Copyright Adweek
Early in his career, Wyclef Jean was selling CDs out of his car, and door to door in his neighborhood. “There was no record company, there was no middleman,” he explained from the stage at the Brandweek 2025 conference in Atlanta. “It literally was the artist to consumer, direct.” As they grow, of course, artists connect with studios to negotiate distribution deals, adding a middleman into the equation. But as streaming platforms have become the dominant way that people discover and listen to music, artists—especially smaller artists—have lost much of their negotiating power. OpenWav, where Jean serves as chief creative officer, is an app that aims to get back to an earlier version of the value of an artist. It connects musicians directly to their fans, giving them more control over their intellectual property and a better model for making a living from their art, he said. An artist shouldn’t need a billion fans in order to make ends meet, Jean explained. “All you need is a thousand loyal fans giving you something every month, and when you add that up per year, you’re literally making more than you’re making on this streaming services as a new artist,” he said. Through OpenWav, artists ask fans to pay about $10 per month in exchange for exclusive ticketing, merch, access, or content, explained Jaeson Ma, cofounder and CEO of the company. The app also allows artists to easily start selling merch by plugging into its tech and supply chain. “The technology, the supply chain is here,” Ma said. “All you need to do is be your own business and go direct.”
