Beats ♥ bits: Chillhop Music chooses Unc Inc
We were streaming Chillhop's mixtapes long before our product designer Semih received a DM from CEO Bas van Leeuwen on Instagram. It was the beginning of a conversation that led to a first collaboration: integrating Chillhop's back-end with two Payment Service Providers to ensure transparent, practical and secure payment of their artists.
Chillhop Music is a music label -and aggregator focusing on "laid-back" instrumental and lofi hip-hop. Once started as a hobby in the attic, Chillhop is now the leader of this genre with now more than 2.2 million subscribers on Youtube, 1.5 million followers on Spotify and 1 billion streams worldwide. But while Chillhop's success is partly the result of their DIY mentality, the Rotterdam-based scale-up felt the time was right to find a partner who could support their rapid growth digitally.
The move to Amsterdam-based FUGA for the digital distribution of their music meant that Chillhop had to prioritize the development of new links to the APIs of two Payment Service Providers. In doing so, they could not compromise on the ease with which artists can invoice or the efficiency with which they are collectively paid on a monthly basis. Since this financial process is at the heart of their business, Chillhop was eager to have this done by our specialists.
And then the corona pandemic broke out. The abrupt change to working remotely seemed quite a challenge at first, something we wrote about recently. On top of that, the members of our combined project team were in different countries and time zones; they had never even met in person. Fortunately, we all found that this did not impair collaboration. In fact, the chemistry between them actually ensured a streamlined process and solid results.
Roderik de Langen, co-founder of Unc Inc and lead developer in this project: "The scope of the assignment was of course limited but critical to their business. We are therefore proud of the trust Chillhop had in us to ensure that the new payment process is foolproof.
Bas van Leeuwen, CEO and founder of Chillhop Music: "Although this is only a first project, our goal was to find an agency that we could build a long-term partnership with. An agency that would develop a deep understanding of our brand, process and business over time. After all, I believe that is what it takes to truly create value for our audience and team together. I am pleased to see that we may have already found this partner in Unc Inc."
Visit Chillhop.com now and stream yourself into a relaxed and productive state of mind.