Tag: q&a

Enissa Amani Explores Culture and Comedy in Her New Spotify Original Podcast

December 4, 2020

Enissa Amani is a chameleon onstage. The Iranian-born German comedian prides herself on the ability to bend and transform her material for any audience based on location, language, and culture. Now she’s also working this flexibility into a new medium for her debut German-language Spotify Original Podcast, Statements aus Seide (“Statements Made of Silk”). Like her on-stage comedy, Enissa’s new show will cover a range of topics from feminism to fashion. “I want to share the moments which all mankind has in common: the pain, the fears, the desires,” says Enissa.

As the first German comedian with a stand-up special on Netflix, she’s honed her craft—expect plenty of laughs. But in Statements aus Seide, Enissa will also share thoughtful deliberations on her life growing up as an Iranian refugee in Germany, her work as a social justice advocate, and whatever else is on her mind—all in 30- to 60-minute episodes.

Enissa spoke with For the Record about performing in different languages, her activism work, and creating her own podcast.

What can fans of your comedy stand-up expect from the podcast?

In my podcast I’ll touch upon all the issues I have not yet touched upon onstage. I’ve told my stories a few times when I was a guest on other podcasts, and the feedback was tremendous. People who hadn’t even followed my work told me that my point of view was extremely helpful to them.

Over the years, I wrote down every story of my family, my friends, and book quotes which inspired me. Those words can offer people a real way out of hopeless moments. This will be a funny podcast—an honest hour to let you begin or end your day with a smile. 

How has your background as an Iranian immigrant informed your comedy?

Being an Iranian refugee child and being trilingual helps me to approach people on different cultural levels. And every time I perform, I am a different kind of Enissa. The Berlin Show Enissa is a much rougher comic than the LA, Hollywood, Laugh Factory Enissa, who is more into the German-Persian Background Stories. The New York Enissa is much cooler than the Farsi show in Vienna, where Iranians are just starting to get into stand-up.

I get to taste all these different moments of laughter and try very different stand-up materials. 

As refugees, or “first-generation Germans,” we are torn apart between identities, but every kind of conflict always helps with comedy. 

What’s your life been like since your Netflix special premiered?

My specials changed my work. I started playing shows in three languages. I had the honor to have stage time at the Laugh Factory in LA, and the Improv, the Gotham, and the Comedy Cellar in New York. All stages I had never dreamed I’d be able to perform in a language which is not my first. I also play Farsi shows in Germany, Austria, and the UK. 

You’re not afraid to share your opinions on issues like racism and inequality. How did comedy become an outlet for you to share these thoughts? 

I’m really surprised that my activism for human rights and against racism here in Germany kind of got bigger than my work as a comedian. In the beginning, everybody told me to “stick with comedy” whenever I was outspoken about problems in our society. Now all my statements go viral with 12,000 comments sometimes, and everybody asks me to seriously get into politics. There is this running gag of my followers calling me “the chancellor.”

I love the fact that everything that your heart tells you to do—if you have the courage to follow that voice—becomes your real vocation or even destiny. 

What would you like people to take away from your podcast? 

I’m going to share my most intimate stories, experiences, and inspirations on my podcast because I know it will help through dark times. Every smile you can inspire is a smile you‘ll create for the world.

Ready to get to know a new Enissa? Check out the first of 13 episodes of ‘Statements aus Seide’ below.

Head of Songwriter and Publishing Relations Jules Parker Explains How Spotify Is Bringing Behind-the-Scenes Creators Into the Spotlight

July 8, 2020

Recently, we announced the release of a beta version of songwriter pages and “Written By” playlists, which helps fans, collaborators, and industry partners dive deeper into some of the creators behind their favorite songs. For songwriters, it serves as a new way to share the songs they’ve written on Spotify and get discovered by potential collaborators and fans. As part of that beta, today, we’re unveiling additional pages and playlists from a wide array of incredible songwriters. 

Jules Parker, Spotify’s Head of Songwriter and Publishing Relations, is heading up a new team across Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, and London focused on expanding our support of songwriters and publishers all over the world. A former songwriter as well as the owner of a songwriter and artist management company, Jules not only understands the tools used in music creation, but he also appreciates the difficulty of the job—and why it’s so important to recognize the work put in behind the scenes. 

We spoke to Jules about his team’s work. Read on to learn more about the world of music publishing and how Spotify’s new songwriter pages are helping connect songwriters, publishers, artists, and fans.

Say you’re a songwriter who’s penned a tune and needs someone to sing it. What’s the process for approaching an artist or getting one to find you, and how does Spotify play into that?

There’s a long-standing perception of a solo songwriter pitching their songs to other people. This can happen—and of course, many artists write and record their own songs—but the reality today is that you generally get in a room with an artist and write a song together, then and there. (Or alternatively, you’ll swap tracks and toplines over email and write the song virtually—all too common these days). So it’s all about networking and collaborating—and that’s where publishers come in. A publisher looks to connect artists with songwriters and other creative opportunities. Plus, these days there are even more opportunities for songwriters to transition to also be successful recording artists—like Julia Michaels, Benny Blanco, and more.

At Spotify, we’re now giving publishers and writers more ways to help unlock opportunities via analytic and songwriter tools. These will, long term, help support both up-and-coming and established writers because they’ll have more information, leading to better connections and networks. Through our Publishing Analytics, publishers and teams can access next-day song and writer stats based on accurate data, and through our songwriting camps and free-to-use studio spaces, writers and artists can pair up to create something new.

Can you tell us a little more about the tools and opportunities Spotify has for songwriters and publishers?

First, we created a home for songwriters with the songwriter page on Spotify. It’s a pilot program—just the start of how we can help songwriters further build their identity and showcase what they’ve done. We’ve also created Written By playlists, which are featured on these pages. We’re working on rolling them out to more and more writers—and just unveiled some new ones today—but they’re a great way for fans to get to know the work of a specific songwriter.

We’ve also been hosting songwriting camps for artists around playlists, genres, or specific artist projects. We’ve done ones around Who We Be, The Most Beautiful Songs in the World, and Butter. Through these camps, we’re providing the opportunity for collaboration in creating great songs that may appear on our flagship playlists or perhaps earn a Grammy nomination. (Here’s looking at Grammy-winning “a lot” by 21 Savage, which was created at a Spotify songwriting camp run by our Atlanta-based Head of Songwriter Relations Paris Kirk).

Finally, we have writing studios that songwriters or publishers can book in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Nashville, Toronto, and London free of charge. We invite songwriters to use these as a place to collaborate and create songs. We’re constantly evolving this project and expanding access to it, and we hope to set up new locations in the future. 

Why is Spotify investing in these projects and tools? 

Supporting songwriters and publishers helps them be able to do what they do best: create and promote the music you love. Your favorite songs begin with songwriters, so the more opportunities we can provide, the better we can help them create that next hit, and the more reasons you have to stream their music. 

Songwriters and publishers are vital parts of the music industry, though what they do is less publicly known, so they often don’t have the visibility they deserve. But we can help with that, because Spotify has a unique ability to drive discovery. Since we began publicly displaying song credits on Spotify in 2018, we’ve seen a 60% increase in how often labels and distributors credit songwriters on their new releases, allowing artists and fans to dig deeper and recognize the work behind the scenes. Now, with the addition of more detail from publishers, we’ve been able to go further in recognizing those behind the songs. 

With the expansion of songwriter pages we’re continuing to evolve how music is discovered, appreciated, and enjoyed by the world. Supporting publishers and songwriters goes hand in hand with artist discovery. People know who an artist is. They don’t know who the writers are, necessarily. If we can help make those connections, we help people discover new music and open up potential career opportunities for the songwriter. It all ties back to our mission of helping creators live off their work.

I was actually just listening to Mark Ronson’s Written By playlist and I discovered new tracks that I didn’t know he had written. I then discovered new artists because of a songwriter I love. It goes both ways. We’re exposing those connections that are not always visible but so important.

These new features enable fans to discover new things about the music they love. What are one or two of your favorite songwriting fun facts?

I think that a lot of people know that Prince wrote “Nothing Compares 2 U,” but loads of people don’t know that he also wrote “Manic Monday.”

There’s also a great Revisionist History podcast episode around the song “Hallelujah.” It was written by Leonard Cohen but only became the standard for ballads more recently, after people like Jeff Buckley started recording it in different ways. Now everyone knows it—thanks to the covers—which shows how the versions of it can take it in completely different directions.

Discover songwriters for yourself starting with Shungudzo Kuyimba’s Written By playlist

6 Questions (and Answers) with Claudius Boller, Managing Director, Spotify Middle East and Africa

December 2, 2019

How do we build the future of the music industry in the Middle East and Africa? A few years ago, that was the question Claudius Boller was asking himself. He had moved to Dubai from Germany in 2007 on behalf of Arvato-Bertelsmann to begin to build up the first digital music services in the region.

Later, Claudius joined Universal Music to set up their operation in the Middle East and North Africa and started digging into the puzzle of digital music. Along the way, he gleaned the expertise needed to promote and advance artists in the unique and vibrant region. From there, he joined Spotify, and for the past two and a half years he has served as Spotify’s Managing Director for MEA, covering the Middle East, North Africa and South Africa. 

Now a year into Spotify’s launch in 13 new markets in the region, Claudius is continuing to build the Middle Eastern and African market. And he’s as excited as ever. “We bring new things to people and at a scale that is unheard of. The Middle East and Africa have some of the youngest, fastest-growing populations in the world. It’s truly fascinating where the journey can take us.”

Read on for more of our conversation.

About a year ago, Spotify launched in 13 markets in the Middle East and North Africa. Only a few months prior to that was Spotify’s launch in South Africa. What are some of the unique factors that went into the launch, and some of the things that you brought in with your knowledge from being in the region for over a decade?

When it comes to launching a music service, there’s thousands of factors that play a role. I think it was instrumental to have the background of working at a label, since we have licensed and learned from other music services prior to Spotify entering the markets. We had to be overly creative to develop the much-needed digital monetization for creators in a region that had not developed it yet. 

Spotify’s ambition is really to bring music to everyone, and we need to be 100% locally relevant with our consumer offering. So we also made Spotify available in Arabic. This was quite tricky since we had to mirror the interfaces and Arabic language right to left. 

But what’s also unique in the region is that we are facing a highly diverse landscape. Though the Arabic language unites some of the countries, we have lots of very different dialects, cultures, and habits. And then in countries like Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, French is one of the major languages. 

What are some markers of success you’ve already seen across your markets in the Middle East and Africa? 

We created the Arab Hub and Afro Hub and made them available globally—kind of the gateway for local music to be discovered by our truly global audience on Spotify. Today we have about 248 million active users around the world, and that is changing the game for a lot of artists and labels as they reach new audiences.

Additionally, the introduction of Spotify Lite to the market ensures that music fans can access music in regions where connections, expensive data plans, and a wider penetration of older mobile phones are more common. Spotify Lite demonstrates our dedication to localizing technology and innovation for each region, including the Middle East and Africa.

The big game changer is also the increase in use of Spotify for Artists, where artists can see and learn about their audience for the first time. And, they’re surprised that they have huge fan bases already, maybe in the Americas or in Europe that they naturally wouldn’t be aware of—last month, for example, we put Amr Diab on a billboard in Times Square, the first-ever Arabic music artist to be featured there. We’re elevating local artists to the world stage. 

What are some other ways Spotify is helping artists in the region?

We offer educational classes where we bring in between five and 100 artists, distributors, managers, producers, and songwriters to talk about digital music distribution. How can they reach a global audience? How can they use Spotify’s data to do partnerships, negotiate with labels? We see firsthand how this is changing lives and careers. There is such a big difference here of what we can do with the creative community and so much potential.

What international music is being streamed in the region? And what are the hottest trends or genres coming out of your market?

Users in Saudi Arabia are exploring music from all across the world, like K-Pop. When BTS came to Saudi Arabia, it was a massive success.

But it also works the other way around. Egyptian Mahraganat is being played elsewhere, Maghreb (northern African) hip-hop is big in France—and trap is booming in both MENA and Latin America. We have music coming from the Levant and Egypt trending in Brazil. We have AmaPiano, the most relevant house music genre in South Africa—something I’m really excited about—getting big outside the country and being played in other regions across the world. 

What were some surprising occurrences that came about after launch in the Middle Eastern and North African market?

The Gulf countries love technology. So they’re using their smart speakers. They’re using our  in-car integrations day in and day out. Usage on smartphones, smart watches is extremely high. This is really what Spotify stands for, right? For true ubiquity.

One big success story in particular is our PlayStation partnership, which we rolled out globally. The gaming community in the Gulf countries, especially in Saudi Arabia, is one of the biggest. Our PlayStation integration adds to the experience as they can listen to our playlists—especially those with traditional Khaleeji music—as well as Iraqi music. They also create their own playlists to match their gaming experience. 

Finally, if we were to take a look at your “recently played,” what would we see?

Tons of kid songs, because my daughter figured out how to use the smart speakers, but it’s so much fun. Personally, I’m very much into ’90s rock and hip-hop. But what I really love at the moment is AmaPiano. It’s so fascinating. Everything about AmaPiano is new, it’s edgy. It’s engaging. It’s crisp, and it has a lot of energy. So I love the AmaPiano trend, and I think we can all stay tuned to see what it does globally.

Take a listen to Yalla for more of the sounds coming out of the Middle East and North Africa. 

How the Story Pirates Team Uses Kids’ Imaginations to Create Audio Magic

November 14, 2019

What happens when you take story ideas straight from a child’s imagination and put them in the hands of some equally creative, fun-loving, musically inclined adults? You get Story Pirates—a children’s media company turned podcast with stories by kids, for kids.

According to creative director Lee Overtree and CEO Benjamin Salka (a.k.a. Jamie), Story Pirates started off performing children-inspired musicals in schools and theaters as a live touring group in 2004 and eventually evolved into a radio show, bringing heartwarming and engaging stories to even more listeners. More recently, the company transitioned into a podcast that has spawned several music albums.

So how does it work? Youngsters from all over the world submit their ideas to the Story Pirates website, then the creative team (comprised of world-class actors, comedians, improvisors, and musicians) selects and adapts them into podcast episodes filled with sketch comedy and musical theater. Episodes even have special celebrity guests each week.

Kids (and parents!) love the original songs sprinkled throughout the show. So, to give fans more of what they love, Story Pirates released two albums—Backstroke Raptor and Nothing Is Impossible—which take the best songs and remix them into standalone versions that are easy to find and play in album format on Spotify.

We sat down with Lee and Jamie to talk about what makes the Story Pirates podcast and albums such a beloved phenomenon.

What do you think it is about podcasts that makes them a great storytelling medium for kids?

Lee: Well, audio amplifies imagination, right? It allows the listener to engage in a way that a visual medium doesn’t. You have to be involved, and for kids who are eager to live in a participatory world, a medium like podcasting is very natural for them.

What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned since embarking on this podcast and album journey?

Jamie: The thing that surprised me most is just how authentically people are responding to what we’re putting out there. Story Pirates has been a slow, steady build—the live show started in 2004. But the last couple of years have been astronomical in terms of the growth. We hear from people who drove eight hours to see us in person or even flew in from Australia. I think it’s because families are responding to what’s different about what we’re doing. I think it feels more playful, more connected, and more joyful than what they expected.

How do you differentiate between the albums and podcast?

Jamie: One of the things people love so much about our podcast is the music. But the podcast runs anywhere between 22 minutes and a half hour, and the songs are wrapped up in the whole show. So if you get obsessed [with a song], you have to rewind and fast-forward to find your favorite part, whereas with the album, you just get right to it.

Lee: The albums that we put out through Gimlet are the best songs from the podcast remixed and remastered. So most of the songs on the album are ones you’ve heard in a different form on the podcast. For example, Lin-Manuel Miranda wasn’t on the podcast version of “The Wizard Who Could Just Go Poof,” but he was on the album version.

Speaking of Lin-Manuel, who are some of the other guests that you’ve had on the show, and who are your favorites that you’ve worked with so far?

Lee: We’ve been really lucky, and it’s sort of gone from us reaching out to our contacts in the comedy community to people reaching out to ask to be on the show because their kids listen. We’ve had lots of great people, like John Oliver, Claire Danes, Dax Shephard, and David Schwimmer. And we have some more really exciting guests coming soon.

Introducing Spotify Kids, A New Standalone App for the Next Generation of Listeners

October 30, 2019

Spotify is committed to bringing audio content such as music and stories to more people in more ways–including the next generation of listeners. That’s why we decided to launch a fun standalone app designed with safety in mind specifically for kids and families.*

 

We sat down with Alex Norström, Spotify’s Chief Premium Business Officer, to learn a little more about the app. 

1. Why create a Spotify Kids app now? What can users look forward to?

We know that families love listening together—whether it’s while driving in the car or cooking dinner together in the kitchen. But we also know that family members love to listen on their own too. That’s why we’re so excited to welcome the next generation of listeners—kids—into the Family Plan experience. 

Kids consuming audio content, such as music and stories, isn’t a new phenomenon—in fact, they love it. But most audio experiences were built with adults in mind—meaning they’re not simple, easy, or fun for young kids to use. 

Spotify Kids was born out of the desire to create a playground of sound just for kids—to build a place where younger kids can explore their favorite music and stories in a fun environment. The content is ad-free and hand-picked by a team of editors, and the experience is bursting with color. Our visuals help guide young minds through the app with simple navigation and scaled-back text. Before setting out to explore, each kid can also select a custom avatar and color theme to personalize their experience. 

Spotify Kids is a composite of playlists, which makes it easy for kids to find music and stories from their favorite movies and TV shows or hit plays on a playlist to sing along to during their favorite activity—or their least favorite chore.  

We’re thrilled to beta launch in Ireland and look forward to introducing Spotify Kids in all markets that have Premium Family in the coming months. As we evolve the app experience, we’ll roll out enhanced parental settings and controls for even more customization in an effort to give parents peace of mind. 

2. How is the Spotify Kids app different from the original app? Any unique content?

Spotify Kids is a standalone app available exclusively for Premium Family subscribers and intended for kids ages 3+. The content within Kids is hand-picked by a team of editors, who have nearly 100 years of combined experience curating content for kids. They come from some of the most well-respected brands in this space, including Nickelodeon, Disney, Discovery Kids, and Universal Pictures, as well as Public Service in Sweden and BookBeat, which is a family- and kids-oriented audio streaming service.  

Beyond the content, the entire Spotify Kids user experience looks and feels different from the Spotify app. And that’s intentional. It’s built for kids, with their specific cognitive skills in mind, and exudes a fun, familiar, playful, and bright atmosphere. This look and feel also varies by age group—for example, the artwork for younger kids is softer and character-based, while content for older kids is more realistic and detailed. 

3. Why launch in beta? What are you hoping to learn? 

Having a standalone app specifically for younger kids is a new space for Spotify, and we understand the sensitivities around content for children. We are being very deliberate in our launch approach. We’ve started with a beta launch in Ireland, knowing that this initial roll-out phase will yield many learnings from parents, caregivers and other experts as they begin to interact with the app.

As we evolve the Spotify Kids experience over time, we plan to enhance parental control features to allow for even more customization. We’ll also bring our audio expertise to the table with listening experiences that go beyond music—like more stories and audiobooks and eventually podcasts.

4. As you were building the app, did you tap any external resources? Say, consult with any parent organizations or conduct focus groups?

While launching this kids app is an exciting moment for Spotify, creating it was not a task we took lightly. We knew the importance of understanding parents’ needs and making sure they would have peace of mind about the content their kids are consuming. 

Spotify has spent more than two years learning about this space, and we’ll continue to learn as people begin to interact with the app. We have gathered expert insight from a number of organizations, including the National Children’s Museum in Washington, D.C.,  and conducted our own studies with parents around the world and tapped into our Employee Resource Groups here at Spotify.

Spotify Kids is available starting today in Ireland. Ready to get started? Spotify Premium Family master account holders can simply download Kids from the App Store or Google Play, then sign in to their regular Spotify account. (If you’re new to Spotify, you’ll need to sign up for Premium Family before signing in to Spotify Kids.)

For those outside of Ireland, Kids will be rolling out to all markets that currently have Premium Family. Be sure to check back here for more or check out spotify.com/ie/kids.

*Update March 17, 2020: Spotify Kids has also rolled out in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.

Update February 11, 2020: Spotify Kids has also rolled out in the UK and Australia. 

Update November 27, 2019: Spotify Kids has also rolled out in Denmark, Sweden, and New Zealand.

Update May 12, 2020: Spotify Kids has also rolled out in Germany and Japan.

Sten Garmark, Spotify’s VP of Product, Unpacks Our Ubiquity Strategy

May 9, 2019

Perhaps you start your morning by streaming a pick-me-up playlist on your phone. Then, as you settle in at work you queue up some motivational songs on your laptop. After you get home, you play a podcast on your voice-activated speaker as you prep dinner. Because Spotify can be with you wherever you are, in any environment, audio opportunity abounds.

We sat down with Sten Garmark, our VP of Product, to learn more about the times, places, and situations in which audio can play a role—but with less work needed to access and play the content you want.

Tell us about your mission at Spotify and, specifically, your focus on ubiquity. How will listeners benefit?

As the delivery of audio content becomes all the more intuitive and seamless, our ubiquity strategy involves creating a truly frictionless experience for consumers. In other words, it’s to take whatever moment you’re in—if you’re driving, in your home, if you’re on your headphones, if you’re exercising—and make sure that you can get to your Spotify experience as easily and as quickly as possible.

The end state here is to ensure that Spotify aligns more deeply with the multiple devices in your life so that you won’t need to find the songs or podcasts to suit the moment—they will find you.

How do we deliver on the promise of ubiquity at Spotify? And what’s the entry point?

Our ubiquity strategy is very much mobile first, since most of our users today are coming in on their phones. If that’s their first touchpoint, then it’s about expanding that to more situations. We think that’s going to continue for quite some time.

From there, we need to be technically integrated with all the devices around you to enable a great Spotify experience that, to you as a consumer, intuitively works. That requires making sure that the integration for our partners is simple, such as with a voice-activated speaker.

At the end of the day, we need to deliver a simple solution for all: our users, partners, and creators.

Describe the opportunity for audio ahead. How do you ensure that listeners are aligned with that vision? 

As mentioned, the strategy is to make everything less complicated. It’s reducing work that you have to do—making sure that you don’t have to be that technically advanced to be able to get to Spotify wherever you are. If there are, say, currently five steps to navigate something, we at Spotify ask, why should our users have to navigate at all? Can we remove steps? 

We believe that we can take users on a journey to reevaluate audio and get more out of their lives with content from creators—in the right place at the right time. We think it’s less about listeners aligning with our vision than it is about us aligning with their behavior.

Some say that there can be too much screen time. Is there such a thing as too much audio as well?

It isn’t really a comparable analogy. For example, music speaks more to moods. It’s complementary: it’s not taking you away from your family, it’s not taking you away from your social interactions. It enhances those moments of your life. And with podcasts, we see that many people want to engage with longer-form content that goes deeper into a variety of topics, giving them a richer understanding of the world around them. We hope that that can be a really powerful force in society. 

Visit Explore Spotify to find playlists that suit a variety of moods and situations.

6 Questions (and Answers) with CEO Daniel Ek about Spotify and Samsung’s New Partnership

August 9, 2018

It’s never been easier to play music on-demand. With your trusty smartphone and handy Spotify app, the music you love is no more than a few taps away. But when it comes to playing across your many devices, things aren’t as simple.

That’s why we’re excited to share that Spotify has been named Samsung’s new go-to music service provider, which gives Samsung users a seamless listening experience between devices. You can look forward to a more meaningful music experience, thanks to integrations across a variety of Samsung products.

We sat down with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek to ask a few questions about Spotify and Samsung’s partnership:

Q: What inspired this integration?

A: Since Spotify’s inception, we’ve studied how people use Spotify. We know that listeners stream different kinds of music at different times, in different places, and most importantly, on different devices. We think music should be easy to access on ALL of your devices—and we want it to be seamless to switch from one device to another.

Q: Why did you choose to partner with Samsung?

A: Samsung makes devices for every aspect of our lives – everything from smartphones and TVs, to tablets, speakers, and watches. And we have designed Spotify to deliver personalized music to consumers around the world – wherever they are, across millions of devices. This partnership with Samsung reduces the friction for users to get Spotify up and running on multiple Samsung devices once the accounts have been linked. It allows us to create a seamless music listening experience together for the user that would be hard for either of us to build alone. It’s a great fit.

Q: What can users look forward to right away?

A. First off, users can get excited about Spotify becoming part of the set-up experience on a Samsung device from the very beginning. For example, when someone buys a phone, the user can easily discover the Spotify app on Samsung Smart Switch. And soon, Samsung Smart TV users will be able to play Spotify through the SmartThings app. It’s a new level of integration that will allow Spotify to be easily accessible and discoverable on Samsung Devices. As you move from room to room, your devices will be aware of your location and prompt you to effortlessly transition your listening between them.

Next, Spotify is excited to be even more deeply integrated with Bixby, Samsung’s premier voice solution, and serve as the only music service to be fully integrated with Samsung Music. When a user asks Bixby for music, Bixby will look to Spotify—even if that user has never used Spotify before—allowing listeners to receive recommendations from Spotify, discover new playlists, and create new musical experiences.

Q: How does this “seamless control” make switching between devices easier?

A: The short answer is that on several key Samsung surfaces, you’ll be able to link your Samsung and Spotify accounts to play music across all Samsung devices.

The [slightly] longer answer is that – for example – when you buy a new Samsung phone and use the SmartThings app to set up your Samsung Smart TV or Galaxy Home, you will be prompted to link your Spotify account. So right from the beginning, you’ll have that collaboration. It only takes a few simple steps.

Additionally, we’re also making it easier to move playback to various hardware devices with Spotify Connect. When a user enters WiFi while listening to music on mobile with the Spotify app, they’ll be able to move playback from the mobile lock screen, instead of having to go back in the Spotify app.

Q: How will this integration benefit existing Samsung users?

A: As Samsung’s new go-to music provider, Spotify is giving hundreds of millions of Samsung listeners better access to our 35 million songs, as well as our innovative Discovery and Personalization features, connecting more artists with more fans.

We believe that this significant long-term partnership will provide Samsung users across millions of devices with the best possible music streaming experience, and make discovering new music easier than ever – with even more opportunities to come.

Of course, it will also help artists reach new fans. Our goal has always been to make music accessible to everyone by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it.

Q: Do Samsung and Spotify users have any other features to look forward to going forward?

A: We’re excited for the future of this incredible partnership. Users will be able to discover and enjoy new music in ways that have never before been possible.

As my friend DJ Koh (President & CEO, IT & Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics) said today, “With Spotify, Samsung Galaxy users will be able to enjoy seamless music experiences across all our devices. We’re excited about today’s announcement, and it’s just the start of things to come!”