(AllHipHop News) Russell Simmons is taking his roots to the future and searching for the next great artists Today (July 10th), Russell Simmons and Steve Rikin’s announce their partnership with Samsung’s Milk music streaming service to release a single from a new artist ever week for a year.
ADD52 is a part of Simmons and Steve Rifkin’s All Def Digital music label they began in 2013 and will expand their partnership with Samsung to include working with its relatively new music streaming service, Milk Music. 52 singles were picked from thousands of submissions from unknown acts made to ADD52.com. The partnership includes Universal Music Group which will extend a recording contract at any of its labels to the artists with singles that have the most streams, likes and social media shares.
Rikfin, founder of Loud Records and SRC Records, claims in an interview with Billboard that ADD52 is an answer to the monotony of current radio programming:
The research we’re getting back is people who are coming to the station aren’t necessarily wanting to hear Drake and all the hot records. They’re there to hear the new records that nobody has ever heard before.
ADD52 was originally announced back in March around the time of Samsung’s Milk Music debut. Samsung’s Milk Music has over 13 million songs and recently announced the music service was downloaded over 2 million times in its first four months of release. Simmons admits that while there is no plans for a long term partnership with Samsung past the 52 weeks, ADD52, Simmons informed Billboard “there are too many artists that need exposure for me not to continue this process.”
Check out ADD52’s promotion video explaining the partnership with Samsung’s Milk Music