The
Platform
Artists
Built.
Capital Music Network (CMN) is a music streaming platform — like Spotify, but creator-owned. Built to return revenue, visibility, and control directly to artists, starting in the DMV.
The Future
Artists
Deserve.
For too long, streaming platforms have extracted value from the artists who make them possible. CMN flips that model. Listeners pay. Artists get paid. Simple.
Capital
Music
Network
A Music Streaming Platform — On Your Terms
CMN is not a Spotify alternative. It is a structural reorientation of what streaming can be — a platform where the community that creates the music controls how it moves, who hears it, and what it earns.
Built on direct artist licensing. No algorithms deciding your reach. No pennies-per-stream math that doesn't add up. A platform where your catalog works for you.
The Math Doesn't Lie
The highest-paying corporate streaming platform pays $0.008 per stream. At 100,000 streams, that's $800.
On CMN, 23 dedicated fans subscribing under your name puts $828 directly in your pocket.
Fewer fans. More money. And you own the data.
"The scarcest thing in music is no longer talent. It is the infrastructure to concentrate attention around it. What appreciates now is owned audience access, community density, repeat engagement, and cultural stickiness."
— @DigitalFlashlight
Revenue Model
Ninety percent of every subscription goes directly to artists. Ten percent funds platform operations and community programming. No middlemen. No black-box accounting. The split is fixed, transparent, and non-negotiable.
How It Works
When a listener subscribes and designates an artist, that artist receives 90% of that subscription directly. No streams to count. No algorithm to game. If a listener subscribes without designating an artist, that revenue enters a shared pool — distributed at the same 90/10 ratio across participating artists.
Direct Licensing
CMN operates as an on-demand interactive DSP under direct artist licensing agreements — not blanket statutory licenses. You know exactly what you're agreeing to before your music goes live.
Distrik
Kollective
Inc.
Capital Music Network exists because Distrik Kollective exists. The nonprofit is the engine — the fiscal infrastructure, the community trust, the long-term vision that makes a creator-owned platform viable.
Founded in Washington, DC in 2021 by bassist, educator, and community organizer Michael Bowie, Distrik Kollective Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization built around a single conviction: that the musicians of the DMV deserve a better deal — and the institutional power to demand it.
CMN is our flagship initiative. Our programs, partnerships, and community work all point toward the same goal: an ecosystem where artists thrive on their own terms.
Where the Community Gathers
Creators
Jam Live
Creators Jam Live is a monthly gathering of DMV musicians, producers, and music professionals built around live performance, open conversation, and direct connection to the CMN platform. No velvet rope. No industry gatekeeping. Just the community doing what it does.
Inside
the Craft
Inside the Craft is a CMN original podcast series in partnership with Howard University's Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts, exploring the intersection of music, craft, and the business of being an artist in the 21st century. Deep conversations with working musicians, producers, and educators.
What's Coming
Future ProgrammingEducation & Workshops
Structured programming for emerging artists on music business fundamentals, licensing, digital distribution, and building a sustainable career — developed in partnership with DC's arts education institutions.
Curated Live Events
Platform-hosted concert experiences featuring CMN artists at DC venues — designed to translate digital streams into real-world community moments and generate direct artist revenue from ticket sales.
Platform Expansion
Additional features within CMN including artist spotlights, editorial programming, genre channels, and tools for artists to engage directly with their subscriber base — all within the 90/10 model.
These initiatives are in development. Updates will be shared with our mailing list first.
Rooted in DC.
Distrik Kollective grew out of the DC music scene — jazz, hip-hop, R&B, rock, pop, singer-songwriter, and everything in between. Our track record is built on real events, real partnerships, and real community trust.
The Voice
The Craft
The Stage
The Community
Free Music:
The Illusion
of Liberation
Music has long been a force of freedom, resistance, refuge, and change. Yet in the digital age, where access feels limitless, artists remain bound by an industry that capitalizes on their work. Free Music: The Illusion of Liberation confronts the contradiction of creative freedom — exposing how corporate control and economic inequity limit artistic autonomy.
A collaboration between Michael Bowie of Distrik Kollective and visual artist Khadija Jahmila, the exhibition features the works of DMV musicians and visual artists who challenge the myth of creative freedom within a system built on extraction. Through visual art and sound, it reveals the unseen labor, cultural erasure, and financial constraints that shape the artist's reality. More than a critique — a reclamation of artistic autonomy and creative agency.
@distrik.kollective × @khadija.jahmila × @EatonWorkshopDC
Your
Next Move.
Three ways to be part of what we're building. Every path matters.
Artists
Add CMN to your release strategy — non-exclusive, no strings. Keep your music everywhere it already lives. When a listener subscribes under your name, you earn 90% of that subscription directly. No streams to count. Unattributed subscribers go into a shared pool, split at the same 90% rate across all artists. A direct, transparent addition to how your music earns.
Apply to Join CMNSubscribers
Support DC-area artists directly. Your subscription goes where it should — to the people making the music. Starting at a rate that actually makes sense.
Subscribe to CMNCommunity
Stay connected to Creators Jam Live, platform updates, workshops, and events. Be the first to know what's happening in the DMV music community.
Join the Mailing List