In this conversation, Laura, the co-founder of Sonu, a groundbreaking music streaming platform built on blockchain technology, shares the inspiring journey behind Sonu's inception, its mission to empower artists, and its innovative approach to revolutionizing the music industry. She, alongside electronic music producer and DJ, TOKiMONSTA, built this platform for small artists first but with the intent for every major player to join the movement. Joining her is Stephanie LaFlora, the founder of Moxie Media, as they delve into the transformative potential of Sonu and its impact on both artists and consumers.

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Stephanie:

 Where did the origin of Sonu begin for you and TOKiMONSTA? How did that come about?  

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Laura:

The inception for Sonu was actually that I come from a product and protocol design background. And my mother is a musician and an activist who  could and would never monetize on her music in the world that we have today that exists for music and artists. In the midst of all that -- I saw these emerging tools and how you can build these trustless machines that help people.

I wanted to build one that she could use to have more dignified revenue from her music and tap into her community. I'm from Puerto Rico. So all these people on the island, that want to see her succeed and support her, would have a way to tap in as a community and create this symbiosis or this very positive system for how we value music, how we show off the music and letting artists own their music and own their community.

I created the sketch for that protocol, literally on a napkin, and I met Toki on a flight going to Art Basel a few years ago and really randomly hit it off. We both were looking at the industry, and not necessarily seeing things that were sustainable for music. So, I shared this idea with her, and she mentioned that this could be really helpful for her and her label. I was like, wow, if something that I designed for someone who's struggling as much as my mother can also help someone who has success, and made it in music, it's probably going to solve for everyone in between. If you help the people that need it the most, you're building a stronger foundation for something more sustainable in the future.

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Stephanie:

I absolutely love that, and I'm so grateful for the work that you guys are doing. And the fact that you actually thought about, you know, that wide spectrum of types of artists and where they are in their career, I think is the foundation of a really powerful platform.

I've built tech platforms myself, and I know that some of the hardest things with a two sided platform is to figure out that chicken and egg scenario of users versus producers of the content itself. How have you navigated that?

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Laura:

So, in terms of getting the content on board, we work on convincing artists that this is a better offering for their art.

It's a new offering to add to their rolodex of revenue streams. So we've actually had a lot of success connecting with creatives, connecting with producers, artists, labels. And now the challenge, is how do we then change user behavior or introduce new user behavior?

That's something that I think is going to be a bootstrap process. And a lot of that will come with tying the IRL to the URL, building community and a movement around the vision of what this is, while we build a platform that has parity to the way that we stream music today, and then can surpass that experience.

Because we're not competing with every Web 3 company in the world and at the end of the day, we're really not trying to compete, we're trying to build a better baseline, a better infrastructure, and just be the first example of someone using that to create a better system.

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Stephanie:

Can you explain Web3 for someone who doesn't understand that at all? How are you using Web3 in order to do what you do better?

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Laura:

The best way to describe the benefit of using the blockchain is the transparency, the efficiency of payments,and the way that you can scale super quickly. Right now some of the biggest issues with music are rights management and attribution and payment lag. All the different hands that money has to pass through before it reaches the artist and that a single typo along the way could be the difference between the artist getting royalties or never seeing them again.

And what we've created,  is essentially a system that takes a little bit off the top of every transaction that happens in this ecosystem, whether it's someone buying a song, or buying merch, buying a ticket, and pools it all in this trustless pool that the company doesn't control. And then all the rights, the master rights, the publishing rights, are baked into the recipients for this pool.

So based on how much the music is streamed,  instantly, someone can form an ecosystem and build their own little streaming interface or their own marketplace on top of it.

And all of the attribution is protected by what's on chain. And let's say that there was a typo going up or whatever, you can trace back. All the different payments that have been made, so you know what you're owed and you can update those splits, which is something that's not possible right now. Like right now, it's a paperwork and paperclip industry.

And I think the music industry has known for a long time that bringing it on chain is sort of the ultimate end goal, right? Because of how efficient it is.  But I don't think you're going to get there until you're creating kind of like a new value proposition that starts bringing that data on chain. So that once it's there, you have an infrastructure for other things to be built on top of.

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Stephanie:

So grateful for you explaining that because I think even within the music industry, there's a lot of artists that can benefit from a platform like Sonu and they still are a little bit, intimidated by the idea of putting their music on chain and being able to do those transactions. How does that infrastructure affect the user experience?

So when an artist is getting on your platform or when a consumer is getting on the platform to consume, like what's different about the experience because of this being a web 3 based product?

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Laura:

Because we tap the revenue for streaming from a marketplace and not from subscription fees,  which protects the revenue  that is generated, the experience for the end users, is that it's ultimately a free experience.  And because we don't want to centralize the editorial or what people are listening to, the experience is also a more social music discovery experience. Where you're discovering music through what other people are listening to and how they're organizing it.

And lastly, because again, we don't benefit from choosing what you listen to, we're  constantly shipping tools to help people create a catalog,  and discover music purely based on  their taste and what they like using AI to help, support bringing good music to the forefront.

What you'll notice is that on Sonu you're probably discovering music you would have never been introduced to on Spotify. You're learning about  people whose taste vibes with you. And then if you want to take it a step further, let's say an artist that you love or support or you've discovered through the platform is hosting an auction, in that moment, if you bid, if you win, now you're literally bonded to that song with that creator in the platform until you sell it. And then you and the artist are sharing the revenue that's coming for that song within this ecosystem.

You're directly supporting an artist in that moment. They take like 90, 93% of the wholesale, and then that little bit off the top is going towards supporting every single artist in the ecosystem.  

This industry like this  has a ton of bureaucracy and things to keep it the way that it is.  So, what's your plan to be able to make an impact in an industry that's as buttoned down and top down as this one is?

So, an important thing to remember is that the long tail of music is extremely long.

Artists that own their music and own their careers  are gaining more and more power. This type of infrastructure can work with or without major catalogs, but we designed it so that labels and signed musicians could participate as well. So it isn't so much about like,  we need them to change in order for this to work.

It's like, we can make this work with or without them .

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Stephanie:

Come on revolution!

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Laura:

But we would love a world where the biggest artists are in this ecosystem as well, because them showing up ends up being such a massive boost.

I think the majors and the incumbents like the status quo, but they also realize that the future is getting outta their hands. They are exploring other alternative revenue streams, and I think it's so important in this time to prove that these models exist, and that these models work, because they are looking for alternatives.

They can't hold on to the same power that they've had in the same way that they have. They love to know and understand the narrative so that they can carve themselves out in it...

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Stephanie:

...but be a team player, right?

Like , there's  different community standards here.  And we'd love to have you, but we've already set the community standards for you guys.

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Laura:

Right. We respect your rights, we respect what you're doing, but you have to play with us.

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Stephanie:

I think that like large artists are starting to push back quite a bit.

I heard that Kanye's is thinking about releasing his Vultures II not on any streaming services at all and just on his own website. So I think there's pushback that's happening for sure, especially as people get more independence just from their own followings. Labels aren't really the ones that are generating all of the distribution for artists these days anyway. So they're just way more empowered.

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Laura:

But the only issue there, is that then you're consolidating a lot of that at the top. And then you lose any sort of way to share the value across music.  So  the artists that are already in the top 1 percent of creators have countless support.

But then what happens to that smaller artist leave the streaming platforms. Now they've lost that one consistent revenue stream that wasn't even making enough in the first place. It just becomes harder and harder and harder for such an evolving industry to actually hold space for the evolving sound and not forcing everyone into a cookie cutter of what it means to like succeed as an artist.

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Stephanie:

My last question is really what do you hope to happen here at South by Southwest? And what do you hope people take away from this conversation, both artists and consumers?

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Laura:

SXSW is a perfect intersection, right?

Music, tech, culture coming together. And what I'm hoping people take away from this is understanding the mission and vision of what we're building here, but knowing that it is participatory in nature. We can change the economics of streaming, we can fix the music industry, but only if we all show up, because we can build as many positive sum incentive flywheels as we want using this tech, but if no one shows up and participates, nothing's going to kick off.

So we're really trying to make sure that we get it in the ears many people as possible get as many stages as we can. We're activating a fair stream pledge to try and activate the community around here. So yeah, just spreading the word.

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As we conclude this enlightening discussion, it's evident that Sonu represents not just a platform but a movement—a movement towards a fairer, more transparent music industry where artists are empowered and communities thrive. Through blockchain technology and a commitment to inclusivity, Sonu is reshaping the landscape of music streaming, inviting artists and listeners alike to be part of a revolutionary journey.

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