In a matter of weeks, Sonya Bowser went from being an accountant and Uber driver from Texas, to having her first music video produced and song released on the biggest streaming platforms. It was all thanks to the people who funded her track through Younk, a community-based music label from Ukraine.
Younk allows artists to upload demos of their songs to its website, where they are voted for by listeners. The week’s top two tracks go to the “hit funding” stage, where listeners can support them with “YNK Bucks,” a virtual currency equal to U.S. dollars. If the song collects at least 20,000 YNK Bucks, it gets produced and promoted with help from industry professionals.
Since its launch in October 2018, Younk has helped fund and produce 17 songs, five of which have been released. Through an algorithm that ranks the tracks based on the number of listens, likes and shares by users, the Younk community has picked tracks of all kinds of genres from artists around the world, including from the Netherlands, China and Ghana.
“Tha Love,” a song by Bowser, whose stage name is Kosi Jah, made it to the top of the chart in the first days of Younk’s launch. Then it collected 41,138 YNK Bucks, which led to it being produced and promoted using 41,138 real U.S. dollars.
What drew Bowser to Younk is the benefit of artistic independence, which is harder to maintain with traditional music labels.
“Regular industry labels promote a lot of sexual content, drugs and money. I knew I couldn’t really market my (kind of) music to them, because it’s not what they’re looking for,” says Bowser. “I wanted to put my music out there to see if people would give contemporary clean R&B music a chance. And turns out a lot of people liked it.”
Community label
The founder of Younk is Ukrainian Andrey Dakhovskyy. For 10 years Dakhovskyy, 56, ran Ukrainian Records, an affiliate of Universal Music Group, one of the Big Three music labels, which collectively own over 70 percent of the global music market.
But Dakhovskyy didn’t like the traditional model, in which only a small number of people with limited knowledge make decisions about which artists a label should support. This leads to a situation when, according to estimates, only one out of 10 musical acts recoup the money invested in them by the label.
“I was unsatisfied with this model, because I felt responsible for not signing some artists. And even more, I was worried about the artists I have signed who expected to take-off, which did not necessarily happen,” Dakhovskyy says.
So Dakhovskyy came up with the idea of creating a platform where anyone can take part in “finding and funding” the next big hit. Moreover, with innovative blockchain technology, Younk plans to transparently distribute royalty shares to the artists and all the people who co-produce the song.
Currently, Younk is beta-testing its blockchain transactions system, so for now, the spending on song production and promotion are controlled by auditing. As a company based in Los Angeles, Younk also has to resolve a U.S. regulation that allows the paying of royalties only to accredited investors.
According to Dakhovskyy, Younk has increased its equity value tenfold since the launch. The company is now looking into deals with several institutional investors.
Kosi Jah, whose real name is Sonya Bowser, sings in a still from a music video for her song “Tha Love,” produced by Younk community label in November of 2018. (Younk/YouTube)
Quality and charisma
Dakhovskyy says that ultimately, Younk serves its community of music enthusiasts by professionally producing and promoting the songs that the users have graded and funded.
“Even if our experts say the song will never fly and some 10,000 people are wrong — it’s not our business. We just professionally do our work and release the song,” he says.
Indeed, many of the songs graded and funded by the Younk community don’t sound like instant hits. This is because many of the artists use some their community or social media base to advance their tracks’ ratings on Younk.
The fanbase of the Boston Red Sox team boosted and funded a song called “Redsox Nonstop” by a hip hop artist Maverik just when the team had won the World Series in October last year. Also, the fans of a Disney Channel actor Javi Luna who has almost a million Facebook followers, helped him reach the top of the chart with his Latino pop song.
Dakhovskyy says that a hit song is made not only because of the quality of the music, but also through the attention and support that it generates.
“When 10,000 people have funded a track, it automatically becomes a hit. It’s already being released for these people, their family and friends,” he says. “It’s also about the artist’s personality: if a blogger has one million followers, it means there’s something there. It’s all about charisma.”
Expert’s choice
To make sure that a potential hit doesn’t slip away, a song on Younk can also be picked by the industry’s professionals to be funded as “an expert’s choice.” Younk works with prominent producers like Don Grieson, who signed Celine Dion, and Brian Malouf, who did sound mixing for Michael Jackson and Queen.
A song called “Like No Other” by an indie-pop band The Bad Voice was both chosen by the experts and became community’s number two choice. Dakhovskyy says that the team of U.S. experts couldn’t tell by the accent that the band was foreign. When they contacted the band, The Bad Voice wrote back: “We’re from Kharkiv, Ukraine.”
A duo of two “ghostwriter” musicians working in Ukrainian music industry, The Bad Voice recorded “Like No Other” five years ago and uploaded the song to Younk without many expectations. They all but forgot about it when they were contacted and told the song has been chosen for hit-funding. The Younk community helped The Bad Voice to produce a music video and distribute their song to more than 150 streaming platforms.
“Artists can use Younk as a great springboard. Plus, they don’t impose any requirements on concert activity and content. They can help, give advice,” says Maxim Zakharin, the songwriter in the duo.
The Bad Voice are now working on their second song, to be recorded five years after the debut. They will upload it to Younk.
As for Kosi Jah, she has already uploaded her second song to Younk. The song “Music” could very well become an anthem for artists on the platform, with its lyric: “It’s a therapy for me, that thing that sets me free. I love my music.”
