Can Emergence Music Distribution disrupt the industry?

Founded by music professionals Renald Boyd and David-Olivier St-Pierre Garcia, the digital distribution platform seeks to promote artists and their music globally at more affordable prices. Its services include distribution to more than 150 music streaming platforms, digital artist development, music placement on playlists, monthly analytics, graphic design and music marketing. Unlike its competitors, who assist musicians to upload music and collect their royalties, the company seeks to invest in musicians and adequately equip them with the right tools to succeed. This is done through unique programmes that offer entrepreneurial development. Additionally, as a donation fund initiative, the platform is also promising to give 3% of its annual income back to its clients for further development. It also provides artists with 100% of their royalties back. More importantly, the platform is geared towards growing emerging artists in an environment where only the top 1% of musicians account for 90% of total streams.

In a globalised market, Emergence Music Distribution’s international structure may also appeal to artists who want their music to be heard beyond their local industries. The company is already picking up steam in South America, North America and now Africa. The pandemic has forced the company to halt its development plans for the time being, but Boyd believes 2021 will be an exciting year.

MUSIC IN AFRICA: What inspired you to start the company?

RENALD BOYD: We noticed that there were many gaps in the industry. For instance, there isn’t a system in place to guide the new generation of musicians and lead them to a successful path. It’s not just about being a creative artist nowadays, it's about becoming an entrepreneur and a business. That’s why we started our company: to give artists what they need in order to succeed.

What differentiates your company from other distributors?

The major differences between us and our competitors is that we’re not going to take your money and leave you to pick up dust while having little visibility on major streaming platforms. We invest in our artists. Our mission is to help the artist in their musical journey by giving them many options and services on our platform, which will help them not only with their music distribution but also with multiple services dedicated to their digital artist development. We have created a programme that helps artists get a boost for their releases, which we call the Ambassadors Club.

What are the barriers to entering this market?

The only initial barriers would be to prove how big your catalogue is. It’s your stamp of approval and it carries a lot of weight. In the industry they won’t even conversate if you don’t have their catalogue requirements, no matter how good your presentation and intentions are. The music industry is becoming a globalised market and we can see this reality at this moment. Music doesn’t have any more frontiers, which makes it more challenging for a worldwide digital distribution to have a strong presence in every single market.

What are some of the imminent challenges in establishing a platform aimed at the local market as opposed to a global one?

When trying to introduce a music distribution locally, the main problem is that it’s more attractive in the eye of an artist to connect outside of their environment. Since you are in the same city, local doesn’t seem as exciting as working with a global entity. The problem is that you [the business] has a specific plan to be able to target a local audience compared to a global one, where, for instance, all genres of music are available internationally, while there might be a few within your local region.

How have other industry players in the market responded to your business model?

Since we are still fairly new, we haven’t seen any of our competitors mimicking us yet, but when they eventually catch on, it’ll be too late; we will already have our footprint deeply within the digital music distribution industry. Distribution will evolve and this is the set system that will be implemented in the future. Why would you want to be with a label if your distributor does all that the label has been doing, yet you still keep your masters and maintain your independence?

How have artists responded to your service?

As we increase our services daily, more and more of our business model is becoming very effective. We are getting more enquiries and artists are joining daily. We always have the same questions: ‘I want to be heard, I want to be seen, I want to live off my music.’ What attracts them the most is the pricing and the programme that we offer. Since March 2020, about 100 artists worldwide have joined our distribution. We have artists from South America, North America and Africa. The global pandemic has affected our plan for 2020, a little bit on the development side but nothing will stop us. We believe 2021 will be a very exciting year, our team at Emergence Music is ready to take on the challenge.

What are some of the common misconceptions about digital music distribution?

Usually that it will be complicated to upload their music and get their royalties. However, they soon realise that it was easier than they thought. It is probably the simplest and most effective way to become an independent artist by having full control of their music. Musicians must also understand that digital music distribution is there to help the artists upload their music and for them to collect their royalties and that's it. Emergence Music Distribution is an exception.

With the knowledge and experience you have acquired in digital distribution, what important lessons would you say emerging artists need to know? 

Don’t rely on anyone but yourself. We could give you all the tools in the world but if you don’t work hard and use them wisely it just won’t work. Invest in yourself, believe in yourself and put all on the line. Make sure you have money saved up to invest in your music career. The music business isn’t cheap so prepare to put a lot in. Also, networking will bring you far in this industry.

What areas of your business model still need to be improved on and how can this be achieved?

The digital marketing spheres. This a common thing every company is faced with. We have to increase our marketing presence in different markets. We are constantly building our in-house team and bringing new partnerships to help in the development of our distribution. We’ve been great in doing business development, B2B and B2C, and so on. Our ground work is phenomenal, we just need to have a better online strategy – a better presence on social media more online content. This will be easily achieved with a competent digital staff once we’ve attained a certain number of clients. At this moment we are looking for investors to join our adventure. With our ambition and motivation, we will evolve.