Grammy Winner Wyclef Jean Joins Startup OpenWav to Empower Artists and Redefine Music Industry with AI Tools

Music industry veteran Wyclef Jean, a Grammy Award-winning musician, composer, and producer, has joined forces with startup OpenWav to empower artists and provide them with a platform that prioritizes their needs. Launched this summer, the OpenWav app offers artists a space to debut new music and exclusives, engage directly with fans, sell merchandise, host events, and more.

In the future, OpenWav aims to enhance its services by integrating AI tools to assist artists further.

At the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference this week, Jean, now serving as OpenWav’s chief creative officer, expressed concerns about the current state of the music industry, particularly critiquing the business model of streaming services. Jean argued that the high number of streams required for new artists to earn $10,000 is exploitative, leading to an ongoing uprising among artists.

Jean highlighted Cardi B as a recent example, noting her street sales of CDs and vinyl albums on TikTok. According to Jean, this activity underscored the dire situation facing many artists today.

OpenWav co-founder and CEO Jaeson Ma explained that the industry’s broken model prompted the development of a direct-to-fan music platform. He noted that current algorithms do not reward music fairly, echoing recent sentiments from singer Lizzo regarding the lack of a “Song of the Summer” this year.

Ma argued that what today’s artists need is not a large listener base on streaming platforms but rather 1,000 dedicated fans who would provide consistent financial support. He calculated that an independent music artist could generate $120,000 annually (technically $100,000; Ma likely misspoke) if each of these 1,000 fans contributed just $10 per month.

Ma emphasized that platforms like Spotify and Instagram do not provide artists with substantial income, but true fans will pay for tickets, exclusive music, merchandise, and more. He maintained that this direct-to-fan approach could enable artists to establish sustainable careers.

While Spotify has also discussed creating a platform for superfans, its focus is primarily on major artists. In contrast, OpenWav targets independent artists and those just starting out. The concept of leveraging superfans as a revenue stream is not novel; Spotify attempted something similar in 2018 by offering indie artists the ability to upload their own music. However, this initiative was eventually discontinued due to pressure from label partners concerned about potential losses in sales.

Ma acknowledged that OpenWav faces competition in the market but argued that no other platform offers all the features available on OpenWav in one place. Artists using OpenWav can sell tickets and retain 80% of the profits while enjoying integrated community chat functionality similar to Discord. They can also sell merchandise directly within this community without incurring any upfront costs or managing inventory.

Artists on the platform will own their audience’s contact information, such as email addresses and phone numbers. The app allows artists to use AI to design merchandise and offers tools for creating album art and lyric videos. Both Jean and Ma expressed excitement about the potential of AI in helping artists create more music and achieve success. In future phases, OpenWav plans to use AI to suggest tour locations, merchandise ideas, and provide tools for various artistic tasks like creating album art or lyric videos.