Spotify has launched a slew of global RADAR programs. It will focus on up-and-coming artists from 50 markets worldwide. These artist will get solid Spotify support – programmed playlists, the new ‘On Our Radar’ playlist, and other marketing efforts.

Right now, Spotify has U.S. Alaina Castillo as an artist to watch. The Houston, Texas singer-songwriter has over 3 million streams and is known for the track “i don’t think i love you anymore” produced by RØMANS.

Other artists that made the radar list are Mali, When Chai Met, Toas Taba, Chake (India), Elaine (South Africa), merci, mercy (Australia), Ela Minus (Columbia), and Hervé (France).

In 2017, Spotify had a program called Rise which profiled Lauv, Russell Dickerson and Trippie Redd.

The same public pressure that caused SXSW to cancel could also call-off Coachella. That’s right, a petition has called for Coachella to be cancelled due to coronavirus.

Will Coachella, the massive music festival set to kick off the weekend of April 10 in the California desert go ahead with the event?

Calls for a shutdown with a petition to call-off Coachella garnered more than 5,500 signatures. So far, SXSW and Ultra Music Festival cancelled. The economic cost of tech events cancelled due to coronavirus has surpassed $1 billion. I’m thinking the economic fallout could be 10x worse much worse than the virus itself.

The organizers of SXSW had no choice but to cancel one of the world’s biggest music event after public pressure. The CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey was first to cancel his speech. But according to our sources, Dorsey is moments away of being ousted from Twitter. Of course there was a domino effect where everybody started jumping off the ship in fear over the virus from Beastie Boys to Ozzy Osbourne to Trent Reznor. Finally, there was the Change.org petition signed by tens of thousands of people calling for the festival to be canceled. Hence, the organizers folded. As of now, the risk of contracting the COVID-19 is low in the U.S. and there have been less than 200 cases – out of those cases 99% made a full recovery without any complications.

This is the first time in 34 years that SXSW will not take place. I cannot even comprehend the level of disruption and and the impact it will have on the media event.

Demi Lovato released a new self-love and self-acceptance track I Love Me via Island and Republic Records.

“I was in the studio and I was working with one of my favourite producers. We were writing and we were making this song, it was like an anthem about body positivity,” says Lovato. “When I go into the next chapter of my career, what do I want it to be? Because I’ve always done the sexy route. I’ve never really done the whole feeling comfortable with myself.”

Lovato appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to talk about the song prior to its release on March 5, 2020 and she will serve as a guest host on the show the following day, which will include interviewing Justin Bieber

In a shocking turn events, Ultra Music Festival has pulled the plug in Miami. That’s right, it’s cancelled. The electronic music festival will be postponed — possibly for a full year. The Miami Herald said it was cancelled over the concerns over the coronavirus. That’s a bit odd. There are no travel restrictions in the U.S. and SXSW and other festivals have announced that they will not be cancelling any events.