Click here to read the full article.
In an era where AI music generation has ruptured the music industry, a social-forward music remixing app is aiming to stand out among the rest — with the help of one of the major labels.
Hook, an AI-powered app where
fans can create minute-long clips that remixes or mashes up a licensed artist’s track to share on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, has struck a licensing deal with Universal Music Group to bring aboard a suite of the label’s artist catalogs from its host of sublabels — including Republic Records, Capitol Records, Virgin Music Group and more — for fans to experiment with. The deal expands the yearslong relationship between the two companies, which saw UMG push Hook to iron out its product experience to help convince artists why they should allow the platform’s users to modify their work.
“What we made sure is that [for] everything created on Hook, the artists have full control around the security needs that they have adhered to,” CEO Gaurav Sharma told Variety. “All the things that we had to do in figuring out streaming back in 2010 is effectively what we spent the last two years working on with UMG. So the idea of these sorts of licenses are possible through collaboration. It doesn’t need to be artists, labels, tech companies fighting each other.”
The company has spent years since its 2024 launch serving almost as a response to AI generation companies like Suno and Udio, opting against music generation and instead for a fan and social-focused approach to licensed music. Fans can apply filters to songs on the platform and produce “Hooks” to add to their own videos for social media, with the artist retaining ownership of the track and making money off the use of their song.
It has struck deals with labels such as Glassdoor Records and Downtown Music and has brought on songs featuring artists such as Justin Bieber, Teddy Swims, the Weeknd, Ty Dolla $ign, Kendrick Lamar, Charli xcx and more, a roster that the UMG deal will significantly expand. (Both companies declined to share what new artists will be immediately available.)
Michael Nash, UMG’s executive vice president, chief digital officer, said the collaboration stemmed from fans’ focus on social-media platforms as a method for engaging with an artist’s work, as social media platforms were a sector for the industry that has been “significantly under monetized and substantially disrupted by short format.”
“We’re eager to collaborate with innovators that are targeting purpose-built technology to go after some of the predominant use cases that empirically exist right now in the social sphere,” Nash said. “Invoking Oscar Wilde here, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then perhaps co-creation is one of the sincerest forms of fandom.”
Hook is financially backed by by Khosla Ventures, Point72, Imaginary Ventures and former Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr.’s Waverley Capital, among others. Bronfman told Variety he viewed Hook as a unique opportunity to marry technology with an artist’s creative intent.
“That, I think, is very different than what I would call sort of generative AI or AI slop, which is just music’s [that’s] been written, and some AI algorithm changes it up,” he said. “I don’t think that’s a lasting phenomenon. I think people care about artists. They want to go see artists. They believe in artists, and artists believe in in them.”
Bronfman wouldn’t comment on WMG’s settlement deal with Suno, leaving that for the labels to figure out. UMG and Sony Music are still in active litigation against Suno for alleged copyright infringement.
The deal also reflects UMG’s continued investment in the changing era of music consumption, which includes a legal settlement with Udio and, in May, a deal with Spotify to power the streaming service’s AI remixing and covers tool. Nash said the two deals represented “extremely complementary partnerships” in line with UMG’s “partnership portfolio approach.”
“Hook is enabling the specific, empirically demonstrated, very prominent and popular use cases of fan interaction, and it’s all about social,” Nash said. “It’s just a very specific targeted use case that is unique in our partnership portfolio.”
For Sharma, Spotify’s approach to remixing represented “validation.”
“Hook is focused on social, on community-driven creation and consumption,” he said. “When a user creates on Hook and they share to their TikTok, and these creations also exist within communities on Hook, tied to the activities, the feelings expressed in the larger [user-generated content] that that person made. So when we say social music, it’s not just the music; it’s the larger expression that the person has with the video and everything else around it… I believe that people will go to Spotify to hear how artists express themselves through music, and our hope is Hook can be that destination where people hear how social media expresses through music.”
