A United States music industry veteran with more than three decades of experience is calling on the business to stop treating culture as an expense and to refocus on ownership, cultural connection and investment in people. The argument comes as consolidation, layoffs and data-driven decision-making reshape how recorded music is run.
The author writes that music is greater than the business built around it, telling stories, reflecting communities, preserving history and connecting generations. The column asks when the industry began treating culture as an expense rather than recognizing it as the foundation of the business.
Three principles for the future#
The column outlines three principles for the future of music:
- Ownership: Artists should have meaningful opportunities to control their work, participate in the wealth they generate, protect their legacies and benefit from long-term creative value.
- Cultural connection: A&R (artists and repertoire) must remain rooted in human instinct and cultural understanding, not just streaming data, analytics and algorithms.
- Investment in people: Executives need mentorship, encouragement, access and freedom to develop, with new pathways to leadership rather than narrowed ones.
Culture cannot be consolidated#
The author writes, “Culture is not created in a corporate boardroom.” The column states that culture is born in neighborhoods, places of worship, schools, homes and communities, wherever young people are experimenting and creating something the world has yet to discover.
The author, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States, writes that independence was a way of life, not a marketing strategy or corporate philosophy. That spirit, the column argues, exists in communities around the world, and people closest to those communities often recognize the next cultural movement before the wider industry catches on.
Executive development and restructuring#
The column says that when companies restructure, they are not simply eliminating positions. They may also be dismantling decades of relationships, experience, institutional knowledge, cultural understanding and creative judgment. The author writes that women and people of color often face even fewer opportunities as those doors close.
The column is not framed as an attack on major record labels. The author writes that a significant part of a career was spent within that system, and that those experiences helped shape a professional path. Independence, the column concludes, represents more than a business structure.
