Landon Buford
In November of 2017, legendary music executive, Steve Stoute founded United Masters. The company is a music distributor based in the United States. It provides artists with an opportunity to distribute music to all major streaming services.
Distributed artists are eligible to participate in advertisements, brand partnerships, and other promotions to earn them money and new fans. United Masters have partnered with brands such as Google, NBA, NBA 2k, Bose, YouTube, Amazon, Twitch, and Apple.
On Wednesday evening, Steve Stoute was a part of a Clubhouse panel. During the chat, Stoute revealed that Pharrell Williams gave him the name idea.
“Pharrell [Williams] gave me the name “United Masters” and said this Steve, this is what you should do,” said Stoute.
United artists something that Charlie Chaplin [created] because there was the same problem in the film industry in the 40s and 50s. And we took United Masters; thank Pharrell for that, and we started running.
Earlier today, It was announced that Apple Inc invested $50 million into United Masters. Per the announcement,
the Series B investment “fuels the company’s mission to enable artists to maintain full ownership over their work while expanding their economic opportunity and introducing them to millions of new fans.”
“The power in the music industry has shifted back into the hands of the artist,” said Stoute. “We are taking that power and using it to place the industry’s intellectual property back into the hands of its rightful owners. We built UnitedMasters as a record company in your pocket to remove the barrier entries for any independent artist who wants to create and retain full equity in their work, connect directly with their fans, and earn far more money than the legacy model through new revenue streams such as advertising. Technology, no doubt, has transformed music for consumers. Now it’s time for technology to change the economics for the artists.”
