More Phonk

Re: Must-Read Article

Hi Bob,

I've been a subscriber since I first started in the industry back in 2008.  Long-time listener, first-time caller!  It was a little surreal to see you reference the NYT write-up on Phonk, our label, Black 17, and one of our artists, Hensonn.

Yes, the vertical video play counts are outrageous.  And yes, many of our artists have generated substantial wealth from their music.  I want to give you a little more context  - 
We have over 1,500 frontline recording artists and have built organically a catalog comprising more than 25,000 tracks.  Most of these artists are under 25, and roughly half are either Eastern European or South American—meaning much of this music is born amid political and socioeconomic conflict.  

To your point, the music speaks for itself.  It has to.  Many of our artists prefer anonymity and aren't terribly social.  Phonk is outsider music.  And what the NYT article didn't elucidate is that Phonk has a rabid and deeply connected fanbase, not just a passive vertical video audience.  The Spotify PHONK playlist has 11.4M followers.  We collect revenue in 250 countries.

Black 17 was founded in 2015 in the Sony RED office.  Tyler and Bryan were product managers fresh from the mailroom, Jake was in client services, and I was lower-mid-level finance (and not officially on the B17 team until years later).  Safe to say we weren't especially pedigreed.  We dreamed of being important in the office, part of the crew that would take top labels out for drinks with Alan Becker and Bob Morelli.  The thesis was to imitate the distribution models David Macias and Missi Callazzo had mastered: find great artists en masse, ensure artists maintain ownership, and fight like hell for them.  Black 17 cut its teeth on SoundCloud rap and then meme rap, learning the game.  It was obvious that music tailor made for the current distribution channels had a greater chance of being heard, and social media was as important a distributor, if not more so, than the streamers.  It was also obvious that transparency, a monthly royalty payment cadence, and not recouping superfluous marketing/promo expenses would earn strong word-of-mouth endorsement.

Fast forward to the present.  We have an incredible team.  INCREDIBLE TEAM!  A band of outsiders uncompromising in achieving results, unburdened by title silos or corporate hierarchy limitations.  We have no office.  We spend 2% of net revenue on marketing.  We are spread across North America, from Miami to Timmins, Ontario, from New York to Los Angeles.  Our content creator is a Lithuanian expatriate living outside of Dublin whom we hired from a factory job.  And his influence on the genre's visual aspects is unmatched.

We are still with Orchard/Sony (RED merged in 2017), and we are so grateful for their partnership.  It's humbling and quite a thrill to be one of the labels the C-Suite and Alan Becker host for dinners.  Full circle.  Family.  It's also fuel to push further.

Diplo was the first major artist outside of Phonk to give us a shot.  It's been a great success.  And while we won't abandon our roots, we are confident that our methodologies translate across genre, and we welcome the opportunity.  As Tyler mentioned in the article, in the last 5 years we've paid out over $140M to artists, and we look forward to multiplying that number in the next 5.

We appreciate all you do Bob, and thank you for spreading awareness.

Cheers!

Boo White

Boo White
CFO
Black 17 Media
 www.black17media.com

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