UnitedMasters ‘Believe’ Campaign: BigXThaPlug, Anycia Talk Success [Video]

Steve Stoute holds his black hat to the camera, ensuring the words written on it are visible: “The future is independence,” a slogan that predicts where the music industry is headed in the coming years.

During a Zoom call with Billboard in October, the UnitedMasters CEO looks back at launching the music distribution company in 2017. To Stoute, the word “independent” in the music business meant the major labels were a priority and everything else was a lower hierarchy. “When the internet blew up, nobody called every content creator that was making podcasts or visual stuff independent,” Stoute recalls. “They really were independent, but there was no classification.”

In Stoute’s eyes, independence was a stigma that made you feel “less than” if you didn’t sign a deal with a major label. He says the stigma needed to be broken, so independent artists could be comfortable with ownership. The stigma changed …