Thanks to Instagram, pop stars don’t need a record label anymore—even to bag a Grammy. Chance the Rapper did just that, thanks to the rise of digital music services like Spotify and social media self-promotion. With one-off posts from pop stars earning upwards of 11 million likes (think Beyoncé’s pregnancy announcement), record labels aren’t needed for the heavy lifting of promoting their artists. But record labels aren’t completely dying off, they’re just getting smaller and limiting their scope of work to what most of today’s musicians still need their help with: recording music. (Quartz)
