Another big name is out at Spotify – this time on the content curation side of things.
Tuma Basa (pictured) joined the streaming company in 2015, and has led RapCaviar to become one of Spotify’s Top 5 playlists worldwide.
The US-based, hip-hop-themed list currently has just under 9m followers on the service and last year expanded into live events in tandem with Live Nation.
Basa’s official title at Spotify was Global Programming Head, Hip-hop.
“Tuma has been an incredible asset to the RapCaviar team, and we thank him for his contributions,” said Spotify in a statement.
“The RapCaviar team, which is rapidly expanding with boots on the ground globally, is committed to building the brand and giving its users the best hip hop experience on the platform.”
“Tuma has been an incredible asset to the RapCaviar team, and we thank him for his contributions.”
Spotify statement
Basa is the latest senior Spotify exec to leave the company following the recent departures of of Kevin Brown (Head of UK/International Artist & Label Services), Stefan Blom (Chief Content Officer), Rob Harvey (Head Of US Label Relations) and Tom Calderone (Head Of Video) and Pat Shah (Head of Original Content Licensing).
The news of Basa’s exit comes just one day after Spotify filed to float on the New York Stock Exchange.
The firm’s public listing prospectus revealed that in 2017 it turned over €4.09bn ($4.6bn) in revenues in calendar 2017 – but posted a whopping €1.23bn ($1.4bn) pre-tax loss in the year.
Before joining Spotify in 2015, Tuma Basa spent four years at BET, ten years at MTV and three years as VP of Music Programming at Revolt TV – the online hip-hop specialist broadcaster founded by Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs.
Basa held various roles at MTV during his tenure from 2002 – 2012, including Director of Music Programming Initiatives and Music Programming Consultant for MTV Jams – where he created over 2,500 hours of unique music playlists.
“He’s our resident genius in hip-hop,” Daniel Ek once said of Basa.Music Business Worldwide
