants. Where's the disconnect?

Cadence Weapon
Yeah, I think the disconnect is actually with the people. Like, there's two different candidates. There's the Canada of a young person who lives in Jane and Finch, and they experience local Toronto rap, and they have an idea of what canadian music is. And then you have the other Canada, which is the octogenarian in Miramichi who listened to CBC, and they'd be afraid if they heard someone rapping, and that's why they don't play rap on the radio that much. So I feel like that's a bit where the disconnect is. Like, when you go to England, this is the crazy thing. You go to London, you get into a cab, you turn on the radio, and you're hearing people live mixing electronic music live on the radio. You're hearing people rapping and doing grime battle on the radio. And this is something that. It's thrilling to me, and it's so exciting and so vital, and it's a part of the culture there for decades, and it's something that we could have here, but we haven't even started. We haven't even, like, scratched the surface on really tapping into what we really have here in Canada. Like, it's the weirdest thing. I always feel like, canadian identity. We have this love hate relationship with ourselves, and until we break out of that and acknowledge who we really are, we're never going to be the country that we believe is possible.

Vas Bednar
As listeners finalize their hot girl or boy or person summer bucket list and comb over their concert budget, what are the best ways for them to support the musicians that they love?

Cadence Weapon
I think one of the best ways is to buy merch, buy an album, buy a shirt from an artist directly, because it ends up being equivalent to thousands of streams just buying one shirt. Buy advance tickets to shows, because it really sends a positive signal to promoters. This is where you can get away from having the J. Lo tour canceled because you're getting the signal that people are going to come to the show. So the show may not happen if you don't buy your ticket ahead of time, is basically what I'm saying. Tell a friend about your favorite artist, your favorite album. Tell a friend about rollercoaster by cadence Weapon. You know, it really is the most beneficial thing, word of mouth, because your favorite artist is just struggling so hard to break through to the point where they're so fatigued, it makes them want to not continue being an artist. I know so many people that I talk to like that, so the best thing is just tell a friend.

Honestly, it means a lot.

Vas Bednar
We're telling our friends, and we're so glad that we got to speak with you. Thank you, Cadence.

Cadence Weapon
Thanks, bass.

Vas Bednar
You've been listening to lately a Globe and Mail podcast. Our executive producer is Katrina Onstadt. The show is produced by Andrea Varsity, and our sound designer is Cameron McIver. I'm your host, Bess Bednar. And in our show notes, you can subscribe to the lately newsletter, where we unpack a little more of the latest in business and technology. A new episode of Lately comes out every Friday. Wherever you get your podcasts.

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