will.i.am is looking to lead a new wave in the music industry.
The Black Eyed Peas frontman announced on Wednesday that he is hoping to “define a new type of record industry” by teaming up with Swedish mobile record label Amuse, which provides free digital distribution for its artists.
Speaking with Billboard, will.i.am says his partnership with Amuse is a business move and now about just putting his name on something.
“If they wanted just a celebrity, there’s lots of them, right?” he said. “Artists want to do more than just sell music, ask Kanye, ask Rihanna, and these artists have led a path to like make music, connect it with (an) audience, and dare to dream and bring something to market that’s more than just audio and a couple of visuals. And, together, what we’re doing can bring that and consult and guide artists to be more than just, you know, Instagram stars.”
He continued: “There’s going to be a system in which we put together these new types of like, brand building, business building, after we see success from music, because music sells a lot of stuff. And there’s a lot of people that are on Instagram and Snapchat suggesting that they are those people for the things that they like or things that they want to see in the market other than just songs. And Kanye West and Rihanna and Drake and Dr. Dre have pushed the ball forward and lifted the benchmark to where there’s going to be more of them – an army of them are about to come.”
Amuse co-founder and chief executive officer Diego Farias added that they are hoping the company will allow its stars to embark on different kind of ventures.
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