Why I Stopped Releasing Music
The music industry wasn't built for artists to own anything. I'm building something that changes that.
I have thousands of unreleased tracks on hard drives. Some from last month. Some from a decade ago.
For a long time, I told myself I'd release them eventually. Get a distribution deal. Maybe find a label. Do the thing you're supposed to do.
But the more I learned about how the industry actually works, the less I wanted any part of it.
The deal you're asked to make
Here's how it typically goes: you make something, you sign something, and suddenly the thing you made isn't yours anymore. Labels own your masters. Distributors own your relationship with fans. Streaming platforms pay you fractions of a cent while building billion-dollar businesses on your catalog.
The entire system is designed for artists to create value and everyone else to capture it.
I didn't stop releasing music because it was hard. I stopped because I refused to give away ownership of what I made just to participate.
What ownership actually means
True ownership isn't a contract that says you own something. It's cryptographic proof that can't be disputed, revoked, or renegotiated. It's your masters living onchain as a 1/1 NFT that you control. It's revenue flowing directly to your wallet, not through five intermediaries who each take a cut.
This is what crypto enables. Not speculation. Not hype. Verifiable, permanent ownership of the things you create.
Once I understood this, I couldn't unsee it. And I couldn't keep building software for other people's problems while ignoring my own.
SoundMint
So I'm building SoundMint—an onchain music platform where artists actually own their work.
You mint your music. You own your masters. Fans who support you early become stakeholders, not just listeners. Everything is transparent, onchain, and yours. No label taking your life's work in exchange for an advance. No platform deciding what you're worth.
This isn't just for me. It's for every artist sitting on a hard drive full of music they made but don't want to give away. Every producer who looked at the standard deal and said "no thanks." Everyone who believes artists should own what they create.
What comes next
When SoundMint ships, I'm releasing my entire catalog. Thousands of tracks, finally seeing the light of day—owned by me, shared directly with anyone who wants to listen.
This blog is where I'll write about building it. The product. The music. The case for artist ownership. What I learn along the way.
The record label model had a good run. Time to build something better.
Written by
Bradley Jackson
Principal Engineer and Product Builder. I design and build software that matters — generative systems, AI tools, and the intersection of creativity and code.