Steve Stoute is the founder and CEO of UnitedMasters – the US-based music distribution and services platform that in 2017 raised $70 million from backers including Google/Alphabet and 20th Century Fox.

UnitedMasters has signed brand partnership deals with the likes of the NBA and Apple Music, while helping break artists like NLE Choppa who – according to Stoute – signed an $8 million deal with Warner Records last year.

Stoute knows about the major label world: he's the ex-President of Urban Music at both Interscope and Sony Music, and rose to EVP at the former company.

On the podcast, Stoute explains why COVID-19 lockdown presents an opportunity for independent artists, why in his view modern record labels are over-spending and playing a "lottery" game with their money, and where UnitedMasters is going next.

David Israelite is President and CEO of the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA).

The NMPA is up in arms over the fact that Spotify and Amazon - in addition to Google and Pandora – are objecting to a ruling offering songwriters a streaming pay rise in the United States.

Apple Music has declined to oppose the royalty rate rise, which has been decided by the Copyright Royalty Board.

David explains: "[Spotify and Amazon] have shown their true colors. They don't respect songwriters, they are attacking songwriters to try to cut what they pay them. It's time for everybody to rise up and say: enough."

Stem is one of the most talked-about companies in music distribution. 

The Los Angeles-based company was founded by Milana Rabkin Lewis (pictured) in 2015, and has raised over $12m to date, reportedly from figures including Scooter Braun and Mark Cuban. 

Here, Rabkin Lewis sets out Stem's vision for the future of the music industry, and explains why Stem quit DIY distribution last year to focus on making tools – particularly financial tools – for VIP artists.

An exclusive interview with SoundCloud CEO Kerry Trainor on the MBW Podcast. Trainor, who took charge of SoundCloud in August 2017, discusses a range of topics with MBW, including SoundCloud's power for emerging artists, the company's financial health, his hopes for the future of the industry and Spotify's recent flotation on the New York Stock Exchange.

An interview with Justin Tranter, one of the most in-demand pop songwriters in the world today. Tranter has written hits for the likes of Selena Gomez, Fifth Harmony, Justin Bieber, Gwen Stefani and Britney Spears.

An interview with Mike Caren, the founder of APG.

Mike Caren started his career in A&R 21 years ago, aged 17, at Atlantic subsidiary Big Beat Records. Since then, he has signed or co-signed over 20 artists that have achieved gold or platinum status.

From 2009 to 2012, he served as Co-President alongside John Janick of the relaunched Elektra Records (Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, Cee Lo Green).

He established Artist Partners Group in 2013 as a sister company to Artist Publishing Group, which is administered by Warner/Chappell.

In addition to APG, he has a global remit as Warner Music Group’s Creative Officer.

From John Lennon to Ray Davies, Randy Newman, Hans Zimmer and One Direction, New York-born Downtown Music Publishing represents some of the most valuable and beloved songwriting copyrights in existence. Justin Kalifowitz is the New York firm's founder and CEO.

Creation Records/Management founder Alan McGee discusses his new label, as well as Creation, Oasis, Primal Scream and working with the major labels. 

Mattias Tengblad is co-founder and CEO of Stockholm-based Corite, which believes it can revolutionize the way artists generate money from their recorded music.

Corite is, at first glance, a simple digital distributor, in the same core space as TuneCore, CD Baby, United Masters, Ditto etc. But it has a key difference: Corite enables fans to directly invest in artists themselves  – and then take a share of money paid out to these artists from future streaming royalties. As such, it enables fans to collectively act like a record label, financing artist campaigns while financially benefitting from an act's success.

Tengblad previously worked in eSports (as Head of Digital Development at MTG) as well as spending nearly five years at Universal Music Group as Commercial Director in Sweden, where he launched both UMG's flagship playlist brand, Digster, and the major's own DIY upload service, Spinnup.

Corite released its platform in beta in October 2019, and has since run over 25 campaigns that have raised over $30,000 for artists during its Swedish pilot. In the past two months, it has launched out of beta in Europe and raised an inside seed round to fund its growth.