How do artists,
ideas & culture
move now?
I’ve spent 15+ years inside the music business, from artist development and creative direction to shaping how music shows up across platforms and digital products.
Today, I study the shifts happening across music, technology, audience behavior, and culture, then turn those observations into strategy, stories, and frameworks that make what’s changing easier to understand.
FEATURED WORK
The State of the Music Business 2026
The music business is changing faster than the systems built to support it. The State of the Music Business 2026 examines what it takes to build artists today, from discovery and artist development to branding, marketing, fandom, technology, live music, and the changing role of the music executive.
What does it actually take to build an artist when the old playbook no longer works?
Written & Creative Strategy: Shawna Spears
Visual Identity & Design: Natalie Lauren Sims + Marci Lashway
EXPLORE THE CASE STUDY
CULTURAL ESSAYS
Original research and cultural analysis exploring how music, audiences, identity, and the business around them are changing.
The Future of Rap
What replaces the rap superstar?
Rap isn’t disappearing. The system that once created universally recognized superstars is changing.
The Future of Rap looks at how discovery, regional scenes, aesthetics, fandom, algorithms, and thousands of smaller communities are reshaping how rap culture moves.
READ THE FUTURE OF RAP
The State of R&B: Men
What makes an artist R&B?
R&B no longer moves through one sound, look, or definition.
The State of R&B: Men maps the genre across four emerging lanes: Pop Hybrid, Hip-Hop Adjacent, Alternative, and R&B Purist/Soul, examining how sound, audience, image, and positioning shape how today’s artists are understood.
READ THE STATE OF R&B: MEN
The State of R&B: Women
Every generation expanded what R&B could become.
The State of R&B: Women examines the artists, producers, aesthetics, and cultural shifts stretching the boundaries of contemporary R&B, from Pop Hybrid and Contemporary R&B to Alternative and R&B/Soul.
It asks a larger question about what genre means when artists increasingly refuse to stay inside it.
READ THE STATE OF R&B: WOMEN
ABOUT
Shawna Spears is a creative and cultural strategist working at the intersection of music, culture, and technology.
Over 15+ years in the music business, her career has moved from artist management and creative direction to strategic marketing, artist partnerships, brand leadership, and digital products, with experience across TikTok, Venice Music, Epic Records, and Interscope Records.
Her work starts with finding the idea inside a complicated cultural or business problem, building the story around it, and bringing the right people together to make it real.
Selected Recognition
2024 Black Future Now Honoree
2022 Billboard Hip-Hop & R&B Power Player
2022 HITS Daily Double Noisemaker
Speaking + Teaching
2026 FY.ai Campus Workshop
2026 Berklee College of Music Career Jam Panelist
2025 Grammy Museum x Roland Workshop
2025 UCLA Music Industry 110 Guest Lecture
2025 Berklee College of Music, Music Business 433: Artist Development Guest Lecture
2023 Essence GU Disruptor Summit Panelist
2022 VidCon Moderator