Apple Music’s head hip-hop programmer, Carl Chery, is leaving the two-year-old music platform for Spotify, Variety exclusively reports. Chery was responsible for curating and overseeing Apple Music’s most popular hip-hop and R&B playlists such as the A-List: Hip-Hop and A-List: R&B scores.
The former hip-hop journalist joined Apple in 2014 as part of the company’s Beats By Dre-Beats Music acquisition. During his moment at Apple Music, Chery successfully secured two of Apple’s biggest exclusive releases from Chance The Rapper, including his Grammy Award-winning album, Coloring Book. Chery also had a hand in breaking in the music careers of multi-platinum recording artists Cardi B, Bryson Tiller, Post Malone, Khalid, Daniel Caesar, 6LACK and H.E.R.
There’s been a lot of shuffling going on between the two music streaming giants lately. Apple Music recently named Oliver Schusser as new lead for Apple Music worldwide this week and the streaming service currently sits at 40 million paid subscribers. In March, Tuma Basa, the mastermind behind one of their more popular playlists Rap Caviar, left Spotify for Youtube. The Swedish-based music platform boasts nearly 70 million subscribers and officially went public on April 3. It’s current market cap sits at $25.5 billion and is only expected to grow in the future.
