Drea Jackson: Exec Reveals How to DOMINATE on SoundCloud (INSIDER TIPS)

It is a social media platform. Our algorithm is fing top tier. You have a special director's cut version only on SoundCloud. That means that track is probably going up in the club. You do have the ability to like upload that paperwork directly into the metadata or like your back end. They really be sh***ing on the ladies. For real. They're coming for y'all. They are coming for y'all. The SoundCloud era may be in the past, but SoundCloud is alive and well. New artists are discovered on SoundCloud every single day, and so many of you are sleeping on this platform. It can bring so much value. What are you doing? Today we sat down with Drea Jackson, who is the senior manager of artist and label relations. It is quite literally her job to make sure that artists like you guys are successful on the platform. And we got all the game out of her. Soundcloud has some key differentiators from other platforms that make it really powerful. For one, the average SoundCloud listener is there for music discovery. They're not going there to listen to Drake. They're trying to discover their new favorite artist, and it could be you. Number two, the simple ability to be able to message your fans.

This is insanely powerful and something you cannot achieve on traditional DSPs. And you know how listeners can comment on certain parts of every song? This is free data, you're not getting anywhere else. You might find out that verse two on track eight is everyone's absolute favorite and go make some videos around it. And by the way, they do pay for streams just like everyone else. A lot of people don't know that. By the end of this episode, you are going to be sprinting to sign up for an artist pro account. There is so so so much value. Without any further ado, start that theme song. One more time. Two more time. Two more time. One more time. Spin it, rock, spin it, boom, boom, boom. Hit it, hit it, hit it, hit it, one more time. Bro, we got Drea Jackson from SoundCloud on the pod, bro. Holy shit. Let's go. Man, we, I feel y'all. Yeah. It's happening. Everything is good. You are the senior manager of artist and label relations at SoundCloud, more broadly, industry relations at SoundCloud. Just to set the stage for our chat today on the pod, what exactly does your role entail? So that everyone kind of has some context.

Okay, I love this question because I feel like no one really knows what artist relations, label relations is. Now, yes, and I'm gonna correct this real quick. This is not artists and repertoire AR, like what you would find at a proper label, et cetera, et cetera. This is artist relations, literally relationships. It is my job to liaise artists, managers, adjacent creatives, executives to the platform, um, not in exchange for anything, but more so to make sure that they're educated on how to use the platform. They are excited about the platform, they are you know uploading and creating unique content on the platform. And also they're able to like grow and develop their careers through the insights and the nuances that the SoundCloud listener fan, slash culture and lifestyle of SoundCloud itself are able to kind of give them into um, you know, their experience as artists. So that's very broad, but what that really means is knowing the right artists, the right storytelling methods, and helping to identify those particular creators from let's say there's two sides of it, the outside and the inside. So me identifying those artists from the outside of the company and helping the company understand exactly which narrative, which vessel of marketing support, which opportunity, or even if I also personally hear other opportunities, because that happens a lot too, that this artist should be the best person for or the spokesperson for, et cetera, et cetera.

Sure. There's a lot more to it though. Yeah. She sounds like the plug, Henry. Low key. I'm like plug at SoundCloud. Exactly. It sounds like you are definitely someone who, you know, if artists and their teams get the opportunity to connect with, you are that girl that can help make shit happen within you know the platform. And obviously, you do other things to just uplift the artist community. That's why I was so excited to get you on because your insights and expertise comes from not only, of course, your you know professional uh experience at SoundCloud, but obviously you just are such a big advocate for artists. So, first and foremost, appreciate you for doing that because it's hard being an artist in today's you know modern music business. So I think there's there needs to be more resources like you that really just have this love and desire to help artists and their teams win, right? So thank you for that. I will add too, there are I'm not gonna say several of me, but our music team has grown. So shout out to some of the newer people that come in.

But there are other um representatives on my team and in in the industry relations team that have specialties in Latin music. Shout out to Fatima or EDM, electronic dance, indie rock. So there's a few of us. My personal expertise sit on black music, R&B, and hip hop. And as I grow as an executive, that's also expanding. But I just wanted to add that in there. Yeah, no, for sure. So where do you, you know, because we had Audiomack co-founder, uh, Brian Zisook, uh aka Z on the podcast. Love that guy. Um, we asked him the same question. I would love to know your take on where do you see SoundCloud fitting into like the DSP like streaming platform ecosystem? So, first of all, everyone, if you're watching this, SoundCloud is not a DSP. Oh shit. Ooh, myth debunked. It is a social media platform. And I'm Scrolling, I am scrolling not past pictures or videos, I'm scrolling past songs. You know, so thinking about it like that kind of helps open the doors of like realize or understanding what kind of community you can build on SoundCloud and how to build that community on SoundCloud.

Um now, obviously, y'all, we do stream music, so I'm like, yes, we're not a DSP, but we actually have a platform that does stream the music. Um, but there's so many other interactions between comments, between private messages, between reposts with captions, um, and honestly, just the certain nuances of like the different affiliate blog pages that are kind of seated within SoundCloud and some of the other, I will call them SoundCloud influencers. They're faceless, but SoundCloud influencers that kind of help to grow and expand artist footprint on the platform. Wow, social media platform as opposed to DSP. There's a lot more going on socially, so that's fair. You're right. DSP doesn't do it justice. I can't DM my favorite artist on Spotify. I can't do that. So are artists you do you recommend that they be treating it more like a social media, like no one's going looking at their Spotify community, and you can't really do anything with them, right? Yes, absolutely. Let's go. I want if you're an artist and you have a SoundCloud, you should Mhmm. You should. check your DMs.

I guarantee you you didn't realize there was some money maybe sitting in there, there are some collabs maybe sitting in there. There are some just hyper evangelistic fans that have been with you since day one sitting in those DMs, and it really might change your day, might brighten your mood. Happy holidays. So let's just kind of say, like, all right, I'm a newer artist, right? Obviously, signing up for you know with SoundCloud should be part of my just opening my artist business. Once I've you know, set up, I guess even just like created my SoundCloud account as an artist. Can you walk through like some of the guidance that you give to your artist partners on like what should I do from there? Like, like literally, obviously, I know upload music's part of it, but just like break down some of the just you know, checklist items that everyone should be going through when they're really trying to put a SoundCloud strategy in place. Okay. So, number one, you said you hit it right on the head. You started your business of music.

The first thing you do is you create a SoundCloud. That is a foundation of your fan base. They're gonna be your day one fans for a lifetime, right? Um, as you upload music on the platform, well, excuse me, back it up. Before you upload music on the platform, I want you to subscribe to our artist pro tier. Yes, another subscription, but when I tell you this is the one that you're gonna need for the rest of your time at SoundCloud, you'll get it. You'll have all your insights right there, you'll be able to access certain things that other non-subscribers will be able to access. Um, and it'll give you unlimited uploads. Um, and it also does give you a leg up in terms of reaching out to the artist relations team and being considered for other promotional opportunities, brand partnerships, et cetera, et cetera. And there are a slew of like plugins and other things. I don't want to list them off right now because I don't want to get wrong, but other things that come with that subscription. So, yes, now you have artist pro. How much is that by the way? Just so for our people. It is $8.25 a month billed yearly or $15.99 billed monthly.

There is an artist pro or excuse me, an artist tier. We just announced that about two weeks ago. Um, and it is only 325 a month billed yearly or $6.25 billed monthly. We did that because we want to make sure that even creators that just want to get their music out there have the ability to do it without you know, excuse me, until they're able to scale and get to the artist pro tier. Um, but but let's back it up. So now you have Artists pro and you fill out all of the forms you need to fill out so that your monetization can actually hit your bank account. Okay, okay? Because there's like tax forms and stuff you have to fill out there. You're uploading your music. When you're uploading your music, the one thing that I want every artist to do is to always turn their monetization on. And I feel like y'all know what monetization means, but no, act like we don't. Okay, you don't. I mean, just act like we don't. Essentially, what do you do is you you enter the metadata and the ISRCs that you get from whatever distributor you use, or SoundCloud can generate an ISRC for you, and you basically attach your serial number or your social security number of that song to the song. So now that monetization is turned on, that allows SoundCloud's artists and industry relations team to kind of you know pitch for artists um playlisting and other promotional opportunities because we cannot promote music that is not monetizable.

There's a whole nother legal spill I could give on that, but I won't do that. Just know check that blue box, turn your monetization on, and now your music is free to just expand on the platform, right? Okay, so a couple things that I think artists should be doing the first time they start, you know, releasing music. So you just drop your first track. You should probably play that track or have a friend play that track and see what related artists pop up after your track. And and fit and fish through that. Our algorithm is fucking top tier. It's honestly one of my favorite things to do is just play a track I like and let shit run. I find so many gems like that. But that'll help you identify where you're popping up in the ecosystem, right? Um, and given the fact that it's a social media platform, say maybe one or two of those artists that came on after you, maybe artists, you're like, hey, we would be a fire collaboration, or it'd be really dope for us to hop on a track together. Private message DM that SoundCloud artist, and maybe something can come out of that. But what I want you to see is that like it's all about expanding your footprint.

And if we think of this like a family tree of some sort, like you planted the seed, your music is there. The branches are only gonna grow as you continue to collaborate with the community around you and also feed into and give your audience feedback. So while you may have maybe one comment on your first track and it's been your first week, which is pretty expected for an artist with no, you know, social media push or anything, communicate with that fan, release not really something to them, but like it's DM them and say, Hey, I have some music that I'm gonna think about dropping. What do you think about it? And these touch points are very important for the early stages of artists because number one, a touch point with a fan is always gonna be something really memorable for that fan, and that fan is gonna be your street team, they're gonna be shouting out when SZA DM'd her back in 2010 and like you know, let her listen to some private music. Also, word of mouth is how the SoundCloud listener spreads their evangelism, right? I actually used to have a blog that was well, Drea Vibes was the name of the blog, and now I made it a show, but it was all about hashtag shit.

I found on SoundCloud. I was like, if I heard this on SoundCloud and you ain't heard it yet, I was the girl that was putting everyone on the new music. Mind you, not everyone is just like me, but SoundCloud listeners are more apt to being those aficionados than any other listener. So you want that person to feel like they have a connection and a reason to make sure that they're you know shouting you out from the top of their lungs wherever they can, or you want them to have a unique experience with you. Um how could SoundCloud not hire someone whose blog was built around shit I found on SoundCloud? Like, if that wasn't part of your interview process to get the job, then you're tripping. Cause that's like I would have hired you on the spot. They're like, wait, you did what? Hired. That's amazing. Okay, yeah, no, that's so true. I yeah, I mean, what are some other I guess generalizations about the average SoundCloud user? Because I think like that is a good point. Are there any other like differentiators between like the average type of person who is, you know, heavy into SoundCloud versus some of the other, I guess, you know, streaming platform side of the competition? Absolutely.

And you can kind of see it on your pro on your platform if you are an artist that is engaged with your audience and vice versa. So, for example, you know how we have the waveform where you can see the comments and now certain quick reactions that pop up as, you know, attract plays. If you look at it from far away, there may be a bulk of comments here, bulk comments there, maybe not so many towards that end. But depending on that artist community and their fan community, they might see comments all the way through, they might see comments up to like the 30, 40 second mark, but that's an indicator of just how engaged that fan base is with that particular track, and that can also help artists kind of determine hmm, this one didn't really hold the listening long enough, or maybe something about this one is something I should implement on a bonus track, or you know, et cetera, et cetera. So we're those that are going to listen for our own sake. I skip stuff rarely, but I skip stuff when it doesn't catch me anymore. But I love when I can just coast, and I call it cloud surfing. So remember when I mentioned um cloud surfing trademark pending?

I mean, what's good? Remember when I mentioned that I like, you know, just playing a track I really like and then just letting it play? I do that on purpose because like, you know, there's a there's a fun, there's something intrinsic that the SoundCloud listener gets from like being the first person to hear something or to find something that no one's found before or that they haven't found yet. And if we're listening all the way through, that's because it's gotten us, right? But if we're not, that means it's like, okay, skip what's the next thing that's gonna catch me. We're looking for the next catch, the next catch, the next catch. Depending on the algorithm, it could float all the way through, or it might not. But that's just how, you know, the typical, what I would say, the typical SoundCloud user engages. Um, and then also we love to react and or comment on tracks. And so like we have repost um capabilities where you can repost with your own caption. You can be like, yo, this beat drop was so fire, y'all missing out, or whatever, whatever. Or you could tag other creators or tag your friends in that caption.

And so that again is just a little bit more of like a nuanced way that we're able to say, Hey, I found this, my friend Alexis or so and so, go listen to it now. God, the amount of feedback you can get on your music, just the comments being in uh a metric without being in the metrics page. Yeah, I mean, dude, if I if I'm an emerging artist, I mean, shit, I would borderline be like exclusively using the likes of a SoundCloud. And I know like, you know, maybe the the uh big behemoth of YouTube also has some like like socially things you can do, right? There's comments, et cetera, that you know transcends beyond the traditional Spotify Apple music, but there's still not this level of like at this second of the song, you can see the spike in the reactions and like all this data that you can get on on your music to then, like you said, not to not necessarily use the exact same beat drop at that exact same second, but like you can understand what people are liking, and then maybe what they're not liking so much, right? If the comments and the reactions fall off, like that's that's almost just as valuable as like what people are liking too.

I feel like the average SoundCloud listener is also like very loyal to SoundCloud. Whereas some people might like listen to a song on YouTube here, Spotify there, maybe they have Apple Music too, kind of bouncing around. Like the people that use SoundCloud, like when it's time to listen to music, I'm opening SoundCloud. They got so much SoundCloud Pride. Yes. My job, you're great at this too. Yeah, thank you. No, but they really do have like and they're the super fan type. Like they are the ones that want to comment on the song. They want to find the new shit too, bro. Like if you're an emerging artist, like the average Spotify listener isn't necessarily as big. Once again, that there's exceptions to all these rules, but they're not as big on discovery, I would assume, right? Like you, your your listener on SoundCloud is like, I pride myself in putting my friends, like it's more Drea's of the world, right? Who were like, shit I found on SoundCloud. Exactly. Like that that's just how people are now. Yeah. Um, that's interesting. Okay, cool. So we've got we, you know, we're starting to upload music, we're seeing the reactions, we're we're messaging some of those like early supporters, right? Um, what are some other things that you then like in my life cycle as a SoundCloud, you know, adopter as an artist?

What you know, what other things should I be implementing into my strategy? Because I think these are gems so far. Okay, so now we're in, I guess, like the nurture section, right? Like you're you you're building some momentum, you're capturing some net new from some word of mouth, et cetera, et cetera. Yep. And now you want to nurture that audience. Now, think about SoundCloud also as like a Delta SkyMiles Club or Emirates SkyMiles Club. There's these rooms that you can go in in the airport when you're a member of a particular community and you get a certain treatment. Um SoundCloud is just like that in a way. So while you have this new audience, you're able to give them exclusive content by way of just manually uploading exclusive songs, tracks, or teasers. Um, and then digging deeper into that, snippets and teasers are really really huge right now because we see people teasing them, you know, in the background of their social story, and you know, we see GloRilla doing a lot of the teasers and things like that. But you know that you could put that snippet on SoundCloud, and with the Artist Pro tier, you're able to upload over that file. So say you have a snippet on Monday with the whole track coming Friday, that snippet can garner likes, engagement, reposts, expanding in the the tree branch here, um, and all of that cute stuff.

But then also, once that full track goes live, then the actual full track is now living on SoundCloud. So you have like a certain five-day window that the SoundCloud listener will be able to access that track in a way or engage with that track in a way that they wouldn't anywhere else outside of let's say social media. But at least on SoundCloud, those engagement that engagement is attributing to you and your profile. Does the uh do the likes and the comments and stuff on the snippet translate over to when the full song is released? Yes, and I have a play that I tell a lot of the artists I work with called Get Gamifying Unlocking a Track. So, yes, I said Friday, the whole track's going live, but Monday you got the teaser up on SoundCloud. You're on social saying, Y'all, if y'all want this track, get it to a hundred likes. Okay, maybe now I need 200 reposts again, building the branches. Now I need 300 comments, and you'll unlock it on SoundCloud before it goes live anywhere else. That unlock could happen in 24 hours, it could happen in 48, maybe three three days. But regardless, there is a small window where that track will then be fully exclusive to SoundCloud for a while.

And if you have a relationship with myself or any of my other industry relations, partners or colleagues, then that gives us more momentum to pitch your music for exclusive artists or excuse me, excuse me, exclusive support on our homepage, exclusives and snippets, playlisting, and other things and other levers that we have to pull behind tracks that are exclusive to us as well. Wow. I'm curious. Um, if I'm an artist that already has like, say a couple albums, a couple EPs, handful of singles out everywhere else, and I have just started my SoundCloud. Do you recommend I put everything on SoundCloud at once? Or am I doing like new rollouts for these slowly? Or how would you treat that? I would say put it all out there at once. And I'm gonna say that selfishly because for me, when I go to SoundCloud and it's an artist that has stuff everywhere else, but just like one thing on SoundCloud, I feel like kind of cheated a little bit. She feels some type of way, bro. Also, also, like you just want your footprint to be there, right? If your footprint's everywhere else, make sure that SoundCloud still has that same accessibility to you because again, we're that loyal kind of like in our feelings listener.

And also a strategy that you could implement is that you could come out with the director's cut version of all of your old catalog on SoundCloud. Maybe not all at the same time, but say you then upload all of your old catalog on SoundCloud. Maybe in the next month, you're like, you know, you do uh um you you record four to five, six 30-second audio snippets that you could place in between respective tracks on that platform, on that project, and then you can message via social media that you have a special director's cut or whatever cool language you want to come up with version only on SoundCloud. Get to know me behind this when I made it 10 years ago, only on SoundCloud. Hey, this song used to have a used to have a third verse. Here it is. Damn. Kind of cool. Exactly. Oh, I like that one. That's a good one. Bonus, a bonus verse. A bonus bridge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of cool. Put the bridge on SoundCloud. I'm just kidding. So I I feel like, you know, the direct to consumer approach is basically it's being talked about more than I feel like it's been talked about since. I mean, actually, maybe ever, right?

So you have the, you know, you have the likes of even.biz, and you have obviously other platforms who are trying to empower artists to be able to, you know, directly communicate with their fans and then obviously also directly monetize, you know, with their fan bases. Um, some of this stuff with the exclusive director's cut and the bonus third verses, right? If I'm an artist or if I'm an artist manager, what I would be telling my artists is like we should probably be trying to, if at all possible, maybe monetize against some of that exclusive content. Is there any way to do that within the SoundCloud platform? When you say monetize exclusive content, you mean streams from the tracks? I I more mean like if I'm a diehard fan of Henry's and he drops that bonus third verse version of the song on SoundCloud. Is there some like paywall functionality within SoundCloud where like if I subscribe to him and pay some sort of is there any of that going on there? I don't know why I'm looking like there's an audience, like hey, no. No,

No, at this point, there technically is not. Okay. Um that's fine. I was just wondering. But I like where you're going with that. Yeah, yeah. Just because I think, you know, yeah, I just think it would make logical sense, maybe as like a next evolution of a SoundCloud, since y'all do have some some of that like diehard community that's really used to being on that platform. Like if I'm an artist, why not just be able to do some of that like direct to diehard fan, you know, content and bonus, you know, tracks, et cetera, like through some sort of subscription or paywall or whatever. You know, those listeners are more likely to come out of pocket than the average Spotify listener. Yeah, absolutely. Yep, yeah, for sure. Um, all right. Are there any other like slept on features that you just feel like you're constantly having to remind your artist and and you know, artist team partners of like, guys, like we gotta be using this. That's a yes. top fans or top listeners. What is that?

That is okay. So for those who don't know, yeah, you can see exactly, at least by way of their SoundCloud profile, who is listening to your tracks the most. Wow. So if you have a track that's just been going crazy viral, and you want to know which art, not which artists, but which fans are like hyper consuming that content, you can actually go into your SoundCloud Insights with the artist pro tier and click on their profile and message them. Yeah, just the DMs, they probably messaged you. Yeah. There has been times where like I've seen an artist, um, see it there for their top fans for a top listener for the first time, and they're like, oh my god, like they listen to my very first track 700 times in 30 days. One are you okay if it's a sad song, but number two, someone that I should be reaching out to. These are just qualitative insights, and while they're there, maybe just that's just one person, like that's one touch point in one seat that you, as an artist, you'll be able to really evangelize for the future, and then also in general, like number one, just tap that person as being a day one because as you grow as an artist, we're watching you grow. There's a lot of times that artists get on SoundCloud and that imposter syndrome gets to them, but then there's people that are like, I don't care, I just want to know like who you are, and I want to keep listening to you as you grow.

Those fans are the ones that, like I said, will be your day one street team. Uh, and they'll also be the ones to scream at the top of their lungs when you get a Grammy, and et cetera, et cetera. So those touch points matter. Is there any like unique um thing that you've seen some of your artists partners do for their top fans? Because obviously, sending a message is one thing. Is there any like creative uh outside of just like thanking them, of course, you know, in the DMs for their support of you uh on the platform? Is there anything you've seen that's that's like yeah, a step beyond that? I've seen artists send out um links to like a Google form or Jot form or something to their top fans, and they submit data like address or email or whatever, and they get free tickets to a show or free merge or a discount code. I've seen artists um invite um creator listeners to a private like studio session in their city, respective to where they're at. This stuff happens.

Soundcloud as well, there are bigger scale marketing initiatives that we've had that we've worked with artists to do like top fans activations where they come to a listening party, or back when we had our first on SoundCloud campaign, um, 2023, where Wolfface Joey was on it, we had some of his top fans come and interview him. Oh. Um, and that was dope. That was in New York office. Um, there's a lot of different things you can do with the top fan. You can do pretty much anything you want to do as long as you collect the data on behalf of a Google form or some external platform. That's that's gotta be the best. I mean, like, I would be sold. I'm sold right now. Yeah, I'm gonna tell all of my fucking artist homies like just that data alone. I mean, it's yeah, it's unbelievable. Spotify would never, bro. It would never. Spotify would never, bro. Like, you're gonna just like that is so powerful. One more thing. Um, in our insights, there uh there's like a third party. You can see we're like not third party, hold on, I'm saying it wrong.

There's a there's a section on your insights where you can see how people are getting to the track, whether it's searchability, whether it's a playlist. Because we have so many DJ plugins through SoundCloud, you can see which DJ plugins are actually pulling your track out. So that helps you, helps to indicate just how people are discovering you. So if you have a track and it's getting a hundred thousand streams from Pioneer, that means that track is probably going up in the club or going up in a party or communal type of environment. Versus Google Alexa or that's it, Alexa's Google, right? Yeah. Alexa's Amazon. There's so many though. Amazon, Alexa's Amazon. Um, either way, versus these other different ways that people can call upon or to find your music. So, yeah, because we have the DJ plugins, you're kind of able to see like traffic sources. Yeah, traffic sources. There we go. Wow. Now that's huge. Let me take a moment to interrupt this episode and tell you about our friends over at DistroKid. DistroKid is easily the best DIY distributor on the marketplace.

Let me tell you why. It's only $23 a year. That's less than two bucks a month for you to upload unlimited music to all of your favorite streaming platforms on the planet. It's so easy that it takes me like five minutes per upload, and that's when I'm multitasking dealing with my two-year-old son. Hands down, my favorite part about DistroKid is how easy it is to add credits to an upload. I don't know what distributor you're using, but with DistroKid, it's super easy. You can put the artist, the producer, the songwriter. I'm pretty sure you could put like the junior associate engineer of a song. And me, I I want to know who's on the record. And if you sign up using this link, you're gonna get 30% off an already insanely low price. And you can finally start adding your collaborators because they are checking. They will notice when their name's there and they will thank you for doing it. Let's get back to the episode. What do you think? Okay. Do you have like a favorite artist case study as far as like you know, someone that you've worked with and y'all did something like really I guess cool and unique for maybe a certain release or whatever on the platform? And if so, can you talk about kind of like what that artist did, how they went about it, and maybe some of the results that they saw from that specific campaign.

Yes, absolutely. Uh, I'll speak on one more recently that actually became a cultural phenomenon, as I would say. Oh shit. Um, our girl Layla, first lady of the XL. Shout out to Sick and Autumn over there. Um, not my problem, obviously had its moment and is still having its moment in in so many ways. But it started out when Layla Layla decided that she wanted to give a call to action to other creators and producers like herself to remix the beat. And so we launched a beat challenge on SoundCloud where she used her socials and other you know avenues to say, hey y'all, upload a remix my track, not my problem on SoundCloud. I'm choosing my favorite ones to be a part of this playlist, and really the reward was just being a part of the playlist, but there was so much of a reward that just kind of came out of being a part of that moment because as we see it was not only a beat challenge it became a verse challenge and then it became a cash code being Layla collab and then it just became a bigger thing in terms of like how viral the moment happened around it and so that beat challenge inspired a lot of producers and creators to just hop on and and put their take on that track but then it also inspired a track that has now performed exceedingly well um in general across the board and we see where Layla is at now but for more numbers number wise um I believe as of July 15th and now this was a while ago I had just checked the data again this morning but I don't have the new updated data but July 15th the remixes itself garnered over a hundred and ten thousand plays wow and that's just that's just a hundred and ten thousand plays it's not the likes the comments it's not the repost so as you can imagine with an over 72 submissions by the way so her song and Layla's impact um what her her footprint on the platform expanded exponentially with everyone that was getting into that contest and putting their track and hashtagging, not my problem on the track. So why did she choose SoundCloud to do this right?

Because I mean no but but I mean like from her lens you know did she have a specific reason because I mean like obviously there were other options you know what I mean so like what you know was it something that y'all's team brought her way and it was like oh shit like they had this great idea let's do it or is it something that she felt SoundCloud was like uniquely positioned to like be the best place to do this. I think Layla is the prime example of starting on SoundCloud. Okay. She herself is an evangelist of the platform. She is a music head, a digger of the platform as well. So for her, she knew that the community that she needed to touch with this challenge and with the CTA would be a SoundCloud-facing artist fan community. There it is, too. There it is. And so she you can only make those playlists and people can only manually upload with no barrier to entry on SoundCloud. Yeah. No, that's beautiful. It's true. And it's interesting you like just on the DJ front and like producer front, uh DJ Cleo Trappa, who's like a really popping DJ here in Atlanta.

I don't know if you know her at all. Um she said that she's still discovering new artists, like almost exclusively on SoundCloud. And like as a as a DJ, like she's pulling tracks down, I guess, to be able to, you know, using her mixes like on the regular. And that clip that we posted about that went crazy because people were like, oh shit. Like she's part of that pioneer traffic source. For sure. Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. Um, okay, let's see. So outside of the platform itself, right? Because I mean, I look at you guys, you know, you mentioned at the beginning, not only are you a social media kind of platform that's centered around music, obviously, you guys are a cultural like mover and shaker, right? I mean, you you there's a whole era named after SoundCloud, right? Uh, there's a whole genre, a subgenre of rap named after SoundCloud, right? Like, you don't hear about Spotify rap or Apple Music rap, right? Like you do hear TikTok rapper.

Okay, Henry. Jesus, you really had to. I mean, just you know, let's pretend it's not for the sake of this whole thing I'm doing here, man. I never heard that. Okay, yeah, there you go. Um, but so talk to us a little bit about like outside of an artist, you know, using the platform and doing some of these unique things like on platform. What are some of the I mean, you mentioned like the first on SoundCloud thing with um with uh Wolf Face Joey. Right, yeah. Give us some other examples of the ways that you know SoundCloud is like uplifting, empowering, and like shining light on their artist community. Because I I think that's a big part of what you I, you know, of what y'all do and why I'm a big fan. Um, is like kind of the off-platform stuff. So is there are there any things you've been a part of, you know, that that you think our audience should be aware that y'all have done? Yes. Um, I've been at the company for five years, and we've continuously, you know, made sure that we are part of certain cultural moments happening within you know certain niches and genres and scenes of music, but more more like close to home, we had a franchise called Next Wave, which was our in real life experience of SoundCloud. Um, Ice Spice actually performed for the very first time ever at Next Wave Brooklyn, which was 2022, I believe.

Wow. Um, but that was one of our initiatives that kind of came out of the development, but also education and celebration arm. As leaderships leadership comes in, we things have changed, and now we're really focused, hyper focused on education. And that means a lot of these conversations that I'm having with you and the ones that I have with artists in, you know, one-on-one artist visits, we're trying to scale that to be something that masks. So we've had events called SoundCloud School Show, not show, excuse me, but a SoundCloud School event in our New York office. We're gonna be hosting more in New York in the LA offices come, you know, next year. I don't want to give too much away. But these are events that are meant to number one, just bring you into the fold and get you to understand all the different unique things that you can do with the platform. Because that's the first step. We've noticed that you we can have events, we can do all this great stuff, but what we need to do is educate the artist on how to use the platform and then help to give them tools, developmental tools that will you know help to expand their career. Um how do artists uh keep in the loop with all this?

Is there like a newsletter or how can they know about it? Yes, there is there is a creator newsletter that once you are a part of the artist and artist pro communities that you get. Um so that's one. Another another thing is just to tune into our social media. A lot of times when we're doing things, like they're more focused on particular um cities or whatever, and so you gotta just kind of be aware of like this happening in your city, and or just making sure you have a relationship with your nearest or most relevant SoundCloud Artist Relations Connect. Don't all blow me up at once because I have to fight off DMs every day. But um Yeah, we're gonna link her uh Instagram profile down below. It's already over with home address. Um it's already over with credit card number. Yeah. But there's another thing that we've been doing more recently in collaboration with Mike Boyd, um, called Pass the Ox. And we've had two of those hosted in New York. You've heard of that first. Yes. Well, we've heard of Mike Boyd, and I love him. I've heard of Past the Ox. Yeah, shout out to Mike. We'd love to interview him, by the way, if you can help hook that up.

Okay, I might do it. All right, let's go, let's go. People help the people to have in the New York office, but these are literal like office hangs or in well, SoundCloud office hangs with artists, and it's all about artists collaborating with artists or just interacting with artists in real time. So, again, taking the platform from just DMs to now, you're at the SoundCloud office, you're performing your music full of other artists that may have started their careers on SoundCloud as well, and or other fans or other people in the industry, and that exposure is just priceless. Yeah, no, that's huge, bro. Bro, we gotta do more of that. I mean, you've like, you just need to plan it, bro, at this point, because you've been telling me that we should do those types of things like a thousand times, and I keep letting them, you know, I keep kicking the can down the road. You're the planner. I know. Fuck, man. Okay, fine. All right. Um, so what's like the most common request you get from your artist community? There's gotta be something where you're just like, fuck, guys, like, all right, fine. Wait, wait, can you playlist this?

That's the most common that is the most common request. And what's your answer? Um I usually have to find a very creative way to say follow this process in order to be considered for XYZ. What is the process? What is the process if I want to be considered for uh sound? Because there are like influencers on SoundCloud, right? So, like, what, what is the process? So, for me, for the actual proper editorial playlist, I have to actually pitch to the curation team. So there's a certain amount of like data, your profile ID, the ISRCs, those things. I need that submitted into a Google form that I hand out. Okay. Sometimes I'll do it manually if it's a track that um or artists I've already been working with, and I just I'm able to just throw it in there, but I have to abide by certain internal politics for myself and for the sake of artists also continuously being able to be granted things via my pitching. So I have to follow the processes, and pretty much that just means the channel of emailing me or submitting to that link, and then I go through a pitch process for that track. Okay, and and so what if I don't have access to my artist relations team?

Is there a process at all in place to pitch to editorials? At this point, we actually do not have a process for that. And I want there to be eventually, because there's there's something about the SoundCloud ecosystem that, like, if we're able to get to artists before anyone else is, that's part of our story as well. Yeah. Okay, cool. Just gotta get it popping and make it happen. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So what's you know, what are some things that you're evangelizing for SoundCloud to do in the upcoming year? Right? Like, is there is there something that you're like just super excited, like, hey, SoundCloud company, we really need to tackle these types of things What are some types of things for our artists. Well, outside of what Mike Boyd and Tiffany and them are doing with the um past the Ox event, I am very, very evangelistic about the women of the underground music scene. Um they're crushing. They're crushing it. They are they stand out a lot more to me than some of the guys at this point.

And I think that I have I I bear witness to a lot of things. It's kind of shady over there. They really be shitting on the ladies for real. They're coming for y'all. They are coming for y'all. Um, I want to develop my own curation playlist or my own, you know, list of the ladies. I kind of had started doing that maybe like six, seven months ago, where I just put a call out like, hey, y'all, who are the ladies of the underground? Because I want to start making sure that they're under my wing and that I, you know, I'm vis they're visible to me. But there are going to be, or there's going to be an initiative that I'm able to spearhead to roll out to evangelize that music a lot more. So I'll keep y'all posted on what that looks like, but I know part of my last conversations with my leadership was, hey Dreas, so about that big idea. How are we gonna roll it out for 2025? Let's go, ladies! leading ladies of the underground is what I want to focus on. That might not be the name of it. Leading ladies of the underground. Leading ladies of the underground is fire. So is list of the ladies, too.

We got Molly Santana. Come on, baby. So, so all the ladies that we're I got some coming for y'all. Yeah. No, the ladies are crushing it. Well, Drea, we've entered a final segment of the podcast. Uh-oh. What's up about to do now? This is where you get fired. No. Well, probably not. No, I'll be good. Drea, this is the rapid fire rampage. It's gonna be a three short section rampage. I'll explain them as we go. The beginning is just some real quick, basic short answer questions. When you put your voice up high like this, it doesn't really make it more believable. It's going to be super harmless. Starting with, how are you doing? I'm doing really great. I'm blessed. Holly Faber. How are you? I'm great. I'm glad the Drea vibes are high. I'm loving that. Drea, what are your three best tips for an artist to see success on SoundCloud? If you had to pick top three consistency at a cadence, meaning like every two weeks on a certain day at a certain time. Um collaboration with other artists or other people, a part of your ecosystem.

Um also connecting with your fans by way of just liking the comment or replying if you really got the time. But those three consistency, collaboration, and engagement with your fan base. It's Fire. That's a clip. So easily said, too. She just thinks about these tips. That's what keeps her up at night. Someone asked me this before. Maybe what it sounds like. She was so excited to get that out. Yeah, for sure. Drea, who are your three biggest dream guests for Drea Vibes? Oh. Oh my god, Riri. Of course. The lady. SZA and Dochi. Fire. God, Dochi's new uh like TV show or whatever that's coming out. It's like Denial River. Yeah, Denial of the River. Oh my God. Dude, The cast is incredible. She's incredible. It's just everything about this rollout has just been the fucking best. Bro. It is impressive. Needs to be studied. Drea, what's the most common mistake you see SoundCloud artists making? Ooh, most common mistake.

Not turning their monetization on. Damn. I think like. Dude, Do you want to get paid? I swear artists don't want to get paid. I swear. I'm like, hey, do you register the song with your PRO? No. No, no, no, no, no. No. I've seen an artist lose out on 60K, man. Oh my God. Yeah. And it doesn't backlog. Like if you turn it on later. No, it black boxes. Yeah. Black boxes. That's what it does. That's sad. Drea, you have to pick one song to play every time you enter a room. Oh, Donnell Jones, you know what's up. Oh, that's a good one. Have you thought about that before. That was also cool. I have a vision to that. song. Yeah. She's crushing this shit. That's what She hears every time she walks in a room, whether it's playing or not. Right. It's natural. She just comes in. What is one thing about the music industry that everyone should know? That the people that work in this and that these companies are human beings. Ooh, I love that. But like, what about that? Right? Like she's implying,

she's implying that they don't get treated like human beings sometimes. Uh yes, I'm implying that um human beings is as in like there are boundaries to you know how we operate, especially given the fact that like for me, I work at a company. At the end of the day, it is a company. We have like a lights on and a light lights off time frame, essentially. Yes. Um, and there's so much, there's only so much I'm able to prioritize outside of my boundaries. Yeah. And that gets a lot. Just even example of you pitching to editorials. It's not as simple as just hey, editorial playlist, curator. You put every single song that I ever tell you to put out. It's just not. These are just there's an etiquette to it. There's politics to how I even have to pitch. Facts. It's nuanced. Okay. Last one of the short answer. Trey, what is your favorite curse word? Fuck. fuck. I don't know. I'm gonna find someone. You gotta do something with these or else it's just I'm gonna find someone that's on my shit team soon.

I think we've been on a fuck streak and I don't like it. Really? Yeah. Fuck. We had Bumbaclot a month ago. Yes. That was good. Um yeah, I think so. I don't know. I don't know. I thought maybe. We're not allowed to speak on anyway. You know, part two. Part two is the this or that. I'm gonna give you two choices. You just have to pick one. Okay. Starting with great beats or great lyrics. Great beats. Skydive or meditate. Ooh. I'm gonna say skydive because I want to do it. Oh, I'd be the first skydiver. Running ads or influencer campaigns. Influencer campaigns. Can you run ads on Spotify? Spotify? Wow. Whoa, Whoa. whoa. Can you run ads on SoundCloud? No, you cannot. Okay. Peanut butter or jelly? Peanut butter. Discover new artists or binge your favorites. Oh, binge my favorites all day. Play-doh or silly string?

Play-doh. AI or no AI. I didn't really work out. I was about to say AI because Chad GBT been holding me down. Facts. Facts. Singles or projects. Oh. Projects. Wow. A beautiful body of work. I need that. Yes. Grow one extra ear or five extra toes. Can I hear better if I get three ears? Will this sound? Depends on location. Put one on the lower half of your body. Let's give it to the ears. The sound. Give it to the ear. The ears. Makes sense. Make music exactly how you want or listen to fan feedback. Make music exactly how I want. Because that's what comes out of me. I like it. I'm gonna I'm gonna keep that one for a little bit, I think. Wow. That's an interesting one, you know. And finally become a full-time artist or leave the music industry forever. Wow. Wow. Wow.

No Drea project coming soon. Anyway, the last part is the word association, Drea. I'm gonna say one word, and I just need you to give me the first word that you think of right off the top of your head. All right, let's go. Starting with music, sound, fruit, loop, TikTok. artist. Only as you said it. I was like, she claimed she had never I incepted it earlier. That's the problem. Tornado. Wow. Spin. Label. Oh that's acceptable. That's acceptable answer. Yep. Socks. Shoes. Piano. Player. Fire. Oh, well, like an actual fire. Um maybe I don't know. Soul. List. Money. Grab. Butterfly. Ooh, tattoo. Content. Creator. Lil. Bill.

Sound. Uh clout. Lil Bill. Lil Bill. Who's Lil Bill. Album coming soon, exclusively on SoundCloud. This has been your favorite artist and label and industry relations executive. Drea Jackson, Drea Vibes. Appreciate you coming on, seriously. Thank y'all. This is a good one. Artists, If y'all didn't pick up some game on how to better utilize, I mean, I learned so much about how I can tell my homies better to use the SoundCloud platform. Seems like an obvious play at this point. Yeah, for sure. As always, please like, comment, and subscribe if you follow us on Spotify Podcast, Apple Podcasts. We will love you forever. Maybe we should start uploading to SoundCloud, or I don't know. What y'all don't already do? You do Spotify? you do podcasts? Yes. Dude. Wah, wah, wah. Until next time, Henry, what are we doing? Getting out of here. Peace! Peace out y'all. Bye. Bye.