Making a Scene – Tuned Global and Sona.stream create an Artist-First Streaming Service

What is Sona?

Music is everything at Sona. Co-founded by producer TOKiMONSTA and Laura Jaramillo, Sona’s vision is a music industry that’s more equitable and rewarding for both fans and artists. This starts with sona.stream, an ad-free music streaming platform with a new economic model: a rewards pool for artists funded by auctioning SONAs, one-of-a-kind digital twins of specific songs that give owners 70% of that song’s streaming rewards.

The Sona protocol will eventually be the open-source foundation for other innovations that enable a better music industry that empowers artists to keep more of the value they generate with their work. Sona was recently named a finalist in Music Ally’s SI:X startup showcase, and was also chosen for the ADE Chorus program at the Amsterdam dance event.

What is Tuned Global

Tuned Global (tunedglobal.com) stands as the premier provider of B2B streaming technology solutions, fueling the success of numerous renowned streaming services worldwide. Their comprehensive offerings encompass music, audio, and video streaming, presenting a unified platform that includes white-label streaming apps, streaming service APIs, music content delivery, and licensor reporting. With their web3-ready technology, Tuned Global enables the creation of captivating music experiences within the metaverse.

Tuned Global’s cutting-edge tech has been harnessed by industry titans spanning music, fitness, gaming, media, telecommunications, and more. Esteemed clients such as UFC Unlimited Sound, Line Music, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, Sony Music, True Digital Group, Pizza Hut, GMM Grammy, FanLabel, Lululemon and Samsung have all relied on Tuned Global’s solutions.

Who is TOKiMONSTA

TOKiMONSTA, Jennifer Lee has made a name for herself as a Grammy-nominated music producer, pioneering the L.A. Beat Scene and ranking as one of the top 100 DJs worldwide. Her entire discography has drawn critical praise, collaborating with a long list of artists including Anderson Paak, Earthgang, and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and remixing artists like Sia and Beck. In 2015, Lee was diagnosed with Moyamoya, a rare brain disease that left her unable to communicate or comprehend music, but she persevered through two surgeries and cognitive therapy to make a triumphant comeback at Coachella in 2016. Her first album post-surgery, Lune Rouge, was nominated for ‘Electronic Album of the Year’ at the 2019 Grammy Awards. In 2020, she released her fourth full-length album, Oasis Nocturno, showcasing her progression as an artist with a mix of house, funk-soul, and hip-hop. Throughout the pandemic, she continued to innovate by hosting the popular music program Lost Resort on Twitch, collaborating on an NFT collection, and curating a livestream event for Women’s History Month. In 2022, she released the emotionally charged single “Loved By U” featuring morgxn, performed at Coachella, and led a “Hustling & Healing” event with Soho House.

Who is Laura Jaramillo

Devoted to empowering every individual with the capability to create without limitations, Laura Jaramillo helms Sona as its CEO and Co-Founder. Under her leadership, the team at Sona is revolutionizing how music is produced, acquired and enjoyed, all with the aim of granting artists full ownership and creative freedom. Before venturing into Sona, Laura had a decorated career in web3, contributing her skills in product and protocol design to leading-edge projects such as FWB, Upshot and Unicorn DAO. She stays actively involved as an advisor and investor in ventures that sit at the crossroads of music, web3 and the ever-evolving creator economy.

What are they creating?

Tuned Global, the leader in B2B streaming media services, has partnered with Sona, a new artist-centric streaming platform, to help launch the company’s innovative streaming music service and marketplace, sona.stream. Tuned Global will provide content delivery, tools, and reporting services for Sona, as it rethinks the streaming music model to benefit artists and fans worldwide.

“We are always working to find and support innovative models that accomplish our customers’ goals, which in this case are to offer more ways to support artists directly, not just through the usual streaming royalty payouts,” explains Con Raso, Managing Director of Tuned Global. ”Sona offers a particularly exciting opportunity, combining blockchain and traditional music streaming on a single platform. It’s a first, and it’s brought together some of Tuned Global’s most exciting technical capabilities.”

Co-founded by GRAMMY-nominated artist and producer TOKIMONSTA (Jennifer Lee), Sona allows fans to stream music for free without subscriptions or ads, but also to buy SONAs, digital twins of specific songs that share future streaming rewards with their owners. Artists can choose which songs to auction as SONAs, giving them a new way to capitalize on their creativity, while superfans can purchase their favorite songs as SONAs to earn 70% of that song’s future streaming rewards on Sona.. Designed to maximize social discovery of new, thrilling music by encouraging emerging artists and curators, SONA’s intriguing hybrid approach puts artists at the center, culturally and economically.

“We’re tilting broken streaming economics in favor of artists and making the industry more fair, equitable and rewarding for both artists and fans,” says Sona co-founder and CEO, technologist and decentralized community expert Laura Jaramillo. “We’re redesigning the system by which music is created, collected and consumed so that artists can own what they do and create without compromise.”

While forging a new path, Sona operates alongside the existing models, allowing both labels and independent artists to opt in. Thanks to help from Tuned Global’s content delivery and APIs, music lovers can create playlists and launch radio stations based on their favorite artists (planned for 2024). Tuned Global will also ensure Sona can report its usage to rights holders while creating a new market that promises to change the game for signed and independent artists.

“Though they are pioneering a new model, Sona knew they needed to harmonize with the existing music industry and its needs,” Raso notes. “We were here to make sure they could accomplish this efficiently and cost-effectively, so that they could bring Sona to market faster.”

Conclusion

We all can agree that the current streaming model is not sustainable as a continuing business model for the music industry. The Indie Music community constitutes a bulk of the content that is provided by these services and to not give these artist at least the opportunity to, break even on their recorded project is a travesty.

The Best way to change this dynamic is to identify, participate and promote to our fans new alternative streaming services that are designed to create a fair distribution of revenue to artists and songwriters. Here at Making a Scene we are dedicated to finding these services and bring them to you so you can investigate, participate and promote them to your fans. This is one of the best ways to move the needle back into our direction and help shape the future of the music industry as we move towards the future.

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