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Case Study · Music|5 min read

Artist discovery & feature targeting pipeline

Feature-targeting research for an R&B artist

Music researchSpotify dataA&R ops

Challenge

An R&B artist wanted a repeatable way to find feature targets — the idea being that major artists put out a lot of remixes and collabs of their favorite songs, so the R&B artist needed a steady pipeline of the right rappers, female singers, and DJ/producers to approach.

The brief was specific. Rappers in hip-hop, rap, and Latin rap/trap. Female singers across hip-hop/rap, pop, R&B, EDM, and Latin. DJ/producers in EDM, dance, pop, and global lanes (think Marshmello-style profiles). Local house DJs were on the radar too, but parked for later.

Feature targeting needs more than a name and a Spotify link. To actually reach out, the R&B artist needed monthly listeners, Instagram handle, IG engagement rate, location, genre, and YouTube subs — all in one row, all on-criteria. And there was a YouTube wrinkle: a lot of the songs worth tracking live on channels like Trap Nation, not the artist's own page.


Solution

imivs consulting built a custom pipeline using Claude Code, the Spotify API, Soundcharts, and YouTube that turns feature category, genre, and region parameters into organized, on-criteria lists with the data points used to evaluate and reach out.

  • Per-artist data mined: monthly listeners, Instagram + engagement rate, location, genre, YouTube subs
  • Verified social contacts: pulled per artist — never invented, only what's actually surfaced from the source
  • YouTube → artist resolver: song link in (e.g. Trap Nation), real artist Spotify + Instagram out
  • Filtered outputs: by feature category — rappers, female singers, DJ/producers — across the target genres

Result

The R&B artist went from manually navigating Spotify and YouTube for days per brief to receiving organized, on-criteria lists with the data points and social contacts needed to action features — without anyone touching a spreadsheet.

Feature targeting doesn't have to be a manual grind. With the right pipeline in place, the R&B artist can stay ahead of the curve — surfacing the right collaborators across genres and resolving songs back to the actual artist before anyone else knows to look.

  • 1,000+ curator contacts verified and ready for outreach
  • Days of manual Spotify + YouTube research collapsed into a week's worth of reporting time

Tools

Claude CodeSpotify APISoundchartsSoundcharts APIYouTubeExcel

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