What If Drake Left The Label And Went Independent?

A look inside the elite level music biz

Why doesn’t Drake go independent? Does he need a record label—and all of the infrastructure that goes along with it—to get his music out to his fans? No, he doesn’t need a label to help him make fans aware of his new music. He has massive social media channels and global fame. He could surely pay to record, release, and promote his own music and he would make a larger percentage of the revenue he generates. In 2024 he had about 14 billion streams on Spotify—that will bring in $50 million or more. And that’s just one part of his portfolio—there’s also album sales, publishing, touring, merch. He could easily do $100 million a year. So why not go independent and take the whole pie?