Artist Spotlight: How Apple Music Helped Unsigned R&B Singer Daniel Caesar Go Gold
Last week, a young R&B singer named Daniel Caesar received his first gold plaque. “Get You,” a smooth piece of classicism featuring Kali Uchis, got what it deserved. It’s a song that feels on first listen like you’ve heard it before, a four-and-a-half minute swooning session dependent only on languid guitars and, more importantly Caesar’s star turn of a vocal performance. Still, as good as the song is, going gold is a marked achievement for an artist as early in his career as Caesar—he’s just released his full-length debut, Freudian, after two EPs and a handful of loose tracks—made more impressive by the fact that Caesar is still independent.
Turning unsigned hype into unsigned success is becoming more commonplace in the streaming economy. The barriers to success are coming down, and the pool of parties able to help an artist find an audience is growing. In Daniel Caesar’s case, he received notable support from Apple Music. In a statement provided to Complex, he thanked the platform and described its support as “life changing.” In turn, Apple described Caesar as “a part of the Apple Music family from the very beginning.”
Apple Music premiered “Get You” on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 show, then immediately began adding it to its playlists. In August, it increased the support, profiling Caesar in its “Up Next” series. By the time the song went gold last week, Apple claimed 56 percent of the U.S. market share in “Get You,” a song that’s hit 50 million streams across platforms to date. The song’s success is an example of the power streaming services are accruing in breaking new artists, and highlights the strange new world that’s emerging between independence and platform-specific largesse.
“There’s this weird concept of industry plants that everyone talks about,” said Carl Chery, Apple Music’s Head of Artist Curation, “When people start getting success, [it becomes] ‘Oh, he’s a plant,’ or whatever.” In a wide-ranging phone conversation, Chery took umbrage at the idea that his picks on Apple’s platform are a part of some sort of industry-initiated conspiracy. “The stuff I’ve done with Daniel, with 6lack, with Sabrina [Claudio], with Khalid —if I pick the wrong song, it doesn’t work.” Chery has a growing stable of artists he’s promoted on the platform, including Bryson Tiller, that he jokingly calls “The Club.” “I can do the same thing I’ve done for all these artists for another person, but if I pick wrong, it’s not gonna go anywhere. It’s never gonna chart. It’s gonna get skipped. The listeners are too smart.”
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