Grammy Award-winning musician, composer, and producer Wyclef Jean says the music trade is damaged, which is why he’s now concerned with a startup, OpenWav, that’s trying to give the ability again to the artists. By the OpenWav app, launched over the summer season, artists can drop new music and exclusives, join straight with followers, promote merch, host concert events, pop-ups, and listening events, and extra.
Later, the startup plans to supply extra help to artists utilizing AI instruments.
Talking on the Fortune Brainstorm Tech convention this week, Jean, now Chief Inventive Officer at OpenWav, had harsh phrases for the state of the music trade, significantly criticizing the enterprise mannequin of streaming companies.
“In the event you’re a brand new artist, the quantity of streams that it’s important to [accumulate] to get $10,000 is actually a rip-off. So now you have got a continuing revolt,” he stated.
Jean pointed to Cardi B as a latest instance of the issue, saying that whereas folks in all probability thought it was humorous that she was on the road promoting CDs and vinyl albums (which she did in a TikTok promoting her album), what she was actually doing was exhibiting how dangerous issues have turn into for artists.
To place issues in perspective, OpenWav co-founder and CEO Jaeson Ma, who spoke alongside Jean on the occasion, stated that, “Proper now on Spotify…for $3,000 it’s important to hit 1 million streams.” Ma is a media trade entrepreneur, investor, and advisor who has backed numerous startups, together with Musical.ly (which turned TikTok), Triller, Coinbase, Seize, and others, and co-founded a number of media corporations and the NFT app OP3N.
Ma defined that the trade’s damaged mannequin is why the workforce at OpenWav is constructing a direct-to-fan music platform.
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
|
October 27-29, 2025
“The algorithms are usually not rewarding music,” he famous, agreeing with a recent social media post from singer Lizzo, who complained concerning the lack of a “song of the summer” this 12 months.
Ma then defined that what as we speak’s artists want shouldn’t be 1,000,000 listeners on Spotify, however reasonably 1,000 true followers.
“When you’ve got 1,000 true followers that provide you with $10 a month — which is a Starbucks espresso instances 1,000 — that’s $120,000 a 12 months as an impartial music artist. Take into consideration that.” (Technically, it’s $100,000 per 12 months — he probably misspoke — however his level stands; there’s room to monetize the direct-to-fan expertise.)
“Spotify shouldn’t be paying you. Instagram, TikTok’s not paying you. However your true followers pays you. They’ll purchase your tickets. They’ll purchase your unique music — your music dropped first on OpenWav. They’ll purchase your merch. And should you’re making that kind of cash — simply 10 bucks a month — you possibly can really construct a sustainable profession,” Ma stated.
In fact, OpenWav isn’t alone in fascinated with turning “tremendous followers” right into a income stream for artists. Spotify itself has been speaking about constructing an excellent fan platform for a while, telling traders on its earnings calls that it goals to launch a new premium tier that may cater to followers who would get early entry to live performance tickets, extra options, and different perks. The corporate has been negotiating with labels like Common and Warner Music to make that occur.
OpenWav wouldn’t essentially be concentrating on main artists, as Spotify is, nonetheless. As a substitute, it could be going after indie artists and others simply beginning out.
The idea isn’t completely new. Spotify tried to enter this house, too, when it supplied a manner for indie artists to add their very own music again in 2018. However that effort was quickly shuttered after the corporate confronted pressure from its label partners who felt the transfer would reduce into their gross sales.
Ma, in response to a query about what makes OpenWav completely different from different fan platforms, admitted there have been rivals in the marketplace as we speak, however argued that none had been doing every thing that OpenWav is doing in a single place.
“Whenever you come onto OpenWav, you’re in a position to promote tickets and earn 80% of the revenue — 20% [goes to] the platform enabling you to promote tickets to your exhibits,” he stated. “Everybody that buys a ticket goes into the occasion chat, like a Discord, and also you’re in a position to actually talk and combine and community with the very folks which are shopping for the tickets to your exhibits,” Ma continued. “You then’re really in a position to drop merch in that very same group chat with zero upfront prices, no stock, international dropshipping.”
Artists on the platform would additionally personal their viewers, like followers’ e mail addresses and telephone numbers.
The platform permits artists to make use of AI to design their merch, and each Jean and Ma expressed enthusiasm concerning the expertise. Jean famous that AI might help musical artists create greater than earlier than, and Ma identified that even document producer and songwriter Timbaland has been utilizing the AI music service Suno like a sampler to assist him do extra together with his current music.
In OpenWav, they plan to make use of AI to assist artists the way in which a supervisor may, by suggesting issues like tour areas or merch concepts, in addition to offering instruments to make album artwork or lyric movies, for instance.
“What we see with AI is that AI goes to be your greatest good friend as an artist,” stated Ma, who stated some AI options would arrive within the app’s “part two.” Within the meantime, OpenWav is accessible on iOS and Android gadgets for customers.