Shortly after voicing his criticism of the music industry’s treatment of artists and its payment practices, James Blake becomes the first artist to join the newly-launched streaming platform Vault.fm. On social media, the English musician announced that fans can access his unreleased music on other streaming platforms by subscribing for $5 USD per month.

“It’s music direct from me to you, where no one can gatekeep what I release or delay my releases,” Blake explained in a video. “For context, I’ve had to wait sometimes six months to be given the green light to release music. This cuts the middleman out completely. I’m gonna be able to drop way more music than I’ve ever been able to before.”

He additionally enlightened fans about the actuality of streaming payouts for artists,“This is how much artists make out of streaming: Between $0.003 USD and $0.005 USD per stream depending on that platform, which is one million plays equals $3,000 USD.” Blake continued, “If you’re signed to a label, then imagine that numbers cut at least 50 percent. And after management cut, which is between 15 to 20 percent, and taxes and recording overheads, it’s just not sustainable for an artist to focus just on their art.”

“I wanted to find a way for musicians to make money directly from the music they make, not least to be able to reinvest in the very expensive process of renting studios, hiring musicians, etc. Music is not cheap to make and I wanted to help incentivize musicians to actually spend more time making music,” he shared. “Also, I’ve spoken to a lot of artists that feel frustrated that so much great music goes unreleased because it doesn’t meet certain requirements or trends.”

Stay tuned.