Universal Music Group's Feud With TikTok: Explained

7 days until Kanye either disappoints us (again) or beats the liar allegations and releases Vultures. Hoping for the latter. In other news today:

• Song streams & revenue 💰️ 

• Yeat teases Future collab and 2093 release date 👽️ 

• What happened when Travis Scott brought out Kanye on stage 👀 

• Universal Music vs. TikTok: Explained 🥩 

• New Music Friday releases 💿️ 

• Industry Insights 📈 

Song Streams & Revenue

It’s a new Thursday and a new song revenue chart. As reported by Hits Daily Double, which tracks streaming revenue week over week, the above chart reflects the streaming period from Jan 19 to 25.

Jack Harlow’s #1 song “Lovin On Me” earned $99K from 21M streams, 21 Savage’s “redrum” brought in almost $84K from 18M streams, and “nee-nah” generated $52K from 11M streams.

Yeat Announces ‘2093’ Release Date & Teases Features

Alien ally and rapper Yeat has been teasing his next album for months, but nothing has been confirmed until now. 2093 is set to arrive sometime this month, and you might see some familiar names on the tracklist. Find out everything we know below.

Rumor has it that Donald Glover and Future might be featured on the album. A recent not-so-subtle photo dump showed Yeat in the studio with Donald Glover, and he posted an IG story with a snippet of an unreleased song with Future (it sounds crazy).

What to expect from 2093

Yeat started teasing a new era last summer with the release of “bigger than everything.” The Lyrical Lemonade-directed video was dosed in eerie Wild West imagery. Then, Yeat posted an IG story speaking about an alien encounter he had when he was young.

Shortly after, an interview with the magazine 032c shed more light on the alien encounter. “That was deadass. It was real. I won’t go into too much detail because I’m not sure if they want me to talk about this right now. The aliens, I mean. I will say one thing, though—they are really tall—and looked almost human.”

His voice distortions, incomprehensible adlibs, and Yeatisms (literally making up words in his lyrics) were already otherworldly, but he’s displayed a method actor level of commitment to the space concept for 2093. Expect Wild West: Alien Edition and “dystopian society” vibes.

Travis Scott Brings Out Kanye at ‘Circus Maximus’ Concert

Concertgoers at Travis Scott’s tour stop in Orlando, Florida, got 2 rappers for the price of 1. “I wouldn’t be here on this stage without my brother, man. He opened up these doors for me. Make some noise for the greatest of all time,” Travis said, referring to Kanye.

Wearing a white hockey mask, Kanye’s look was paying homage to either 2000s Eminem circa Anger Management tour or Friday the 13th character Jason Vorhees. He ran through a series of his old songs and brought out Ty Dolla $ign and Bump J to perform “Vultures.”

Kanye also confirmed to the crowd that Vultures Vol. 1 is still expected to drop on Feb 9.

Kanye’s setlist at Travis Scott’s Orlando show

• “Runaway”

• “Vultures”

• “Fade”

• “Can’t Tell Me Nothing”

• “All Of The Lights”

• “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1”

Universal Music Group’s Feud With TikTok: Explained

You may have noticed that music from the likes of Drake, The Weeknd, Olivia Rodrigo, and Taylor Swift has been removed from TikTok. It stems from a dispute between Universal Music Group and TikTok that reached public levels of he said, she said, this week.

After failing to renegotiate their licensing contract, UMG posted a scathing open letter titled “Why We Must Call Time Out on TikTok” that accused the social media platform of some shady business tactics. Here’s the cliff notes version.

UMG artists are being underpaid

TikTok allegedly offered to pay UMG artists and songwriters “at a rate that is a fraction of the rate that similarly situated major social platforms pay.” Meaning YouTube, Instagram…etc offer a more “living wage” compensation. Similar to the dishonest landlord that tries raising your rent 

It’s no secret that TikTok’s popularity has grown in large part due to the popularity of music on the platform, but UMG says TikTok only accounts for 1% of their revenue, which is why they pulled the plug on all their licensed music.

”Ultimately, TikTok is trying to build a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music.”

The final word

What ultimately led to the open letter and explosive removal of UMG music was this, “TikTok attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth.”

UMG took the nuclear route of blowing everything out of the water to try and prove that TikTok couldn’t exist if it didn’t have their catalog. Will they succeed? It’s too early to tell.

New Music Friday

Don Toliver’s “Bandit” is his first release since Love Sick last year, and it samples Tame Impala. Here’s all the music you can look forward to—categorized by 💿️ for albums and 🎶 for singles:

• 💿️ Theodore & Andre by Hit-Boy, The Alchemist

• 💿️ Swag 6 by Soulja Boy

• 💿️ Live From The 6 by Icewear Vezzo

• 💿️ Almost There by TiaCorine

• 🎶 “Bandit” by Don Toliver

• 🎶 “Bnyx Da Reaper” by ATL Jacob, Quavo

• 🎶 “Black Ops” by Kid Cudi, Denzel Curry

• 🎶 “Sideways” by JT

• 🎶 “Clarity” by 24KGoldn

• 🎶 “Sensei” by Tyga

• 🎶 “772 Love, Pt. 3 (Your Love)” by YNW Melly, YNW BSlime, YNW4L

• 🎶 “SHOWER SONG” by Tierra Whack

• 🎶 “Lil X” by UnoTheActivist

• 🎶 “Superficial” by SAFE

• 2Pac beats out Jay-Z, Nas, and more as ‘All Eyez On Me’ reaches new milestone. It’s the first album from 1996 to reach three billion streams on Spotify.

• Travis Scott gifts janitor at his show $5K and tells him to take the night off. He noticed the janitor cleaning up the mosh pit, which prompted the act of generosity.

• ScHoolboy Q announces ‘Blue Lips,’ first album in five years. The TDE rapper dropped the trailer, tracklist, and release date of March 1st.

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