Dance and Diversity: Ronny Ho’s Insights on Spotify Championing Emerging API Artists

Spotify Head of Dance and Electronic Development Ronny Ho sat down with us to discuss how the streaming company is championing API artists.

What started as a personal passion project in 2017 for Spotify Head of Dance and Electronic Development Ronny Ho has evolved into a worldwide celebratory initiative on the streaming platform today. In honor of Asian and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month (APIHM), Spotify is leveraging its platform to celebrate and highlight the diverse community of artists and musical genres that extend across the Asian diaspora.

This year, the campaign theme “Sound Up. Stand Out” aims to spotlight the innovative voices and sounds of various emerging creators who are shaping the future of music. “We want to break the mold with the stereotype,” Ronny said. “I believe we are past the point where the stereotype of API is to be quieter and to stick to the rules.“

“The theme ‘Sound Up. Stand Up’ allows us to not only say that, but to focus our efforts on emerging artists and genres. As you can tell from our API hub, there is a lot of content in there and a lot of focus on what is happening within Asia. We want to escape the kind of shallow-level thinking about API music and to really hone in on the subgenres that are coming out of the region,” she continued.

As a key member of the company’s Asian and Pacific Islander employee resource group (ERG) called SPACE, Ronny has always been passionate about uplifting artists and creators of Asian descent. She said, “Our initiative kicked off back in 2017, right after the API resource group was founded. We were seeing the K-Pop trend bubbling up, like BTS, and even before that, there was 2NE1 and G-Dragon. We were thinking, what does that mean from an Asian American perspective?“

“So we started with the playlist called ‘Asian Americans on the Rise,’” she explained. “It featured artists like Yaeji, Jai Wolf, Bohan Phoenix, TOKiMONSTA, Rich Brian, and more. It was a passion project and our main thought was who were these artists that we are representing in the US over the past few years.” she said.

Spotify amplifies API voices to become louder and bolder as time passes.

Each year, Spotify’s API hub grows to become more robust with extensive content and more featured artists to highlight the diversity of stories within the Asian diaspora. Now, the flagship playlist “Jasmine” (renamed from “Asian Americans on the Rise”) has grown to over 250k followers. The initiative has also grown to involve an annual 360 marketing campaign that aims to highlight the breadth of the API creatives, including podcasts and audiobooks.

“It is not just me doing all this work. We are representing a group of passionate people to bring our API campaign to life with our Asian Pacific Islanders allies,” Ronny said. “Throughout the campaign, there are heavy marketing efforts and numerous billboards. The whole ecosystem of our platform is really fleshed out so you will see a lot more inclusion of different artists. We are constantly innovating to make it bigger and better than the year before.“

I’m excited that the artists that we work with are relatively new faces. We want to involve more artists than normal. There are social campaigns with lots more storytelling and nuanced questions. We also have playlist stories on mobile where they share about their excitement about API heritage month. It truly doesnt feel like they are being tokenized but rather, they have been eagerly waiting for this month. It is very inspiring to see more awesome, young artists who are pushing the narrative forward and helping us to understand about what Asian music really means. Every year we are getting closer and better to what that is.
Ronny Ho

Photo Credit: Spotify

The rise of emerging API artists is reshaping the dance and electronic landscape.

Over the last few years, the API diaspora has catalyzed the ascent of numerous rising talents, particularly in the US. Their voices and contributions are key to the vibrancy of the community.

Ronny explains the significance of diversity and inclusion when it comes to recognizing the influence of these talented creators globally. She said, “The API diaspora is actually the fastest-growing population in the US and we will continue to see that propagate. On the editorial side of Spotify, the ethos to be as inclusive and diverse as we can throughout our ecosystem. If fans want to see themselves being reflected in the music that they love, that is something that we will continue to push for.”

For the campaign that covers API heritage month, we want to include dance and electronic artists because it is one of the top favorite genres for our audience. Specifically from a dance and electronic curation side, it is doing a disservice to the listeners if they are not included because it is reflective of what the fan looks like today. So we try to combine and push those artists forward.
Ronny Ho

When asked about some of the API artists that were featured in the campaign this year, Ronny shared, “We have selected Knock2 as one of the ‘mint‘ playlist’s ‘Artists to Watch’ this year. He is someone we have been watching for a few years now.”

She further sheds light on the influence of the diaspora in carving out a unique lane of their own within dance music as their boundless creative potential continues to captivate audiences worldwide. “There are so many artists, which is really cool!” she said. “Maybe even like five years ago, you could think about melodic bass and melodic dubstep that is the source of many API artists. For example, you could think of ARMHMR as Asian DJs, but today, you can think of them on a wider spectrum of Asian producers and DJs across different subgenres. Peggy Gou is another example of an artist who puts a proper rise to the world of Korean DJ/producers, not only in the house space but across the underground world and bringing it into the commercial space, which is very impressive.“

Sharing some of her favorite artists, Ronny said, “Dabin and JVNA are exciting as they both are building out their community, respectively. We’ve been watching them for a while now. Elephante and SABAI just launched their new label that is highlighting API talent and dance music, really excited to see what they are cooking up next year. GUDFELLA is also really cool — he released a new track with Disco Lines last week — and CHYL is emerging in the bass house space, someone we are excited to see come up.“

“SOHMI has also been opening for Kaskade and doing more in the melodic house space, and Ahadadream just came out with a track with Skrillex — super dope and doing well in our ecosystem,” she said. “I also must mention DJ MANDY! There is not any music from her yet, but she is a creative young musician, excited to see her tour more and hear more music.“

Beyond APIHM, Spotify continues to enrich the community with year-round initiatives and advance the narrative through storytelling.

As we celebrate APIHM this month, it is also crucial to remember that continuous dialogue is key to advancing the narrative all year long. Driven by Spotify’s mission to be inclusive and diverse, Ronny elaborates on the platform’s year-round initiatives designed to ensure that the many voices of the API community remain at the forefront of the ecosystem.

“I think about this a lot: how we can be very genuine in championing API artists,” she said. “It is easy to put their music into a playlist and call it a day. So we have come up with a lot of global programs that we can slot them into. Through programs like EQUAL, GLOW, and Frequency, we really want to highlight intersectionality and work with API artists so they can be amplified there.“

As a global streaming platform, Spotify aims to enhance the listeners’ overall experience through meaningful connection and cultivate a sense of community among its audiences. Ronny stressed the immense potential for storytelling and marketing initiatives in empowering API artists’ voices and deepening the appreciation of diverse music genres.

“In editorial, we want to make sure that we are really thoughtful in how we are curating and supporting our artists. Currently, what is lacking is the storytelling aspect,” she pointed out. “There are a lot of stories that could be told about the API artists – what is their background, who are they, why are they interested in music, how did they get into music? There is a lot of storytelling and marketing that could be done there and Spotify can be a part of that in bridging the gap.“

She continued: “The next step is to be conscious of what we contribute from there. What have we influenced? Whether it is supplementing music with podcasts and audiobooks, or generating additional storytelling tools, we can do a lot more to give artists more space to share that knowledge.“

What we do best as a company is to connect fans with artists. We want to help highlight artists and creators and to get them to their right fan bases — like, who do we think could be a fan of these artists and how do we bridge that gap? We are committed to highlight emerging artists in our ecosystem.
Ronny Ho

As our conversation with Ronny wrapped up, one message clearly stood out: Spotify is committed to turning up the volume on underrepresented artists and fostering a culture of inclusivity. Beyond APIHM, Ronny hopes that people can appreciate and enjoy the richness of the diverse community within dance music.

She signed off, “We have done so much work and research into digging into each and everything that is happening in the API community. It requires a lot of work and you can see that it is truly represented in the hub. We are reflecting the hard work that is happening across the teams on our platform, and we really hope people can learn something from it and find an artist that they love.“

Visit Spotify’s Asian Pacific Islander hub to discover more new music and learn more about the voices of API creators.

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