Latest news with #Spotify
SBS Australia
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
MiniPod: Ep 6 Visiting a place for a first time English on Repeat (Easy)
This lesson is designed for easy-level learners. In this episode, we practise saying the following phrases: I haven't been here before. Do you need to buy a ticket? Can you help me? What time are you open 'til? Explore the entire series English on Repeat by clicking here to listen! This episode is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts . Credits: Host: Shannon Williams Written by: Sonia Saraullo Graphic Design: Yudai Urushima Sound Design: Mickey Grossman Music Composition: Adam Hulbert Produced by: Josipa Kosanovic Program Manager: Janine Googane
Broadcast Pro
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Broadcast Pro
Egyptian artists ride streaming wave to global success, Spotify report reveals
The report highlights a fivefold increase in royalties earned by Egyptian artists on Spotify since 2022, with a 100% jump from 2023 to 2024 alone. Egyptian musicians are making major strides on the global stage, driven by the power of streaming. To mark World Music Day, Spotify has released its Loud & Clear report in Egypt for the first time, offering insight into how local artists are benefiting from the rise of digital platforms and expanding their international reach. According to the report, royalties earned by Egyptian artists on Spotify have increased more than fivefold since 2022, with a 100% rise between 2023 and 2024 alone. The sharp year-on-year increase highlights growing listener engagement with Egyptian music — both at home and abroad — and reflects the continued evolution of streaming into a key source of income for artists. Mark Abou Jaoude, Spotify's Head of Music for the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, said: 'This is a pivotal moment for Egyptian music. The growth we're seeing goes beyond numbers — it signals a real shift in how artists are building audiences, careers, and cultural impact. Streaming is playing a key role in that transformation, creating new ways for artists to be heard and discovered, both locally and globally. What we've shared in Loud & Clear reflects this momentum — and it's only the start.' Independent artists are leading the charge. In 2024, over 90% of royalties generated by Egyptian artists came from those working independently or with indie labels — one of the highest rates globally. Genres like Mahraganat and Egyptian hip-hop, once considered underground, now dominate local streaming charts and shape the evolving identity of Egyptian music. Internationally, Egyptian artists are finding eager audiences. In 2024, more than 80% of the royalties earned came from outside Egypt, with significant traction in countries like the US, UK, Germany, Brazil, India and Indonesia. Egyptian music was discovered more than 480m times by first-time listeners on Spotify that year, reflecting a booming global interest in Arabic-language sounds. The momentum is also local. Within Egypt, Spotify streams of Egyptian music jumped more than 70% in 2024. Since Spotify's regional launch in 2018, domestic listening has grown nearly 450%, with over 80% of tracks in Spotify Egypt's Daily Top 50 chart created by Egyptian artists. Spotify's report also notes the growing global presence of Arabic as a musical language, ranking it among the fastest-growing languages on the platform in 2024. This rise supports Egypt's role at the forefront of Arabic music's global evolution. In addition to streaming exposure, Spotify is bolstering artist development through initiatives like RADAR Arabia, EQUAL Arabia, and curated playlists such as Fresh Finds Arabia. These programmes help spotlight emerging talent while providing tools and analytics through Spotify for Artists to support long-term growth. The report arrives amid a music boom across the Middle East and North Africa, with the region named the fastest-growing recorded music market in the world in 2024, according to the IFPI Global Music Report. Streaming was the primary growth engine, accounting for 99.5% of regional revenue. With rising global demand and increased support for creators, Egyptian artists are turning digital momentum into cultural influence — and building sustainable careers in the process.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Cardi B Releases First Song of 2025 'Outside' amid Estrangement from Offset: 'I Was Very, Very Angry'
Cardi B has released her first single of 2025 with "Outside" "I made this song a few months ago when I was very, very angry," the rapper said in a video on Instagram Stories ahead of its release Cardi debuted the song on Wednesday, June 18 during a Spotify event in CannesCardi B is back! On Friday, June 20, the rapper released her first single of 2025 with "Outside" after debuting it at a Spotify event in Cannes two days prior. "OUTSIDE 😤 IS OUT NOW," Cardi, 32, wrote in an Instagram post. She also celebrated the release with a video on Instagram Stories. "If y'all wouldn't have asked for it, I wouldn't have put it out," Cardi said in the video posted on Thursday, June 19. She continued: "I made this song a few months ago when I was very, very angry. I had to change some bars because I was angry, honey.' The summer anthem, which comes amid her estrangement from Offset, was produced by Charlie Heat and HeyMicki, per Genius. 'When I tell you these n----- ain't shit, please believe me (Let's go),' Cardi raps on the track 'They gon' f--- on anything, these n----- way too easy (Facts) / Good for nothing, low-down, dirty dogs, I'm convinced (Yeah) / Next time you see your momma, tell her how she raised a bitch." On Wednesday, June 18, Cardi performed "Outside" live for the first time during Spotify's Cannes event. According to Variety, she played Megan Thee Stallion team-ups "Bongos" and "WAP" and performed songs including 'I Like It,' 'Bodak Yellow,' 'Money" and 'Up." PEOPLE can confirm she also performed her song "Bartier Cardi," but noticeably didn't mention Offset's name during the song. According to the publication, Cardi noted she was having 'a bad day today" in the midst of the show, saying she wasn't sure 'if it's because I'm sleepy or hungry but there's always tomorrow.' In a live X Spaces conversation in March, Cardi discussed her long-awaited sophomore album and specifically addressed the "features" on her new music. 'The features on my album are really good,' she began, noting that she won't have "a lot of features." is now available in the Apple App Store! Download it now for the most binge-worthy celeb content, exclusive video clips, astrology updates and more! Cardi added: "I'm working with artists, some that I have worked [with] before and some that I haven't worked [with] before." She then noted that she was "really, really surprise y'all." "And it's such a vibe," said Cardi. "I could tell you this – I'm 100 percent confident with this album. I just don't think what I got is out there." Read the original article on People
The Guardian
8 hours ago
- General
- The Guardian
Mushroom murders trial comes to a close
Read more: You can subscribe for free to Guardian Australia's daily news podcast Full Story on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Atlantic
11 hours ago
- Atlantic
The Perverse Pride of Having Never Owned a Smartphone
This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. Unlike nearly 98 percent of Americans under the age of 50, I don't have a smartphone. Actually, I've never had a smartphone. I've never called an Uber, never 'dropped a pin,' never used Venmo or Spotify or a dating app, never been in a group chat, never been jealous of someone on Instagram (because I've never been on Instagram). I used to feel ashamed of this, or rather, I was made to feel ashamed. For a long time, people either didn't believe me when I told them that I didn't have a smartphone, or reacted with a sort of embarrassed disdain, like they'd just realized I was the source of an unpleasant odor they'd been ignoring. But over the past two years, the reaction has changed. As the costs of being always online have become more apparent, the offline, air-gapped, inaccessible person has become an object of fascination, even envy. I have to confess that I've become a little smug about being a Never-Phoner—a holdout who somehow went from being left behind to ahead of the curve. How far ahead is difficult to say. I think I've avoided the worst effects of the smartphone: the stunned, preoccupied affect; the social atrophy; the hunched posture and long horizontal neck creases of the power scroller. I'm pretty sure my attention span is better than many others', based on the number of people I've observed in movie theaters who either check their phone every few minutes (about half) or scroll throughout the entire movie (always a handful). I will, by the way, let you know if I witness you engaging in similar behavior: If you look at your phone more than once an hour, I will call you an 'iPad baby'; if you put on an auto-generated Spotify playlist, I'll call you 'a hog at the slop trough.' Being phoneless has definitely had downsides. The pockets of every jacket I own are filled with maps scrawled on napkins, receipts, and utility bills torn in half to get me to unfamiliar places. I once missed an important job interview because I'd mislabeled the streets on my hastily sketched map. At the end of group dinners, when someone says, 'Everyone Venmo me $37.50,' the two 20s I offer are taken up like a severed ear. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't occasionally get wistful about all the banter I'm probably missing out on in group chats. Still, I've held out, though it's hard to articulate exactly why. The common anti-smartphone angles don't really land with me. The cranky 'Get off your darn phone!' seems a little too close to 'Get off my lawn!'—a knee-jerk aversion to new things is, if not the root of all evil, then the root of all dullness. The popular exhortations to 'be fully present in the moment' also seem misguided. I think the person utterly absorbed in an Instagram Reel as they shuffle into the crosswalk against the light, narrowly saved by the 'Ahem, excuse me' double-tap on the horn that bus drivers use to tell you that you're a split second from being reunited with your childhood dog, is probably living in the moment to a degree usually achieved only by Buddhist monks; the problem is just that it's the wrong moment. Read: Why are there so many 'alternative devices' all of a sudden? Mostly, I think the reason I don't opt for the more frictionless phone life is that I can't help noticing how much people have changed in the decade or so since smartphones have become ubiquitous. I used to marvel at the walking scroller's ability to sightlessly navigate the crowd, possibly using some kind of batlike sonar. But then, on occasion, whether out of a vague antisocial impulse (not infrequent) or simple necessity (as in navigating a narrow aisle at the grocery store), I'd play a game of chicken with one of these people, walking directly toward them to see when they'd veer off. A surprising percentage of the time, they didn't, and after the collision, they'd always blame me. Eventually, I realized they're not navigating anything; they've just outsourced responsibility for their corporeal self to everyone else around them, much as many people have outsourced their memory to their phone. You're probably saying, well, at least they're on foot, and not driving a car. But many people look at their phones behind the wheel too. At a four-way stop, oftentimes the driver who yields to the crossing vehicle will steal a half-second look at their phone while they wait. At red lights, I see people all the time who don't look up from their phone when the light turns green—they just depress the gas when the car in front of them moves. Less hazardous but somehow more disturbing are the people I see scrolling in parked cars late at night. When I glance over—startled by the sudden appearance of a disembodied, underlit face on an otherwise deserted block—these people typically glare back, looking aggrieved and put-upon, as if I've broken a contract I didn't know I'd agreed to. I try to give them the benefit of the doubt; maybe they share a bed with a light sleeper, or have six annoying kids bouncing off the walls at home. But it happens often enough that I've come to think of them as the embodiment of contemporary alienation. Twenty-five years ago, we had Bowling Alone; today, we have scrolling alone. Of course, a phone is just a medium, no different on some level from a laptop or a book, and the blanket 'phone bad' position elides the fact that people could be doing a nearly infinite number of things on them, many of them productive. The guy hunched intently over his phone at the gym might be reading the latest research on novel cancer treatments. But probably not. Once, a guy at my gym, whose shoulder I looked over as he used the stationary bike in front of me, was talking to an AI-anime-schoolgirl chatbot on his phone. She was telling him, in a very small, breathy voice, how she'd been in line at the store earlier, and when someone had cut in front of her, she'd politely spoken up and asked them to go to the back of the line. 'That's great, baby,' he said. 'I'm so proud of you for standing up for yourself.' This is more or less typical of the stuff I spy people doing on their phone—self-abasing, a devitalized substitute for some real-life activity, and incredibly demoralizing, at least in the eyes of a phoneless naif. Many times, I've watched friends open a group chat, sigh, and go through a huge backlog of unread messages, mechanically dispensing heart eyes and laughing emoji—friendship as a data-entry gig you aren't paid for, yet can't quit. I have a girlfriend, but one of my friends often lets me watch as he uses the dating apps. Like most men (including myself), he overestimates his attractiveness while underestimating the attractiveness of the women he swipes on. 'I guess I'll give her a chance,' he'll say, swiping right on a woman whom ancient civilizations would've gone to war over. As long as this friend does his daily quota of swipes, he's 'out there and on the market,' he tells me, and there's 'nothing more he can do.' Yet we go to the same coffee shop, and several times a week, we see a woman who seems to be his perfect match. Each day, he comes in, reads his little autofiction book, then takes out his laptop to peck away at a little autofiction manuscript. Each day, she comes in, reads her little autofiction book, then takes out her laptop to peck away at what we've theorized must also be a little autofiction manuscript. Sometimes they sit, by chance, at adjacent tables, so close that I'm sure he can smell her perfume. On these occasions, I try to encourage him from across the room—I raise my eyebrows suggestively, I subtly thrust my hips under the table. After she leaves, I go over and ask why he didn't talk to her; he reacts as if I suggested a self-appendectomy. 'Maybe I'll see her on the apps,' he says, of the woman he's just seen in real life for the 300th time. I don't blame him. He's 36 and has only ever dated through apps. Meeting people in public does seem exponentially harder than it was just 10 years ago. The bars seem mostly full of insular friend groups and people nervously awaiting their app dates. (Few things are more depressing than witnessing the initial meeting of app users. 'Taylor … ? Hi, Riley.' The firm salesmanlike handshake, the leaning hug with feet kept at maximum distance, both speaking over each other in their job-interview voices.) I often see people come into a bar, order a single drink, sit looking at their phone for 20 to 30 minutes, and then leave. Maybe they're being ghosted. Or maybe they're doing exactly what they intended to do. But they frequently look disappointed; I imagine that their visit was an attempt at something—giving serendipity an opportunity to tap them on the shoulder and say, Here you go, here's the encounter that will fix you. Witnessing all of this, I sense that a huge amount of social and libidinal energy has been withdrawn from the real world. Where has it all gone? Data centers? The comments? Many critics of smartphones say that phones have made people narcissists, but I don't think that's right. Narcissists need other people; the emotional charge of engagement is their lifeblood. What the oblivious walking scroller, the driving texter, the unrealistic dating-app swiper have in common is almost the opposite—a quality closer to the insularity of solipsism, the belief that you're the one person who actually exists and that other people are fundamentally unreal. Solipsism, though, is a form of isolation, and to become accustomed to it is to make yourself a kind of recluse, capable of mimicking normalcy yet only truly comfortable shuffling among your feeds, muttering darkly to yourself. I know that my refusal to get a smartphone is an implicit admission that I would become just as addicted to it as anyone else. Recently, my girlfriend handed me her phone and told me to put on music for sex; a few minutes later, she leaned over to see what was taking so long. I had been looking at the Wikipedia page for soft-serve ice cream. I have no idea why I was looking at that or even how I'd gotten there. It's like the sudden availability of unlimited information had sent me into a fugue state, and I just started swiping and scrolling. I guess I looked into the void and fell in. I won't lie; it felt kind of nice, giving up.
