{"id":256217,"date":"2026-04-30T18:34:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T17:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=256217"},"modified":"2026-04-30T20:19:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T19:19:57","slug":"tech-startup-nebula-partners-with-ghazi-shamis-supply-chain-to-launch-what-it-calls-an-earn-before-you-stream-music-distro-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/tech-startup-nebula-partners-with-ghazi-shamis-supply-chain-to-launch-what-it-calls-an-earn-before-you-stream-music-distro-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech startup Nebula partners with Ghazi Shami’s Supply Chain to launch what it calls an ‘earn-before-you-stream’ music distro service"},"content":{"rendered":"

Music tech startup Nebula has partnered with Supply Chain Music, the white-label distribution platform founded by EMPIRE Founder\/CEO Ghazi Shami<\/a>, to launch what it calls an “earn-before-you-stream” music distribution service.<\/p>\n

The platform, announced on Thursday (April 30), lets fans buy a stake in an upcoming track through Nebula’s marketplace, effectively investing in a song before it’s released.<\/p>\n

Supply Chain Music then distributes the track to DSPs including Spotify and Apple Music. Once the song is streaming, fans who bought in receive a share of the royalty payouts.<\/p>\n

Nebula describes itself as “a first-of-its-kind platform that lets fans own rights to royalty payouts for any song available in its marketplace.” The startup’s co-founder, Fuad Hawit, has previously said<\/a> the platform allows fans to “foster a deeper connection with their favorite artist by owning a fraction of their song.”<\/p>\n

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The companies said the new offering provides “upfront cash” to artists \u201cwithout the trap of debt\u201d and ends the long wait for streaming payouts.<\/p>\n

Stephen<\/b> White<\/b>, CPO of Supply Chain Music, said: \u201cWe believe that sharing music should be a built-in part of the user experience, not a separate or difficult step. We are excited to work with Nebula to add Supply Chain\u2019s distribution capabilities to their service, and take advantage of our global distribution network.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe believe that sharing music should be a built-in part of the user experience, not a separate or difficult step.”<\/p>\n

Stephen<\/b> White<\/b>, Supply Chain Music<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yamen<\/b> Hawit<\/b>, Nebula Founding Member and CPO, added: “This is more than just standard music distribution. When superfans own a share of a song, they are more motivated to help promote the artist and expand their distribution reach. This creates a much better financial model for everyone in the music industry including the fan.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The partnership builds on an earlier partnership between Nebula and Ghazi. In 2023, Ghazi\u2019s EMPIRE partnered with Nebula<\/a> to feature artist and entrepreneur Money<\/b> Man<\/b> by releasing his whole EP through Nebula.<\/p>\n

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“When superfans own a share of a song, they are more motivated to help promote the artist and expand their distribution reach.”<\/p>\n

Yamen<\/b> Hawit<\/b>, Nebula<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Nebula was founded by Alessandro De Luca, Fuad Hawit and Startup Incubators, and claims to be \u201ca first-of-its-kind platform that lets fans own rights to royalty payouts for any song available in its marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n

The startup said instead of competing for market share, the company \u201cexpands the music economy by creating new financial value for artists, fans, and the entire ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Supply Chain Music<\/strong>\u00a0was\u00a0launched by Ghazi in March 2023<\/a>\u00a0as a white-label distribution platform separate from\u00a0EMPIRE<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It offers SaaS and API solutions that allow companies to integrate distribution into their own products, rather than signing deals with artists directly. In November\u00a02025<\/strong>, Supply Chain Music powered the launch of\u00a0EngineEars Direct<\/strong>, a distribution feature built into Grammy-winning engineer\u00a0Derek “MixedByAli” Ali’s<\/strong>\u00a0EngineEars platform<\/a>, enabling artists to distribute music to over\u00a0350<\/strong>\u00a0DSPs from within the platform.<\/p>\n

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EMPIRE<\/strong>\u00a0was founded by\u00a0Ghazi<\/strong>\u00a0in San Francisco in\u00a02010<\/strong>\u00a0and has played a key role in launching the careers of artists including\u00a0Kendrick Lamar<\/strong>,\u00a0Anderson .Paak<\/strong>,\u00a0XXXTentacion<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Cardi B<\/strong>. More recently, EMPIRE artist\u00a0Shaboozey’s<\/strong>\u00a0single\u00a0A Bar Song (Tipsy)<\/em>\u00a0held the longest-leading No. 1 on the\u00a0Billboard<\/strong>\u00a0Hot 100, and in February\u00a02026<\/strong>\u00a0the artist\u00a0signed a publishing deal with EMPIRE Publishing<\/a>, extending his relationship with the company beyond recordings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new service lets fans invest in artists’ music via Nebula’s marketplace<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":256218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4587,129812,4588,135225,135226],"class_list":["post-256217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-empire","tag-ghazi","tag-ghazi-shami","tag-nebula","tag-supply-chain-music"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256217"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256313,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256217\/revisions\/256313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}