Remember Royal Caribbean’s Ultimate World Cruise that took off on Dec. 10, 2023? Well, after a nine-month voyage, the viral TikTok sensation concluded in Miami on Sept. 10, and guests are sharing their reflections.
A peek into today’s edition:
- Inside Amazon Music‘s Hip-Hop and R&B livestreaming efforts
- There’s a $59K personal robot on the market
- The newest Apple products have arrived
Behind the Streams: Meet the Black Women Revolutionizing Amazon Music Livestreams
Amazon Music has been the architect behind many music moments in recent years, especially livestreamed ones. Most recently, Amazon Music live-streamed Kendrick Lamar’s “The Pop Out — Ken & Friends” historic concert on Juneteenth as part of its Black Music Month programming. While the exclusive event was promoted with short notice, fans across the world were able to tap into the performance online.
Being the techie that I am, I instantly became curious about how the stream happened so flawlessly and who the team behind it was. Here’s a glimpse of some of the Black women making it happen behind the scenes at Amazon Music.
Amazon Music’s Hidden Powerhouses
Meet the leading Black women behind Amazon Music’s work across hip-hop and R&B.
Sierra Lever is the head of Rotation, Amazon Music’s flagship global hip-hop brand, encompassing the “Rap Rotation” and “R&B Rotation” playlists. Her work primarily focuses on driving growth and developing strategies across the two music genres she supports. Lever previously worked in marketing for hip-hop and R&B artists at big-name labels, including Motown Records, Capitol Records, and Columbia Records.
Rochelle Balogun, Senior Music Curator at Amazon Music, oversees programming in the hip-hop, R&B, and Afrobeats genres. She’s been at Amazon Music for seven years and played an integral part in conceptualizing the company’s hip-hop and R&B strategy. Most notably, Balogun was the creative leader behind the creation of the “Rap Rotation” and “R&B Rotation” playlists.
“I’ve seen this team grow from before Rotation was born to now five years later, having been around and working with different artists, labels, managers, and partners across Rotation and these genres on behalf of Amazon Music,” Balogun said.
Dellessa James is the Senior Artist Relations Manager at Amazon Music UK. She leads Amazon Music’s Black music strategy, which includes overseeing playlists and content creation for “+44,” Amazon Music’s flagship Black music playlist brand that celebrates and amplifies Black music genres. James joined Amazon Music in September 2020, and her resume includes a 16-year stint at BBC radio, where she produced shows across Radio 1 and 1Xtra.
James got her start in radio 20 years ago, so she brings a unique perspective to the streaming discussion as she’s witnessed how music content has transformed over the years.
“It felt like a natural progression in terms of how businesses were moving and how people were consuming their content,” she said. “It’s been interesting to watch how people stream music now, especially young audiences.”
When ideating the launch of Amazon Music’s Hip-Hop and R&B brand, Balogun said it was important that whatever they built didn’t conflate the two genres. She said the brand’s strong suit has been connecting with artists and amplifying the art they create.
“We recognized that we were also late to the party, but we knew that we had strengths to present to artists in terms of good partnerships and helping amplify the music,” she said.
As the brands expand, Amazon Music will continue producing content that works best for it: playlists and livestreams.
Mastering the Art of Music Livestreaming
Livestreaming has been an essential aspect of Amazon’s business for quite some time with Prime Video and Twitch, for example. So, it’s no surprise the Amazon Music vertical is honing in on that opportunity even more now.
Amazon Music hosted livestreams with Tyler, the Creator and Summer Walker a few years ago as the world began navigating how to enjoy live events after the pandemic. The brand was on a mission to create new ways for fans to connect with their favorite artists. Even though concerts and live shows are back on today, Amazon Music has continued to host livestreams as it stays intentional about connectivity and accessibility, both digitally and in real life.
“The intentionality behind it is what’s key,” Lever said. “There are fans all over the world that don’t have the finances or means to attend some of these concerts and shows, but they do have access to the internet, hopefully.”
Amazon Music has been mastering the art of its music livestreams in recent years, having worked with notable artists like Kanye West, Latto, The Weeknd, Megan Thee Stallion, 21 Savage, SZA, and many others. Some of these live streams were part of concerts or curated performances under the livestream series that Amazon Music has launched. The brand has also live-streamed several festivals, including Wireless, Dreamville, and Mary J. Blige’s Strength of a Women Festival and Summit.
When it comes to putting on the production of these livestreams, Balogun said Amazon Music is always looking for exclusive experiences that fans won’t be able to find just anywhere.
Amazon Music is also leveraging Twitch in cool ways to reach its audiences. One of Amazon Music’s flagship livestream series is Breakthrough LIVE, a 90-minute weekly series that features three up-and-coming artists from the same genre who perform 30-minute sets live on the Amazon Twitch channel. The Amazon Music Twitch channel has also produced other livestream music content in the past, including Rotation Roundtable, a weekly hip-hop talk show, artists interviews, and the Zach Sang Show.
Amazon Music Live Returns
In an effort to bring NFL and music fans together, the popular Amazon Music Live concert series is back for Season 3 this fall. The seven-part series, which airs after Thursday Night Football, will start on Oct. 17 and conclude on Nov. 29 with a season finale after the second-annual Black Friday Football game. Amazon Music Live will stream from LA and air exclusively on Prime Video and the Amazon Music channel on Twitch at 9 p.m. PDT on select Thursdays. Country music star Jelly Roll will kick off Season 3 and perform new songs from his upcoming Beautifully Broken album, which will be released on Oct. 11.
Amazon Music Live launched in 2022 and has featured performances from A$AP Rocky, Post Malone, Ed Sheeran, GloRilla, and others. Garth Brooks headlined the inaugural performance following the Black Friday Football game. More performers for season three will be announced in the coming weeks.
Weave Robotics announced that Isaac, a personal robot designed to help with household tasks, will be available to ship to the first batch of customers in the fall of 2025. Isaac will cost $59,000 upfront or 48 monthly installments of $1,385. If you’re wondering, the robot can clean messes, fold laundry, fetch objects, take photos, feed pets, and much more.
- This week, Apple unveiled the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, the Apple Watch Series 10, the Apple Watch Ultra 2, the AirPods 4, and the AirPods Pro 2. The Big Tech giant said its new iPhone 16 lineup is built for Apple Intelligence, and the mobile devices are equipped with larger screens, extended battery life, upgraded mics, and more. Apple also unveiled new colors of the AirPods Max headphones with USB-C charging capabilities.
- TikTok inked a deal with Monumental Sports & Entertainment, making it the official partner of the Washington Capitals and presenting partner of the NHL team’s 50th anniversary celebration. In the upcoming season, TikTok’s logo will debut on the Capitals’ road jersey, and fans can expect to see in-arena branding and programming across all MSE-owned sports franchises, including the Washington Wizards and Washington Mystics.
- I recently joined the Red Bull Racing team in Houston for the latest Red Bull Showrun spectacle, attracting over 35,000 attendees. I sat down with renowned F1 driver and 13-time Grand Prix winner David Coulthard to discuss how Red Bull Racing prioritizes entertainment and fan engagement and how this fits into the franchise’s broader brand strategy. Check out the full interview here.
- Sony officially confirmed that the PlayStation 5 Pro is slated to launch on Nov. 7 with a hefty price tag of $699. The new console features two terabytes of storage, an upgraded GPU, new wireless tech, advanced ray tracing to make games appear more realistic and immersive, and AI tech that provides image clarity.
- Amazon’s Audible announced that it will start generating AI voice replicas of some US-based audiobook narrators. These narrators will have creative control over their AI voices and receive compensation on a title-by-title basis. The new offering is in beta for select narrators, who can create an AI voice replica for free and select projects they want to audition for using the new voice.
- Bose launched a new campaign during the MTV Video Music Awards dubbed “Hear It All. All The Time,” featuring Tyla, Central Cee, Don Toliver, and LISA. Set to a new track produced by Mustard, Bose goes behind the scenes in the greenroom with the hand-picked artists to feature their pre-show rituals as they sport Bose’s Ultra Open Earbuds.
OpenAI recently hit 1 million paid corporate users as the AI leader targets a $6.5 billion funding raise that could value it at $150 billion, Bloomberg reports. I’m going to bet that OpenAI will ramp up its enterprise software bundling options to continue generating revenue and keep its basic ChatGPT offering free.
