Emmanuel Zunz, the CEO and founder of ONErpm, has spent 16 years building one of the fastest-growing independent music companies in the world, across 40 territories, with a staff of over 500, and without a single round of outside investment. In this episode, he breaks down exactly how that happened.

This week on the podcast, Emmanuel and Dmitri get into why the traditional definition of independence is outdated, why Taylor Swift can be on a major label and still be completely independent, and what it actually means for an artist or company to be in control of their own destiny.

They also dig into the convergence happening right now between distributors and labels, the race to the bottom on margins that's pushing funded indie companies toward acquisition or collapse, and why Emmanuel believes the label of the future is built on scalable technology, diversified deal structures, and a global roster rather than big advances and market share at any cost.

If you work in music distribution, run an independent label, or are trying to build a sustainable creative business on your own terms, this one is worth your full attention.

The news

• The live-music boom has convinced some artists they're bigger than they are

• Live Nation pushes back on 'blue dot fever': 'It's a normal touring year'

• Listeners engage less deeply with music labeled as AI – even when it's actually human-made, academic study finds

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit musictectonics.com to find shownotes and a transcript for this episode, and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

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What does it actually look like to build a music career from the ground up as an artist in 2026?

This week Dmitri sits down with Aryyzona, a Brazillian-born, LA-based artist who has been posting videos on YouTube since 2009 and recently released her hyper pop EP Gacha World, complete with a custom video game.

With over a million YouTube subscribers and a devoted following across TikTok and Instagram, Aryy has a perspective on the creator economy that challenges a lot of assumptions. She breaks down why she refuses to call herself a social-first artist even though she posts constantly, how she balances paid brand partnerships with creative integrity, and what the traditional music industry gets wrong about creators who built their audiences outside the label system.

They also get into the emotional reality of being a music creator, including separating your self-worth from your analytics, navigating hate comments, and staying grounded when engagement is unpredictable. Plus, Aryy shares a story how her ukelele videos once landed her on a Southwest Airlines flight to Hawaii to teach an entire cabin of passengers how to play ukulele.

If you are a musician trying to understand the creator economy, a content creator wondering whether you can make it as an artist, or someone who wants an honest look at building an audience and a music career at the same time, this episode if for you

The news

• Sony in advanced talks to buy Blackstone's Recognition Music for up to $4B, reports Bloomberg

• YouTube allows creators to replace music with copyright issues with genAI songs

• Zuckerberg Personally Authorized Massive Copyright Infringement to Train AI, Multiple Publishers Allege

• Suno CEO Calls AI Platform "Ozempic of the Music Industry"

• How Duetti Finds Big Value in Small Catalogs: 'It's Not About Aggregating Rights… It's About Taking Care of Them'

• Nebula becomes latest fan-to-artist investment platform

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit musictectonics.com to find shownotes and a transcript for this episode, and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

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Most artists have no idea who their fans actually are. They know follower counts and streaming numbers, but they don't own the relationship, and according to Rob Sealy, that single problem is costing the music industry billions.

Rob is the co-founder of OpenStage, a platform helping artists from emerging talent to global icons like Paul McCartney, Oasis, and Lana Del Rey reclaim their fan data and build businesses that don't depend on platform algorithms. In this conversation, he shares why the music industry is massively undersized compared to sport, what it looks like when artists go directly to fans before they even book a tour, and how knowing your fans changes everything from ticket sales to merch to revenue you didn't know you were leaving behind.

Also in this episode: part two of our AlgoRhythms series where we asked conference attendees "Does AI make you hopeful about the future of music tech?"

The News

• The $6.4 Billion Bid Changing the Music Industry: Why UMG Is Selling Off Its Spotify Stake

• Spotify is now a fitness app too

• There's now a collecting society just for AI-generated music

• Why superfan subscriptions are dying out

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit musictectonics.com to find shownotes and a transcript for this episode, and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

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What if the most surprising thing happening in music right now isn't what AI is creating, but what fans are reaching for instead?

This week on Music Tectonics, we're bringing you highlights from the AlgoRhythms conference last month, where our team spent time on the ground talking to researchers and innovators about where the music industry is heading.

First, Tristra NewYear Yeager sits down with Olivia Jones, senior analyst at MIDiA Research, whose latest report on fan behavior surfaces some unexpected data about how listeners are buying merch and discovering music.

Then, Adam McHeffey speaks with Valtteri Salomaki, CEO of Edge Sound Research, about Embodied Sound that turns any material into something you can both hear and feel. Val's work is rooted in a simple question: if a creator makes something, how do you know the listener actually experienced it the way it was intended?

Both conversations kept circling the same idea: as music gets more digital and more algorithmic, fans seem to be craving something more physical and tangible.

Finally, we asked a handful of AlgoRhythms attendees whether AI makes them hopeful about the future of music creativity.

The news

• How AI Rights Are Changing Record Contracts — and Why Music Attorneys Are Pushing Back

• AI Is Already Training on Music. The Real Question Is: Who Gets Paid?

• AI And Music Publishing Licensing – How Do We Get There?

• Social media doesn't feel social anymore – so where does online community go from here?

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit musictectonics.com to find shownotes and a transcript for this episode, and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

What happens to music when everyone is only listening to what they made themselves?

In this episode, Jade Prieboy sits down with Adam Neely, composer, bassist, and YouTuber educator with over 1.8 million subscribers. They go deeper than the usual AI debate, exploring what we actually lose when music stops being something we share.

Adam draws a clear line between stem separation tools he genuinely uses and commercial generative AI platforms like Suno and Udio, explaining why lumping them together under the AI label distorts how people understand the technology. He also shares why he is cautiously optimistic about attribution models and how AI-generated lyrics reveal the limits of what machines can feel.

The conversation turns philosophical when Adam introduces the idea of solipsistic listening, the tendency to only love music you personally generated while tuning everything else out. He then offers practical advice for musicians trying to build community and makes the case for why constructive critique from a real listen might be the most valuable thing a musician can receive

If AI is changing what music is for, Adam Neely is one of the people asking whether we actually want to go there

The news

• UMG's Michael Nash takes aim at 'false narrative of artist replacement' by AI – and 3 other things we learned from his HumanX panel with Splice's CEO

• Streaming platforms give us access to new music, so why are fewer people listening to it?

• Jury Finds Live Nation Acts as a Monopoly in a Victory for States

• Warner makes strategic investment in TuStreams – a distribution platform focused on Latin music

• Latin Music generated over $1 billion in US wholesale recorded music revenues in 2025, up 4.2% YoY

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit musictectonics.com to find shownotes and a transcript for this episode, and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

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What if every fight over music technology throughout history has actually been the same fight, and we're just now facing a version of it we've never seen before?

In this special episode, Dmitri shares a keynote he gave at the Algo Rhythms conference last month called "Is Music Making Up For Grabs?" Drawing on four hundred years of disruption in music, from the harpsichord to amplification, Dmitri traces the pattern of how every generation has fought over new tools and every generation has been wrong about what those tools would destroy.

But this episode isn't just a history lesson. It's a live argument, complete with the Kalyuka, the WARBL, and few sounds you won't expect. Along the way, the stories of T-Pain and Blanco Brown show exactly where the pattern holds and where it finally breaks. Because the question Dmitri lands on is one no generation before us has had to answer. Not what counts as an instrument, but whether the creator is still human.

The news

• Selling a $3B Spotify stake, Michael Ovitz as Chairman of the Board, and a $100B+ company: Welcome to Bill Ackman's plan for Universal Music Group.

• After Universal, Warner, and Merlin deals, now Udio inks licensing agreement with Kobalt

• https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/after-universal-warner-and-merlin-deals-now-udio-inks-licensing-agreement-with-kobalt/

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit musictectonics.com to find shownotes and a transcript for this episode, and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

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What happens when a beat-selling side hustle accidentally becomes a social media phenomenon?

In this episode, music producer and content creator Hunna G (@hunnagbeats) joins Dmitri to talk about building "Take a Seat, Rap on the Beat," a series now sitting at over 150 million views and more than a million followers.

Hunna G covers the origin story, the most memorable guests (like 2 Chainz and MGK to name a few), what the music creator economy actually looks like, and how independent artists and producers can build a brand online.

The news

• OpenAI Is Shutting Down Sora, Its A.I. Video Generator

• WMG to buy Revelator in wake of UMG's Downtown Music acquisition

• https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/soundcloud-launches-superfan-feature-that-lets-artists-release-music-exclusively-to-followers-before-wider-release/

• Rapper BigXThaPlug Sent Fans on a Scavenger Hunt — Here's What Happened.

• Instagram sets out its stall as a 'music superfandom' platform

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit musictectonics.com to find shownotes and a transcript for this episode, and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

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This week, Dmitri is joined by Dom McLennon, artist producer, and creative strategist from Hartford, Connecticut. Best known as a lead vocalist and assistant producer for BROCKHAMPTON, Dom also runs COURTVISION, a creative agency connecting artists and brands across gaming, education and community.

We cover a lot of ground on this one, from treating music technology as a sandbox, to bringing music-making tools into public libraries, to why community outreach is actually a smarter marketing play than chasing virality.

Along the way, we dig into gesture-based instruments, creative strategy for independent artists, music education, and how the history of Black artists reimagining technology laid the foundation for modern music innovation. Dom also shares how he has been integrating the Orchid by Telepathic Instruments and the Tembo by Musical Beings into his creative process in ways their makers probably never imagined (To see Dom demo these instruments, check out the video version on YouTube.

It's a wide ranging conversation you won't want to miss.

The news

• Study reveals €1.06bn of private copying royalties in 2024

• This Music Festival Company's $30 Million Fundraise Proves AI Isn't the Only Hot Sector for Investment

• Live tours face a huge challenge this summer

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit musictectonics.com to find shownotes and a transcript for this episode, and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

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