Photo Credit: Busta Rhymes by Matt J. Carbone / CC by 2.0
Busta Rhymes says it’s still difficult for artists and producers alike to make money in streaming, outside of the world’s biggest acts.
Hip-hop legend Busta Rhymes believes that fairness in royalties in the age of streaming is something we’ve still yet to achieve, and producers are in the same frustrating boat. In an interview on the Power Players with Brian Sozzi podcast, the rapper let his feelings on the matter known.
“I don’t think we’ve figured [making money in streaming] out yet, unfortunately, in the way that business is being done today,” Busta said. “I’m talking about, like, us as artists, producers, amongst our peers. We’re all facing a very similar frustration with streaming. It’s imperative that they find a way to respect the value of the artist and the artist’s creation.”
Many artists have voiced the same concern over the years. Streaming platforms like Spotify pool user subscription fees and allocate payouts based on an artist’s share of total plays, rather than directly compensating musicians based on the specific listening history. It’s a system that naturally favors the Taylor Swifts and Universal Music Groups of the world, leaving independent artists and smaller acts with per-stream payouts amounting to fractions of a cent.
That a successful artist like Busta Rhymes, who has been making hit songs for years, is not receiving fair compensation underscores the ongoing issues with the streaming model, even two decades after Spotify’s emergence. So how does he make it work?
“Part of the evolution in understanding how to move and shake and continue to resonate is understanding how to make sure you do what you got to do so that people understand not only the value of your music, but the value of you,” the artist explained.
“So that anywhere you go, even outside of music, you’re still able to monetize your IP. That’s important. Owning your IP, being able to monetize your IP, and being able to leverage the evolution and growth of your brand to the point where it is bigger than anything streaming.”
Notably, Spotify was quick to dispute that Busta hasn’t been fairly compensated, telling Yahoo Finance, “Spotify paid out more than $1 million in 2025 for streams of Busta Rhymes’ catalog.”
Busta Rhymes is well known for his high-octane delivery, and it set him apart from many of his contemporaries back in the ’90s. Most recently, he released Dillagence II, a collaborative project built on an archive of over 300 previously unreleased J Dilla beats.