We might be in the streaming era of music but that often doesn’t correlate with big (or fair) earnings for the musicians themselves. 

That’s what T-Pain appeared to getting at with a loaded social media post this week. On Wednesday, December 29th, the hip hop star tweeted a list of how many streams it allegedly takes for an artist to just make $1 on various major streaming platforms. “Just so you know…” he captioned the post.

It made for uncomfortable reading: according to the list, it takes a massive 1,250 streams to make a dollar on YouTube Music; Amazon Music and Apple Music offers better rates at 249 and 128 streams respectively.

Spotify, the streaming service more maligned than others for their rates, starts paying out $1 after 315 streams, while Napster supposedly does so after just 53 streams.

T-Pain’s post quickly created a fuss online (see below), with over 100,000 likes and 24,000 retweets. Many backed the rapper for highlighting the economic discrepancies within streaming services, while just as many pointed out that the figures didn’t present a problem for major artists like T-Pain.

“This model is only archaic for artists who suck at making music,” someone tweeted. “Not to mention all the money from endorsements, brand deals, the actual label deal/contract, etc. Artists are making tons of money as it is.”

That person’s view is deeply flawed: consistent community action shared between both big and little artists is required if streaming payouts are ever to be improved. It needs people like T-Pain to speak out publicly.

Yet it’s also very true that T-Pain can tweet something like this out without fearing the consequences: with over 10,200,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, for example, he’s certainly bringing in plenty of income from streaming services as it stands.

As he then clarified in a follow-up tweet, “Most artists don’t even get the whole $1. I’m just letting the up and coming know what the real is. I worked for mine and there are tons of ways around this if you move right.”

It should also be noted that T-Pain’s list of streaming figures is uncorroborated and isn’t official.

For more on this topic, follow the Hip Hop Observer.

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