Hey DMV music community 👋🏾
I’m Stephan B, aka Mr. BEST. I’m an independent artist/producer based in the Silver Spring/DC area, and I’ve been making music for more than a decade.
For the past year+, I’ve also been building something called Sonik Music.
It started from my own frustrations as an independent artist: making records I genuinely believed in, spending my own money on the music, visuals and promotion, pitching releases, and still feeling like discovery on the major platforms is incredibly difficult unless you already have momentum.
So instead of just complaining about it, I decided to see if I could build something different.
Sonik is a streaming and community platform designed around independent artists and the people who actually support them.
One of the biggest principles behind it is that discovery shouldn’t begin after you’re already popular.
For example, our Featured Artists section randomly surfaces eligible artists instead of simply ranking everybody by popularity. New releases also enter Fresh Drops automatically so new music gets an actual period of visibility.
Fans can send artists Flowers 💐, which have real monetary value. Artists can also earn from eligible streams, sell music and merch, track their earnings and analytics, and build a community around their catalog through Sonik’s built-in social side, the Sonix Universe.
But something particularly relevant to this community is where we’re going with live music.
Sonik includes show/event functionality because I don’t want the relationship between an artist and listener to end when the stream stops. The vision is for artists to be able to promote shows, sell tickets, and help listeners discover performances happening around them.
And being from the DMV, I’d LOVE for DC, Maryland and Virginia artists to be some of the earliest people shaping that side of Sonik.
Imagine discovering somebody’s record on Sonik and then realizing:
“Wait… they’re playing 20 minutes away from me Friday.”
That’s the kind of connection I want the platform to create.
I’m not coming here pretending we’ve figured everything out. We’re still early, and that’s actually why I’m posting.
I need musicians and music fans to try it and tell me what we’re missing.
What would actually make a music platform useful to the DMV live-music community?
What would you want from event discovery?
What would make you attend a show for an independent artist you’ve never heard of before?
And if you’re an artist, what tools would actually help you turn listeners into people who show up to your shows?
Sonik is already available on the web:
https://sonikmusic.techdendc.com
The iOS app is also built and we’re working through the App Store release process.
We’re reserving Founding Artist status for the first 1,000 artists who join, with benefits attached to being part of that original group as Sonik grows.
If you’re a DMV artist, producer, DJ, promoter, venue person, or just somebody who loves discovering local music, I’d genuinely love your feedback.
And if there are local artists you think I should know about, drop them below too. I’d love to listen.
Appreciate y’all. 🤝🏾
— Stephan B / Mr. BEST
Silver Spring, MD
Creator of Sonik Music
