The Monopoly Board: Talent Is Developed, Access Is Given
marbelonaThe Comment That Would Not Leave Me Alone
I read the comment with my guitar still in my lap.
It was 16:45, my phone was at 20%, and my G string was going flat again. Someone named Mike Papíto Wright had written it under a clip I don't even remember now.
The basic argument was this:
There is no industry where you make it on your own. Talent and skill can be developed. Financial success cannot, it has to be given. By someone. A deal, a job, a loan, a placement, a contract. Or you try to be the outlier and do it all yourself. But we are all playing on the same Monopoly board, and even the platform you build your brand on, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, still controls your reach. They can block and delete your "financial success." Prepare for the opportunity. That's all you can do.
He connected the idea to Kanye's complaints about the music industry.
I didn't like the argument because part of me knew he was right.
I can play guitar now. Fifteen years ago, my barre chords sounded terrible. I spent a lot of time practicing them in this room, usually with a metronome. Nobody gave me that skill. I built it myself.
But that skill hasn't turned into much money.
And that's where the argument gets interesting. Getting better at something and getting access to the people who can pay you for it are two different problems.
The first one is mostly under your control.
The second one isn't.
Kanye Was Right About Exactly One Thing
I'm not interested in defending Kanye's behavior over the past several years. I'm talking specifically about the argument he made about artist ownership and music contracts.
In 2020, Kanye published large portions of his recording contracts and argued that artists should have more ownership over their work. He complained about artists not owning their masters, the complexity of record contracts, and the way advances and royalty structures can work against artists.
Strip away everything else and there was a legitimate point underneath it.
Young artists often sign contracts they don't fully understand because they're more focused on getting the opportunity than understanding the economics of the opportunity.
That's not unique to music, either.
The person who controls access has leverage over the person who wants access.
A record label has it. A publisher has it. A bank has it. An employer has it. A platform has it.
You can become extremely good at something and still need someone else to decide that your work is worth distributing, funding, hiring, promoting, or licensing.
That's the part of Wright's comment that stuck with me.
The Numbers Say You Can Win (Just Not at the Top Table)
The independent music business is much bigger than it used to be.
According to MIDiA's 2026 report, independent artists and labels accounted for roughly 38% of global recorded music revenue, representing around $39.5 billion in 2025.
That's not nothing.
The internet has clearly lowered some of the barriers to entry. You don't necessarily need a label to record an album, distribute it, build an audience, or sell merchandise anymore.
But there's an important distinction between being able to participate and being able to reach the very top of the market.
That's where the numbers become more interesting.
Independent artists can build meaningful careers. Some can generate millions of streams. Some can sell directly to fans. Some can make enough money to support themselves without ever signing a traditional record deal.
But the biggest artists still tend to have major distribution and major industry infrastructure behind them.
That's not surprising.
At the top of any market, distribution matters.
It matters in music. It matters in publishing. It matters in software. It matters in almost everything.
My own experience is obviously much less impressive.
I can practice until I have a decent ten-song set. I can record something I'm proud of. I can post it online.
None of that guarantees that 100,000 people will see it.
That's the difference between making something good and getting it in front of enough people.
The New Gatekeepers Wear Hoodies, Not Suits
The old version of the gatekeeper was easy to identify.
It was the label executive who said no.
The editor who wouldn't publish you.
The radio station that wouldn't play your song.
Now the gatekeeper can be an algorithm.
YouTube decides which videos get recommended. TikTok decides which videos get distribution through the For You feed. Spotify controls a huge amount of music discovery through playlists and recommendations.
You don't necessarily get a rejection anymore.
Sometimes you just don't get shown to anyone.
That's arguably harder to understand because there's nobody to argue with.
You can improve your thumbnail. Change the title. Rewrite the song. Post at a different time. Try another format.
And sometimes the result is still 400 views.
There are also much bigger risks attached to building an audience entirely on someone else's platform.
TikTok's U.S. ban fight demonstrated that on a much larger scale. Millions of creators had built businesses around a platform whose availability could ultimately be affected by a government decision.
YouTube and other platforms have their own rules around monetization and content.
The lesson isn't that these platforms are bad.
They're incredibly useful.
The lesson is that they're rented distribution.
I can build an audience on YouTube, but I don't own YouTube.
I can build followers on Instagram, but I don't own Instagram.
I can put my music on Spotify, but I don't control Spotify's recommendation system.
The rug on my wall can improve the sound in my room.
It can't solve distribution.
The Outlier Playbook
This is where Chance the Rapper comes up whenever people talk about artists succeeding without a traditional label.
In 2016, Coloring Book became a major success despite being released as a streaming project rather than a conventional album sold through a label.
Chance eventually won three Grammys for the project.
It's a great example of what became possible in the streaming era.
It's also a terrible example if you interpret it as proof that you don't need an ecosystem around you.
Chance already had an audience.
He had previous mixtapes.
He had collaborators.
He had industry relationships.
Kanye brought him into the orbit of The Life of Pablo.
Apple Music gave Coloring Book a major platform.
He toured.
He sold merchandise.
He had a team.
So yes, Chance didn't follow the traditional major-label path.
But he didn't do it alone.
That's an important distinction.
The internet created new paths around some of the traditional gatekeepers. It didn't eliminate gatekeepers altogether.
It just created new ones.
Apple can be a gatekeeper.
Spotify can be a gatekeeper.
TikTok can be a gatekeeper.
An audience can be a gatekeeper too, in its own way. If nobody cares about what you're making, the distribution doesn't matter.
Chance's story is useful for a different reason.
It shows that you don't necessarily have to accept the first gatekeeper who offers you access.
You can sometimes build enough leverage to negotiate differently.
That's a much more realistic lesson.
What I Do in My Bedroom With a Rigged Board
I'm not signed.
I'm not an industry insider.
I'm just someone making music in a bedroom.
So I'm not pretending I've figured out how to beat the system.
The larger lesson from Wright's comment is probably not that talent doesn't matter.
Talent matters enormously.
Practice matters.
Writing better songs matters.
Getting better at your craft matters.
But those things don't automatically create financial success.
There is another layer between being good and getting paid.
That layer is access.
Someone has to decide to hire you, distribute you, promote you, invest in you, book you, license you, recommend you, or simply give you enough attention for other people to notice.
The internet has made that process more accessible, but it hasn't made it disappear.
If anything, it has spread the gatekeeping around.
There are more doors now.
There are also more people standing next to those doors deciding who gets through.