Humble Beats Turns One

The Humble Beats Story

Today (July 16th) is Humble Beats’ first birthday! One year ago today, I officially committed to and registered the name and kicked off this whole adventure. So I thought it was time for a proper introduction.

Back in summer 2024, I was five years into this journey of making and releasing my own music. In the year prior, I’d taken some big steps toward turning this passion into my career. I’d spent considerable time learning everything I could about production, promotion, and the broader music business. I’d also released some of my most defining work, and things should have felt great. But something was off.

Despite doing what I loved, I was burning out. Progress was trudging, and taking a break - even for a moment - felt like losing ground. I wasn’t alone in feeling this way. Some other artists I worked with were expressing similar struggles.

So I applied my superhuman intellect to the task and identified three major problems.

1. Isolation

2. Lack of Resources

3. Audience Disconnection

Isolation

Being an independent artist is often lonely. From the industry side we’re sold this scarcity mindset - told that there are only a certain number of streams to go around so you need to scrape and claw for your piece of the pie. We can begin to see other artists as competitors. Then compared to major label artists independents are generally at a big disadvantage so we’re already put on the back foot. Then add to this the plethora of scams, predatory businesses, and misinformation - it’s not uncommon for Indies to become guarded and insular. Then for many of us, there is the added factor of the closest people in our lives not understanding and sometimes not really respecting what we do.

Lack of Resources

This isolation aggravates the second problem of lack of resources. Indies typically don’t have the budget, knowledge, or network to do everything on their now. You can write a great song but if it’s mixed poorly it’s going to stand out in all the wrong ways. Even if your song sounds great without promotion it may never be heard. Indie artists often end up trying to fill the roles of artist, engineer, marketer, and manager all on their own. Even if you can do this it’s exhausting and impractical in the long term.

Audience Disconnection

The third major problem I see is another type of disconnection, this time between artists and fans. In the streaming era, mood playlists and autoplay are adding greater distance between listeners and the artists behind the music. Many don’t even know who they’re listening to, or if it’s even a real human behind the music. In this, Spotify in particular has opened the door for fake artists and auto-generated noise to flood these platforms. This has made real artists overly dependent on Spotify and algorithms to have their music heard while they have little to no opportunity to connect with the people who resonate with their music.

The Lightbulb Moment

So with all of this considered, I had a thought: what if instead of being miserable and defeatist I tried to do something about this? I have skills in mixing and mastering, and I’ve had some success with ads and playlist building, a growing fanbase, and great connections in the Lofi and VGM scenes. There must be a way I can bring this all together to help other indie artists and myself.

After several less-than-brilliant ideas, it clicked. I should start a label… but not a traditional label. I didn’t want to own artists’ work and I had neither the desire nor the means to pay artists huge advances and then demand remittances for the next decade. I wanted to build something collaborative. More like a guild. A system that brings artists together to support each other, share knowledge and resources, and create something greater than we ever could on our own. A space where fans can discover not just good music but the real people behind it. And thus, Humble Beats was born.

Here We Are

In our first year, we’ve released seven albums, thirteen singles, and an EP across eight artists. We’ve also contributed to several off-label projects with others in the scene. We have nine curated playlists across all major platforms showcasing real musicians. We also launched The Humble Report in January to share “cozy news” celebrating new music and the artists behind it. In January 2025, Humble Beats Inc. was registered as an official corporation in Canada for an extra level of legitimacy and accountability.

All in all, it’s been a great year with many lessons learned, victories and failures, and most importantly great music and community. I’m excited to see what the next year has in store for the Humble Family.

If all of this sounds exciting to you, we’d love to have you involved! You can subscribe here on Substack to stay in the loop about new releases or you can join the community Discord server at humblebeats.com/discord

In the meantime, take care and stay chill out there.

- Cody