Documents filed by holding company Spotify Technology show that revenue more than doubled in 2012. The music streamer’s revenue took in $577 million USD, as it doubled it’s user base and expanded into new markets.  Spotify currently has about 20 million active users of which 5 million pay for a premium mobile and ad free…

In an effort to make its platform more useful to its top creators, YouTube on Thursday announced it will soon open its paid subscription option to more video channels and give them tools to find out more about their viewers and message them directly. In addition, the Silicon Valley video company is giving away more…

Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s son Young Dirty Bastard and the family estate are in full support of Rock the Bells’ upcoming hologram of the late Wu-Tang Clan rapper. In separate exclusive interviews with HipHopDX, Young Dirty Bastard and Chang Weisberg explained why this will be “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” “Icelene [Jones] and the estate are 100 percent…

Although former Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland isn’t on fond terms with his ex-bandmates, the singer says there’s no bad blood between him and his replacement, Chester Bennington of Linkin Park. “I don’t think Chester did it in a spiteful way,” Weiland told Billboard, adding that the two singers became friends when their bands toured together…

Flavor Flav recently said that Rap has lost “the element of Hip Hop.” “I think the element of Hip Hop left when Rap music started being created on a slow tempo,” Flavor Flav told Gigwise. “It’s just stayed there for years. Right now, a lot of Rap music today is being created at very low…

Prodigy from the legendary group Mobb Deep, has officially launched his Infamous Books publishing imprint. Infamous Books, which doubles as the name of his clothing line, will focus on stories of crime and urban literature. Infamous Books has a few upcoming books scheduled, including works from “Diary of a Mistress” author Miasha, “Street Dreams” writer K’wan…

At this year’s Movement Festival in Detroit, Dubspot hosted a series of free workshops at YouthVille Detroit with Mike Huckaby, Justin James, Thomas Faulds, and Dubspot’s very own Matt Cellitti. In this video, Cellitti demonstrates new creative possibilities for working with audio recordings using Ableton Live 9’s audio-to-MIDI conversion tool. [DubSpot]

Mac Miller and Vince Staples interviewed each other recently. The two emcees talked about criticism for their collaborative project Stolen Youth, the impact of age on Rap and the influence Staples has on Miller, in their interview for Fader. “How many times a day do you get tweeted about our project and the question is, ‘Why…

Vinodh Bhat is co-founder/CEO of Indian digital music service Saavn. He’s also co-founder/principal of 212Media, a privately held venture development company. Follow him at @vbhat on Twitter. The burgeoning legal music industry in India has, thus far, received little attention from the rest of the world. But for global players, there’s a massive opportunity in…

Big time guitarist Zakk Wylde of Ozzy Osbourne and Black Label Society phones in to talk about what he’s been up to lately and what it’s like to be managed by your bassist and friend, Blasko. [RenManMB]