Most independent artists think of distribution as the moment they press upload. Destiny, Head of Distribution at InterSpace Distribution, has spent a career on the other side of that button, and says they have processed more than 100,000 releases. In this conversation with Afrobeats Wire editor Tobi Alade, they argue that distribution is quality control rather than file delivery, that metadata is an identity card rather than paperwork, and that a music release strategy begins long before release day. “The African streaming market”, they add, is not one market at all.
Pressing submit is not the work#
Tobi Alade: Destiny, let’s start with something almost every independent artist thinks they understand: distribution. From the outside, it looks incredibly simple: finish the song, upload the WAV, add artwork and metadata, choose a date, and hit submit. What actually happens after that button is pressed?
Destiny: I think that’s probably one of the biggest misconceptions about distribution. Artists see the upload button as the final step, but from our side, that’s where the real work begins.
The upload itself is easy. The important question is whether everything that was uploaded is actually correct and ready to travel through the DSP ecosystem.
I’ve rejected releases because the artwork said “With Me” while the metadata said “Focus.” I’ve seen artist names attached to the wrong Spotify profiles, incorrect metadata, audio that appears to match recordings already in circulation, and releases that simply weren’t ready for delivery.
Those aren’t small technicalities. They can affect how a release is identified, delivered, reported and ultimately discovered.
After processing more than 100,000 releases, I’ve come to see distribution less as file delivery and more as quality control. My team and I aren’t simply moving music from one dashboard to another. We’re checking whether the release makes sense as a complete product: the artwork, audio, metadata, artist identity, rights information and release strategy all need to agree.
So, pressing submit isn’t the work.
Making sure what you’ve submitted can survive the journey is the work.
The mistakes that keep repeating#
Tobi Alade: You mentioned that distribution is about more than simply getting music onto Spotify or Apple Music. What are some of the mistakes you see artists making repeatedly?
Destiny: Metadata is probably one of the biggest ones.
Artists tend to think of metadata as administrative information: names, titles, contributors, genres, release dates. But metadata is essentially the identity card of a piece of music.
If your artist name is wrong, your release can end up on another artist’s profile. If the title doesn’t match the artwork, that’s a problem. If contributors aren’t properly credited, you’re potentially creating problems for rights management and royalty attribution.
Then there are the strategic mistakes.
An artist might have a great song but choose a release date that gives them almost no preparation time. Or they might release so frequently that the catalogue begins to look automated rather than intentional.
Distribution gives you access to platforms, but access isn’t the same thing as strategy.
Africa is not one streaming market#
Tobi Alade: Let’s talk about Africa specifically. There’s a tendency to talk about “the African streaming market” as though it’s one market. Is that actually how you see it?
Destiny: Not at all.
I think that’s one of the things the industry needs to rethink.
Africa isn’t one streaming market. It’s a collection of markets, audiences, behaviours and platforms.
I’ve seen artists build strong audiences on Spotify, but I’ve also seen YouTube become a much more significant revenue engine for certain creators. One of the clearest examples I’ve encountered involved YouTube Content ID. A creator we worked with generated more than $150,000 from YouTube alone through claimed content.
At the same time, some of that creator’s Spotify releases were averaging more than a thousand streams.
That experience really reinforced something for me: the question shouldn’t simply be “Which DSP is biggest?”
The better question is: “Where is this particular audience actually spending its attention?”
For one artist, Spotify might be the strongest opportunity. For another, particularly someone whose content is heavily visual or built around YouTube, YouTube could be far more important.
We’ve worked with releases going into 200+ stores across 245 territories, and the more catalogues I see, the more obvious it becomes that African artists need distribution strategies that reflect their actual audiences rather than a generic idea of what “the African market” looks like.
“How much is a stream worth?” is the wrong question#
Tobi Alade: That’s interesting because it also raises the question of streaming economics. Artists constantly ask, “How much is one stream worth?” Do you think we’re asking the wrong question?
Destiny: Sometimes, yes.
I completely understand why artists want a simple number. They want to know, “I got 10,000 streams. What does that mean in money?”
But streaming economics aren’t that simple.
Store, territory, subscription type, reporting period, rights ownership and other variables can all influence what eventually appears in a royalty statement.
If I could change one thing about the current system, I’d make royalty reporting much easier for artists to understand.
Artists shouldn’t need a spreadsheet, three dashboards and a distribution professional just to understand how their consumption translated into revenue.
I don’t sit inside every DSP’s payout system, so I wouldn’t pretend there is one universal amount that every stream should generate. But I do believe artists deserve much greater transparency around how consumption becomes money.
When consistency turns into a release pattern#
Tobi Alade: You’ve also dealt with artists who release music extremely frequently. At what point does consistency become counterproductive?
Destiny: That’s a very important distinction.
Consistency is good. Excessive, poorly planned release activity is different.
I once had to temporarily place an account on hold because of the frequency at which an artist was releasing content. The issue wasn’t that the artist had “too much music.” The concern was the release pattern.
When music is being pushed out at an unusually high frequency, it can raise suspicious-activity concerns and attract additional scrutiny within the distribution and DSP ecosystem.
And that’s the last thing you want as an artist, because once a catalogue receives additional scrutiny, individual releases can potentially become affected as well.
I advised the artist to create more space between releases and start preparing further ahead instead of constantly using the shortest possible release window.
Just because an Artist Plan allows you to submit something within roughly 3–5 days doesn’t mean you should build your entire career around a three-day turnaround.
Give the release a proper runway. Ideally, prepare a week or two ahead, allow the first release to breathe, and then build toward the next one.
The goal isn’t to slow artists down.
The goal is to make the catalogue look intentional rather than automated.
What a new artist should learn first#
Tobi Alade: That’s a really important point. So if you had one hour with a completely new artist, and they wanted to understand how to approach distribution properly, what would you teach them?
Destiny: I’d probably spend surprisingly little of that hour talking about the upload button.
I’d talk about release strategy, rights, metadata, artist profiles, timing and audience.
I’d want them to understand that a release starts long before the day it goes live.
Who owns the recording? Are the contributors correctly credited? Is the artwork correct? Is the artist profile correct? Does the release date give you enough time to prepare? Where does your audience actually consume music? What happens after release day?
Those questions matter.
Because one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned working in distribution is that a great song can still have a bad release strategy.
And when that happens, the problem isn’t necessarily the music.
Sometimes, the music is the best part.
The infrastructure around it simply wasn’t ready.