Skip to content
Search

Connor Price

With a tight-knit team and a steady release strategy, Price has turned independence into a long-term advantage.

Connor Price

Connor Price

Megan Clark

Connor Price didn’t come up through the usual music industry system. The Markham-born artist spent years working as an actor before the pandemic brought that side of his career to a halt, pushing him to take music seriously and build something of his own. What followed was a fully independent run shaped by consistency, sharp instincts for digital storytelling and a close partnership with his wife and manager, Breanna.

Together, they’ve built a hands-on operation that controls everything from releases to visuals, allowing Price to move quickly and stay directly connected to his audience. His Spin the Globe series expanded that world further, turning global collaboration into a format while introducing listeners to artists across countries.


With a catalogue that has crossed billions of streams and a fanbase built without traditional backing, Price stands as a clear example of how modern artists can grow on their own terms.

You stepped away from acting at a point where most people would keep going. What made you want to build something of your own instead of staying in that system?

When Covid hit, acting momentum took a huge hit. Auditions stopped entirely, productions paused, and I’m not the type of person who can simply sit back and wait for something to happen. I was also married with a kid on the way, so I had a family to support. My wife and I took the free time during quarantine to finally pursue music, which had been a dream of mine for as long as I could remember. It’s funny, because looking back, if I hadn’t been forced to take a step back from acting, we probably wouldn’t have been motivated enough to really chase music independently. Now that I’ve found a music career, acting has taken a natural backseat, but it’s still a passion of mine that I regularly work on when an opportunity presents itself. I’m independent, so my music career is entirely in my control, which I love. I love both crafts and will continue to create in both industries as long as I am able.

You’ve kept your team small and close, even as things have scaled. What does that actually change in how you operate day to day?

My wife and I are hands-on in every aspect of our business. From booking travel, picking and booking locations, sourcing all freelancers, planning release calendars, negotiating sync licenses, giving artwork feedback, sourcing production, approving mixes and masters, uploading the music to our distributor, submitting splits to publishers, being involved in all aspects of live performance, coming up with all marketing material and coordinating those shoots, even down to editing a large majority of the videos, etc. We’ve started to outsource the larger stuff regarding business management and legal, but everything else will always remain in-house because we prefer it that way.

You release music pretty consistently without long gaps. Is that something you’ve built into your process, or does it just come naturally?

It’s a solid mix of both. Especially when you’re independent, consistency and momentum are crucial to keeping your fanbase engaged. That includes both music and marketing. Each time I release a new song and hit Release Radar on Spotify, it gives my entire catalog a little boost. I am also able to work at a fast speed because I don’t need approvals from anyone else. There’s no label to tell us how or when we can release a track. So if I’m making music frequently, why would I wait to put it out? There are over 100,000 songs being uploaded daily to streaming services. The industry has never been more saturated. You gotta stay in the forefront of the fan’s mind, or they forget. It’s a harsh reality, but it’s important to realize and accept.

That global collaboration series you started brought in artists from all over. What made you want to build something like that into your releases?

My wife, Breanna, who manages me, actually came up with the Spin the Globe series. We had organically been connecting with independent artists from around the world, making music together, so the idea to spin the globe and turn it into a series just made what we were already doing hit a whole new level. Collaborating with artists from Zambia, India, the Netherlands, Germany, etc. brought a whole new sound to the music that we weren’t able to achieve on our own, or with artists that were in our circle. As a natural positive side effect, a lot of young listeners were exposed to new styles of music from around the world. We were also able to help a lot of smaller and insanely talented artists gain some very well-deserved attention through the series and change more lives than just ours.

You’ve stayed independent while growing your audience. What have you had to be more careful about because of that?

We’ve had to be extra careful about who we trust. Being independent comes with being an underdog in a very powerful industry, and if you trust the wrong people, they can try to take advantage of you. We’ve had larger artists steal our content (word for word, shot for shot, even down to the sound effects) and block us when we contact them to stop. We’ve had a larger artist re-distribute our song without our consent, and not pay us for almost 9 months. We have to stay extra diligent about posting content regularly, because we don’t have label-sized budgets to put behind every release, and we don’t have the access they often have to editorial playlists, etc., so we rely on the content and the fans to stream the music. Editorial playlisting makes up less than 1% of my streams. Every month, there are on average between 40 to 60 million streams on Spotify, to put that percentage into perspective.

A lot of people follow you for both the music and the personality. Has that changed how you think about what you put out?

That used to get in my head a lot, because I’ve evolved a lot over the years. A lot of the followers ask me to make music that was a part of who I was 3 or 4 years ago, but I’ve changed. I’m very thankful when the fans let me make the music I feel most connected to during that stage of my life and allow me to evolve beyond the persona I’ve shown online the last few years.

Is there anything you can tell us about your upcoming projects in 2026?

I have another album dropping with my best friend, Nic D, in June, right before we go on a mini tour. Then, after we drop that, I’m excited to focus on some more solo music since dropping my debut album last September. I have a really cool collab happening in November that I’m unfortunately not allowed to talk about at the moment, but I can’t wait to talk about it soon. Who knows. Maybe another album will happen before the end of the year.

What are your thoughts on the Future of Music in Canada?

I’m stoked to see where it goes in the next couple of years. Artists are taking their careers into their own hands more and more, and that usually comes with more experimental/authentic sounds. Canada is full of some of the most talented people I’ve ever met, and I firmly believe we haven’t even scratched the surface yet of what we’re capable of as a country. Global collaborations have always been a core part of Canadian music and I think that’s only going to increase in the near future.

More Stories

How to Attend a Concert and Not Ruin It for Others
Gabrielle Ravet for Rolling Stone

How to Attend a Concert and Not Ruin It for Others

Back in 2013, we took it upon ourselves to remind music fans that it’s our duty to remain at least somewhat civilized when we attend concerts. We weren’t asking people to stop drinking, dancing, and having fun. We just wanted them to stop acting in super obnoxious ways that annoyed everyone around them.

Sadly, the world didn’t listen. In fact, 2013 seems like a quaint and respectable age now that we’re all living in the twisted dystopian hellscape of 2025. Cellphones were hardly a novelty back then, but most people could at least remember a time back then when they weren’t surgically attached to our hands 24/7. Instagram was fairly new, TikTok was barely a glimmer of an idea in the collective mind of the Chinese Communist Party, and the pandemic hadn’t robbed us of basic social norms that we used to obey when we left our homes.

Keep ReadingShow less
Madonna Finds a Nonstop Groove on Her Best Album in 20 Years
Rafael Pavarotti*

Madonna Finds a Nonstop Groove on Her Best Album in 20 Years

“People think dance music is just superficial,” Madonna announces early on her excellent new album, Confessions II. “But they’re all wrong. The dance floor is not just a place. It’s a threshold, a ritualistic space where movement replaces language.” That’s the threshold where Madonna has spent her whole life. Ever since she blew up in the Eighties, pop’s queen of queens has devoted her career to proving how complex, how dramatic, how ecstatic a dance floor can be.

On Confessions II, Madonna returns to the floor, the place where she always goes to rediscover herself. It’s a sequel to one of her most beloved albums, Confessions on a Dance Floor, her 2005 collaboration with the London disco master Stuart Price. But it’s also her best album since the original Confessions 21 years ago. It’s a 64-minute nonstop groove that flows like a club-DJ set, each song fading into the next, drawing from all over the history of dance music. You might hear a flicker of “I Feel Love” here, or “Apache” there, but it’s a history lesson that she turns into her musical autobiography.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bob Dylan Hired a New Guitar Player, but Big Questions Linger

Dylan onstage in 2023. He debuted his latest guitarist, Joel Paterson, in Austin on Monday.

Gary Miller/Getty Images

Bob Dylan Hired a New Guitar Player, but Big Questions Linger

Bob Dylan‘s June 29 show at the Moody Amphitheater in Austin was supposed to just be a standard stop on a long tour that’s scheduled to run through the end of the year. But after guitarist Doug Lancio left the band two weeks ago, replacement Julian Lage had a prior commitment in Brooklyn that night, and second guitarist Bob Britt suddenly quit the group with a “Sayonara Bobby” Facebook post a couple of days earlier, nobody knew who may be joining Dylan, bassist Tony Garnier, and drummer Anton Fig that night.

In the fan community, speculation ran wild: Might Jimmie Vaughan step into the void? Would Lancio return? Was there any chance that a beloved past member of Dylan’s group like Larry Campbell or G.E. Smith would come back for an encore run? Was there a scenario where Dylan, Garnier, and Fig play as a Ben Folds Five-style trio? Could Britt pull a reverse “sayonara” and come back to help Dylan out of his jam? And would Dylan have just one guitarist in the band for the first time since the John Jackson days of 1991, or might we see the debut of two new members?

Keep ReadingShow less
What Will Be Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s First Dance Song?
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

What Will Be Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s First Dance Song?

Taylor Swift is not the kind of girl who is going to pick just any song at her wedding. So when it comes to the big first dance, you know it will be deeply meaningful and meticulously planned out. “You would think that I had been the type of person who would have obsessed over the idea of a wedding my whole life,” she said last year after her engagement, “but I actually never thought about what I would ever do or what I would want until I met the person.” Sure, Taylor, sure.

As a pop superstar, she can practically guarantee a live rendition of whatever classic she wants from just about any living musician. She’s also been a huge fan of several songbooks, showing love for everyone from Carole King to the National. There’s still a lot up in the air about the wedding of the decade century, and we’ve got burning questions about all of it, including if it’s even happening this weekend. But as we presumably get closer to the big day, we compiled a list of top song selections we think could make the first dance cut.

Keep ReadingShow less
YG Gets Brutally Honest at ‘The Gentlemen’s Club’
Brandon Almengo*

YG Gets Brutally Honest at ‘The Gentlemen’s Club’

In an interview posted on his YouTube account prior to the release of his seventh album, The Gentlemen’s Club, YG recalled a conversation he had with Kendrick Lamar about the importance of quality control. “I’m telling him about what I was doing, like putting out albums just to get out the deal ’cause my deal [with Def Jam] was fucked up,” he told his interviewer, DJ Hed (YG is now signed with 10K Projects through his 4Hunnid imprint). “[Kendrick] was like, ‘Bro, you ain’t never supposed to do that. You gotta give it your all every time.’”

Indeed, The Gentlemen’s Club signals a renewed focus on building narratives with his distinctively aggressive Bompton persona. It evokes his famed run from over a decade ago, when the rapper rose to stardom with 2014’s My Krazy Life and 2016’s Still Brazy by revitalizing the kind of street-conscious perspectives that the West Coast has long produced, from Ice Cube to the late Nipsey Hussle (who co-starred with YG on his deathless anti-Trump anthem “FDT”). But YG hasn’t scored a major Billboard hit since 2018’s “Big Bank.” His music in recent years has been typified by high-carb, low-nutrition radio bait like “Go Loko,” a bizarre number where he and Tyga shuffle along with Speedy Gonzales-styled accents, and “Toxic,” which lifts Mary J. Blige’s “Be Happy” nearly wholesale. (To be fair, his 2019 “Slide” collaboration with H.E.R. is romantic and enchanting.) In 2025, YG signaled a return to less irrelevant work with “2004,” a startling confession where he reveals he was sexually assaulted at 14 by a woman older than him. “Ever since that day, I’ve never looked at shit the same,” he rapped. Yet the stakes around his career can’t help but feel lower now.

Keep ReadingShow less