MASTER YOUR INDEPENDENCE

“It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you do with what you have.”

—Steve Stoute

WHAT WE DO

UnitedMasters provides premium music distribution services and facilitates unique partnerships between artists and the world’s biggest brands. We enable artists to maintain full ownership over their master recording rights while introducing them to millions of new fans worldwide through our direct brand partnerships.

WE ENABLE ARTISTS TO MAXIMIZE THEIR CREATIVE AND ECONOMIC POTENTIAL BY GIVING THEM ALL THE TOOLS AND SUPPORT THEY NEED TO DIRECTLY CONNECT WITH THEIR FANS.

WHY WE EXIST

WHEN STEVE STOUTE LEFT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN 2004, HE WAS DETERMINED TO BRING WHAT HE LEARNED FROM HIS TIME AT INTERSCOPE GEFFEN A&M RECORDS AND SONY MUSIC TO THE AD WORLD.

He founded independent creative agency Translation, helping artists turn cultural currency into financial currency. That singular focus forged groundbreaking partnerships with Justin Timberlake and McDonalds, created Jay Z and Budweiser’s Made in America Festival and built innovative campaigns around artist-driven properties like The Defiant Ones. Brands have since woken up to the truth that music moves culture.

In the meantime, the music business was changing. The internet decimated the old business model as music moved from CDs to streaming.

At first, this obliterated the earning power of artists, but ultimately presented a new opportunity for artists to harness data and make more direct connections to their fans, generating more value for themselves and their partners, enabling the smartest artist to think independently and seek to control their own artistic and financial destiny.


That’s why in 2017 Steve quietly raised a $70 million Series A led by Google’s corporate umbrella Alphabet alongside prestigious venture firm Andreessen Horowitz and entertainment giant 21st Century Fox. With this backing, Stoute unveiled UnitedMasters.

WE EMPOWER ARTISTS TO OWN THEIR FUTURE THROUGH CUSTOM DATA INTELLIGENCE, A&R, MARKETING, ORIGINAL CONTENT AND MORE.

WHO WE ARE

The UnitedMasters team is made up of musicians, marketers, engineers and storytellers with backgrounds from YouTube, SoundCloud, Pandora, Facebook, Dropbox, Complex, VICE and more. We work hand in hand with the award-winning creative teams that forge those innovative partnerships at Translation.

BY COMBINING CULTURE, STORYTELLING AND TECHNOLOGY IN ONE COMPANY WE ARE ABLE TO HELP ARTISTS GROW - NO MATTER WHAT STAGE OF THEIR CAREER THEY ARE ON.

At UnitedMasters, we’re a team of culture catalysts and we have one core belief: independence is essential not just for artists, but for the world at large.

We understand that more independence means that artists will earn a fair share of the value that they create, that our culture will benefit from more voices and visions and that there will be a deeper incentive for our most creative minds to push culture forward.

By uniting culture, storytelling and technology, UnitedMasters empowers artists to own their future.

OUR PLATFORM

A record label in your pocket

Tap into all the tools you need on any device.                                            

Sign up now to release songs, apply for exclusive Brand & Sync deals, manage payouts, and more.