James Blake: “There’s money in streaming services – it’s just being diverted to the wrong places”Artists often complain about their royalty cheques from streaming platforms. And James Blake is taking matters into his own hands. Over the last year, he’s taken steps to partner with smaller companies to earn more from his art – and he’s happier than ever.
Speaking to Variety, Blake admits that his anxiety in the lead-up to each next pay cheque was debilitating. “At one point I was having regular panic attacks about not being in control and being exploited,” he admits. “[I was] worrying about money, and I wasn’t very creative then.”

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In order to regain a sense of stability, Blake parted ways with Polydor Records after 12 years. “When I really looked into the machinations of what was going on behind each part of the industry, I saw that there are unethical parts of the model that are responsible for a massive transfer of wealth away from the artist,” he explains.
“It’s not that there’s no money there,” he emphasises. “It’s just being diverted to the wrong places, and the system is set up to not give you that information.”
Blake has spoken out about not being properly compensated for his art in the past. Last March, he took to X to insist that art doesn’t come out of thin air – artists need to earn a living to continue creating. “If we want quality music somebody is gonna have to pay for it,” he wrote.
“Streaming services don’t pay properly, labels want a bigger cut than ever and just sit and wait for you to go viral,” he continues. “TikTok doesn’t pay properly, and touring is getting prohibitively expensive for most artists.”
In another post, he posed a very important question to the industry: “do you want good music or do you want what you paid for?”

Something I keep seeing is ‘if you’re lucky enough to go viral, just use the exposure to generate income some other way’. Musicians should be able to generate income via their music.
Do you want good music or do you want what you paid for?
— James Blake (@jamesblake) March 3, 2024

 
Last year, Blake told Billboard that leaving his label had left him feeling “the freest” he ever had. This is the most connected I’ve ever felt with the way my music is being pushed,” he explained.
Now, Blake has partnered with a slew of companies that put the artist back in the driver’s seat. One of which is Indify, a company that benefits both artists and A&R representatives. It helps connect artists with marketing teams and investors, with a massive board available for potential investors to peruse.
Investors get a percentage of streaming royalties, with Indify taking 15% of their share. But the investor can never take never more than 49% of royalties. “The [partners] are incentivised to push your project up the hill – much more than, say, most people at a major label, who are essentially paid a salary,” Blake explains.
Blake also took the reins and started up his own streaming platform. Vault is a direct artist-to-fan platform allows him to have a more meaningful connection with his fans.

Ok, so for the first time I’m going to be releasing from my vault of unreleased music
We are launching @vaultdotfm to show music has inherent value beyond just exposure
Subscribe to unlock pic.twitter.com/pIic7Ef47G
— James Blake (@jamesblake) March 20, 2024

“Whenever I send a message or upload a song [on Vault], all of [my fans] get a text message or email,” he tells Variety. “There is no algorithm stopping me from reaching those people, like with Instagram. And there’s a whole ecosystem that actually rewards fans. And when there’s enough people, it starts to look like a solid monthly income.”
But Blake’s endeavours aren’t merely to benefit himself. Blake has also been working with companies like Bside, which allows artists to pre-sell tickets prior to confirming a venue. It benefits the venues, as it allows artists to find and match ticket numbers to the room they require.
His first show with Bside was ‘An Evening With James Blake’, which saw him performing a stripped back set for a 800 fans. “We didn’t tell people where the venue was,” he says. “Then we found an appropriately sized venue and said, ‘Would you like to put on the show? No risk for you, no risk for us: It’s already sold out.’”
“That’s the concept — go direct to consumer,” he continues. “The artist is able to broker the deal and negotiate it, and not have to split that money with a venue or a ticketing company. We’d cut out the middlemen.”
The shift has allowed Blake to feel more connected to his music than ever. “Before last year, I was an artist who buried my head in the sand in terms of business…” he says. “This feeling of taking control and autonomy is empowering to the point where I rediscovered a sense of creativity that I hadn’t had in many years.”
“Getting yourself to a place of coherency in your mental state and your business actually makes you more productive,” he concludes. “It’s artistic freedom turned up to 11.”
In a statement recently shared with MusicTech‘s sister publication Guitar.com, a Spotify spokesperson defended the platform against accusations that it is the lowest paying streaming service, saying: “Every other subscription streaming service mentioned pays less than Spotify.
“Spotify paid out $10 billion to the music industry last year and has paid out $60 billion all time. Our music subscription competitors haven’t reported their subscriber figures or music industry payouts in years, because they pay far less.
“A service claiming to pay a higher ‘per stream rate’, is smoke and mirrors. A high per stream rate is just an admission that fewer people are using your service, and many with accounts aren’t actively listening to music.
“The per stream rate is easy to calculate: total payouts, divided by total streams, equals per stream rate. What would make the per stream rate higher? You guessed it: less streaming.”
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