Welcome to The Manager’s Playbook, my personal newsletter where I share insights from Music Executives and Artists for aspiring and emerging music managers, executives and artists on how to navigate the music industry. This newsletter is brought to you by Mauricio Ruiz.

That is a huge number.

There’s no honest way to downplay it. Eleven billion dollars moving through music means streaming is still one of the main engines of the business. For a lot of people, it might be the main engine.

So no, this is not a “Spotify is killing music” piece.

That conversation is too easy. And most of the time, it does nothing for the artist who is actually trying to figure out their next move.

The harder question is this:

If Spotify paid out $11 billion, why do so many artists still feel like they barely saw any of it?

That’s the part worth sitting with.

The headline makes it sound simple. Money went out. Artists got paid. Everything worked.

But that is not how the money moves.

It pays rights holders.

Labels, distributors, aggregators, publishers, collection societies, and whoever else is attached to the song before the money gets to the person who made it.

That matters.

Because once money starts moving through the music business, it can get cloudy fast.

A distributor might take a cut. A label services deal might be in there. A manager commission. Producer points. Songwriter splits. Publishing administration. Maybe a collaborator was never registered properly. Maybe the artist signed something early and did not really understand what they were giving up. Maybe nobody handled the paperwork until the song started moving, which is probably the worst time to find out the foundation is messy.

This happens all the time.

A song starts catching. Everyone is excited. Screenshots are flying around. People are posting stats. Then, months later, the artist is trying to figure out why the money does not match the momentum.

And at that point, the problem is not always Spotify.

Sometimes it’s the deal.

Sometimes it’s the paperwork.

Sometimes it’s the team.

Sometimes there are just too many people standing between the creator and the cheque.

That is what makes the Loud & Clear report worth talking about. It does not give us one clean answer. It does the opposite. It shows there is more money in the system, but it also forces artists and managers to ask whether they are actually set up to receive any meaningful part of it.

When I sat down with Bryan Johnson from Spotify on The Manager’s Playbook, that was the conversation I wanted to have.

Not the outrage version.

Not the corporate victory lap either.

Somewhere in the middle, where the truth usually is.

Because there is real progress here.

More independent artists are participating. More languages are cutting through. More genres are travelling across borders. The old idea that everything has to break from one major market first does not hold the same way anymore.

You can see it everywhere.

Latin music. Afrobeats. Punjabi music. Brazilian funk. K-pop. Regional Mexican. Caribbean music. South Asian artists. African artists.

Scenes that used to be treated like “regional” are now moving globally without waiting for permission.

The world opened up.

But open does not mean easy.

That is where a lot of developing artists get caught. They hear “more opportunity” and assume the system got simpler. It did not. It got wider. Faster. More global.

More competitive.

The gates are not gone. They just look different now.

Before, the gate might have been a record label office.

Now it might be data. Or playlisting. Or the algorithm. Or whether people are saving your song. Or whether fans are searching your name without being prompted. Or whether your record gets skipped before it even has a chance to settle in.

Editorial playlisting is still a gate. Algorithmic playlisting is still a gate.

Discovery is still a gate.

And if your whole strategy is “hopefully Spotify puts us on a playlist,” that is not a strategy. That is waiting.

Can a playlist help? Of course.

A good look can put real gas on a record. It can bring new people into the world faster. It can validate something that was already starting to happen.

But a playlist is not a business model.

It is a moment.

And moments only matter when there is something underneath them.

That is what I would want artists to understand. Not in a discouraging way. The opposite, actually.

If you have talent and real momentum is starting to form, you cannot afford to treat the business side like something you will figure out later.

Later gets expensive.

Before you worry about whether Spotify is paying enough, you need to know where your money is supposed to go in the first place.

Who owns the master?

Who controls the publishing?

Are the splits done?

Is the song registered properly?

Does your distributor pay clearly?

What does your deal actually say?

Who is taking a percentage, and what are they doing to earn it?

None of this is exciting. Nobody wants to build a rollout around metadata. Nobody wants to make content about split sheets. But this is the stuff that decides whether a song turns into money or just motion.

And motion can fool you.

Monthly listeners can fool you too.

Sometimes it just means a song got placed somewhere and a bunch of passive listeners drifted through.

That can be useful.

But it is not the same as having fans.

A listener hears you because you came on.

A fan looks for you.

Spotify can help create listeners. It can surface music. It can introduce you to people in markets you have never touched. But turning those people into fans is still on the artist and the team.

That is the job.

Give people a reason to come back. Give them a world to enter. Give them a story they understand. Make the music strong, of course, but make the connection strong enough that they do not hear a song once and disappear.

That is where managers have to be sharp.

Look at the data, but don’t worship it. See where the songs are reacting. What cities keep showing up? What countries are surprising you? Which songs are people saving? Which ones are they skipping? What is happening on YouTube? TikTok? Instagram? Shazam? At shows? With merch? With email signups?

Put the pieces together.

One number rarely tells the whole truth.

The mistake is treating Spotify like a saviour. It is not. It is a marketplace. A massive one. A powerful one. A global one. But still a marketplace.

You have to bring something to it.

Demand helps.

A real fanbase helps more.

Clean rights help more than people think.

Because when money is finally moving, you do not want to be blocked by bad paperwork, loose agreements, missing registrations, or partners who were useful at one stage but are now just collecting tolls.

And to be clear, middlemen are not automatically bad. That is another lazy conversation.

A great distributor can help.

A great label can help.

A great manager can change everything.

A great lawyer, publisher, admin partner, or marketing partner can be valuable. The issue is not having partners. The issue is having partners who take more value than they create.

That is the line.

Some need label services. Some need a distributor with real muscle. Some need management before they need anything else.

There is no universal answer. Anyone pretending there is probably wants to sell you something.

But every artist needs clarity.

Clarity on the rights.

Clarity on the money.

Clarity on the team.

Clarity on what the next stage actually requires.

That is what the $11 billion number should do. It should not just make artists mad. It should not make them clap either.

It should make them check the house.

Am I set up properly?

Do I know what I own?

Do I know who gets paid before me?

Do I know what has to happen for this to become a real business?

Because if there is more money moving through the system and you are still not seeing it, you have to ask why.

Maybe the platform is part of it. Maybe the deal is. Maybe the rights are. Maybe the music has not connected yet. Maybe the audience is too passive. Maybe the team is not strong enough. Maybe the release plan ended on release day.

Usually, it is more than one thing.

That is the uncomfortable part. It is rarely as simple as one villain.

The streaming economy has problems. Real ones. Royalty rates, fraud, AI music, fake streams, playlist access, transparency, platform power. Artists should question all of it.

But artists also have to stop letting confusion pass as strategy.

You cannot build a career on vibes and frustration.

You need clean rights.

You need real fans.

You need partners who add value.

You need data you understand.

You need a release plan that keeps going after the song drops.

And you need to know where the money goes.

That is the work.

So when Spotify says $11 billion was paid out, don’t just argue with the headline.

Use it.

Let it remind you there is money in the system. Then make sure you are not missing your part because the business around your art is messy.

The opportunity is real. It is just not automatic.

The gates are broader now. But you still have to know how to walk through them.

Watch Episode 66 with Bryan Johnson LIVE NOW

To celebrate 50,000+ subscribers on YouTube and 50+ podcast episodes, we turned the first chapter of The Manager’s Playbook into a digital magazine issue.

But before anything, thank you. If you’ve watched, listened, shared, or even sent one message saying “this helped,” you’re the reason we’re here. You didn’t just support content. You helped build the community around it.

Inside the issue is a curated rundown of every episode, the biggest takeaways, and the lines worth revisiting when you’re building in real time. Think of it as a reference guide you can save, share, and come back to whenever you need clarity.

Read the 50th Edition Magazine below.

Bio

I’m Mauricio Ruiz, the host and creator of The Manager’s Playbook podcast, dedicated to demystifying the world of music management, and Founder/CEO of 8 Til Faint, an Artist Management company with over 5 billion audio streams worldwide. Our past and current clients include Grammy nominated, Juno Award winning multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter Jessie Reyez, Skratch Bastid and more.

I am also the Co-Founder of Mad Ruk Entertainment, a content agency with over 3 billion long form video streams worldwide. Our client list includes The Weeknd, Eminem, and Celine Dion, along with renowned brands like Nike, Pernod Ricard and the NBA.

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