Carl Chery, the Hip-Hop programming head of Apple Music, who is responsible for overseeing hip-hop and R & B programming at the company, has decided to leave the tech giant. According to sources, Chery is headed to Spotify and might become a curator of Spotify’s popular RapCaviar playlist.
Chery is a former music journalist who has written for SOHH.com, XXL and BET. He joined Apple in 2014 during the time when Apple acquired Beats by Dre and Beats music. He is well known for curating the music playlists at Apple like A-list: hip–hop and A list: R&B. He was also responsible for securing exclusive releases from Chance the Rapper and the Grammy Award winning album, “Coloring Book,” for Apple Music. Cherry’s career in music includes breaking artists such as Cardi B, Bryson Tiller, Post Malone, Khalid, Daniel Caesar, 6LACK and H.E.R.
There is no confirmation about the finalized deal between Chery and Spotify, nor is there any news about his date for joining the company. Whenever the deal goes through, Chery would be filling the spot which was left open by Tuma Basa who quit Spotify last month to join YouTube. Basa worked with Spotify for three years and was the global programming head of hip-hop. He curated the RapCaviar playlist which had 9 million followers and even hosted live events. According to the news, YouTube is planning to launch its own music streaming service called Remix.
Apple Music seems to be continuously rearranging its team. Very recently, the company promoted Oliver Schusser as the new lead for Apple Music worldwide. It is too soon to determine if Chery’s departure will have any impact on Apple Music.
Spotify poaching Chery from Apple shows the company’s efforts to boost its curated playlists feature on its music streaming service. At this point in time, the Swedish company claims to have 70 million paid subscribers worldwide. The company went public on April 3 and is currently valued at $25.5 billion. It is also planning for a revamp of its free music streaming offering which is supposed to make it easier and faster to access playlists.