THE CAKE
SYSTEM

The Cake Constitution

Everything in the Cake system starts with one observation: the narrative of independence in the music industry has been distorted. Artists are told independence means doing everything alone. But isolation was never freedom.

The Constitution defines three core principles that govern every decision, split, contract, and tool in the system:

Infrastructure, not chaos. Systems that work, not vibes that fade. Every role, deliverable, and payment is defined before work starts.

Collaboration, not isolation. Building together beats grinding alone. Artists, producers, session musicians, songwriters, and engineers all operate as co-builders of the same ecosystem.

Structure, not randomness. Clear rules make fair outcomes possible. The structure isn't a cage. It's the thing that makes real collaboration work. Without it, "collaboration" is just chaos with good intentions.

There is one rule that holds the entire system together: if you operate inside Cake, you follow Cake rules. If not, you operate outside the system. No middle ground. The structure only works if everyone is in it.

How the System Operates

The Cake System Architecture is the operational blueprint that turns the Constitution into working rules. Governance, contracts, quality standards, audits, and artist intake are all codified.

Deliverable Standards

Every collaborator earning a split must deliver. No passive equity. Producers must record, deliver stems, and provide revisions. Photo deliverables (2% split): 2 sessions, 3 outfits, 50 edited photos, album cover, banner crops. Video deliverables (3% split): 1 main video, 12-15 short form clips, 3 locations, BTS content. Content strategy runs 2 weeks pre-release and 4 weeks post-release.

Split Structure

Every dollar is accounted for before work begins. The artist always keeps 50%. The other 50% is the Cake Pool, divided among everyone who contributed to making the project happen.

Session Contributors & Dev Credits

Session musicians earn 2-5% per song from the Cake Pool, negotiable per project. They can choose split-based or flat rate compensation. Splits stack: if a session player also co-wrote the song, they earn both splits. Experienced contributors who mentor newer artists earn a Development Credit of 1-2% on the mentee's first 3 releases, drawn from Cake Core's allocation, not the artist's 50%.

Community Fund (4-5%)

Reinvested into writing camps, live sessions, studio upgrades, events, artist support, and long-term physical infrastructure. Controlled by Cake Core. This is infrastructure investment, not a democracy.

Live Session Split

Artist 50% / Cake 25% / Community Fund 20% / Video 2.5% / Mix-Master 2.5%. Focused on content creation and community growth.

CakeHQ: The Label OS

A custom-built web application at hq.thecakerecords.com that manages all operational data for Cake Records: releases, compositions, recordings, contacts, artists, campaigns, contracts, and finances.

Core Modules

Catalog Management tracks every composition, recording, and release with full relational data: who wrote it, who produced it, who performed it, what release it's on, and what platforms it's distributed to.

Campaign Hub generates 87-slot marketing campaigns (29 days x 3 platforms) with AI-powered content prompts via Claude. Campaign slot statuses persist and update in real time.

Flow Mode visualizes the entire catalog as an interactive graph: releases (green), recordings (blue), compositions (purple), and artists (amber), all connected by their real relationships. Search, filter, zoom, and click into any node.

Contract Management integrates with DocuSign for signed contract sync and includes AI-powered contract document parsing.

Spotify Integration handles search, ISRC lookup, album search, batch enrichment, and connection testing through dedicated edge functions.

Database Architecture

26 Supabase tables with row-level security enabled for multi-tenancy. A column alias mapping layer handles the Base44-to-Supabase migration, translating between legacy frontend field names and normalized Postgres columns on every read and write. 17 edge functions handle everything from Spotify lookups to campaign generation to invite management.

The Contributor Model

Musicians are not clients of the system. They are the system. Everyone who enters is a contributor, not a customer. The language matters. The questionnaire determines what kind of contributor you are and what you need, not whether you qualify for services.

Session Contributor Pool

A formalized roster of instrumentalists, vocalists, and engineers available for Cake projects. Musicians register their instruments, skills, gear, availability, and rate preferences. When a project needs a session player, the system surfaces qualified contributors. Every contribution is logged, credited, and tracked. No invisible labor. Nashville is full of incredible musicians doing sessions for flat fees with zero backend. This system lets them build a portfolio of revenue-generating contributions across the catalog. Play on 20 songs over a year, earn on all 20 forever. That's a career, not a gig.

Songwriter Circles & The Song Room

Structured co-writing facilitated through the platform. Songwriters get matched for co-writes based on genre, style, and goal. Every song created in a circle gets logged with splits, registered for publishing, and entered into the Shared Catalog if all writers agree. Writers who consistently produce songs that land cuts or generate sync income rise in the matching algorithm.

Artist Development Cohorts

Groups of 4-6 artists at similar stages enter the system together on a 90-day cycle. Everyone goes through the questionnaire, gets matched with collaborators from the Contributor Pool, participates in Songwriter Circles, and the cohort culminates in a shared release moment: a Before the Noise live session, a co-release week, a collaborative playlist, or a showcase. Artists entering alongside peers feel like they're joining something, not auditioning.

Shared Publishing Catalog

A central catalog of songs tagged by genre, mood, tempo, vocal type, and sync suitability. Artists and managers browse and request holds. When a catalog song needs production or additional instrumentation before it's pitch-ready, session contributors from the pool get matched to finish it. The songwriter gets their song elevated. The session player earns a contributor split. The catalog gets stronger.

Referral Economy

Members earn approximately 1% for 2 years for facilitating successful connections: a producer refers a song to an artist who cuts it, a manager introduces an artist to a songwriter, a session musician recommends another player who gets booked. The system incentivizes community collaboration and deal flow.

The Sun Building & Before the Noise

The platform isn't just software. It connects to real spaces and real events. The digital ecosystem becomes physical through two flagship initiatives.

The Sun Building

A historic Nashville property being developed into a multi-room music studio, writing room, and publishing hub. 4 small rooms, 2 medium, 2 large, 1 full studio. Anchored by the Singleton family's Sun Records legacy: Stuart's grandfather Shelby Singleton purchased Sun Records from Sam Phillips and ran it for decades. The building is both a functional creative hub and a destination with a story. Contributors at Stage 3+ or with 3+ catalog songs get priority booking at writing rooms. Currently in the fundraising and partner phase with a completed pitch deck.

Before the Noise

An intimate, invitation-only outdoor songwriter session series. 30-50 guests, 3-4 songwriters playing 4 unreleased songs each, no PA, no stage. Locations rotate. Every performance gets cinematic video and high-quality audio capture. Guests receive physical keepsakes. The name says it: you hear the song before it becomes noise. Revenue model is sponsorship-funded, targeting zero net cost per event. The content is the business model: video series, audio recordings, co-owned with artists.

Catalog & Knowledge System

The same catalog data lives in two synchronized layers. Obsidian is the rich, connected source of truth with full relationship graphs. Supabase is the operational backend that CakeHQ reads from. They must stay in sync.

The Obsidian vault system operates as a dual-brain architecture. The Claude Brain handles all operational knowledge: projects, decisions, threads, catalog data, financial context, reference documents, and technical schemas. The Self Brain holds personal context: identity, journal entries, health data, relationships (1,926 contacts), patterns, creative work, and voice. Together they form a comprehensive knowledge graph with wikilink-based connections across every entity.

Catalog data flows from Airtable's 13-table "Unified Music Catalog" into Obsidian as structured notes, then into Supabase as operational rows. ISRC codes are the primary matching key between systems. The same catalog structure is replicated for managed artists: GLOSSER, Luke Lasso, Brock Taylor, Logan & McKenna.

Scoring & Quality

Songs are evaluated by a 3-judge weighted rubric: Concept & Hook (25%), Lyrics (30%), Melody & Harmony (30%), Structure (10%), X-Factor (5%). Internal scoring for Creative Depth, Consistency, Identity, and Quality is used for A&R prioritization, never shown to artists.

Marketing & Distribution

Cake's marketing approach is built around indirect hooks, content-first strategy, and metadata optimization across every platform.

Spotify Playlist Pitching uses a 500-character format with artist context, song style, and connection to platform themes. Pitches are prepared in advance for each release and positioned around growth trajectories and editorial angles.

TikTok & Instagram strategy centers on indirect hooks: conversational, curiosity-driven angles that feel like organic sharing. "My dad hasn't stopped asking me for this artist's name" over hard sells. Nostalgic framing, cultural comparison, cryptic intrigue. Designed for algorithmic sharing and discovery.

CakeVerse is the animated transmedia arm: Archer-style cartoon aesthetic, YouTube-first distribution, 8-10 minute lofi sessions with animated visuals. The vision is a full worldbuilding universe at LOTR/Star Wars scale with interconnected character backstories, political structures, distinct regions, and fan-creatable content. Long-arc storytelling that unfolds across multiple releases over years. Near-term: looping visualizers and animated music videos. Long-term: interactive click-through website with mini-games, character customization, and music-integrated gameplay.

Metadata & SEO spans MusicBrainz tags and annotations, Wikidata structured data for AI algorithm association, Squarespace hidden descriptions, and separate EPK pages for SEO isolation.

Distribution is migrating to Symphonic for catalog management and delivery to all platforms.

Where This Is Going

The pieces are designed to compound. Each component feeds the others, and the system gets stronger with every artist, song, session, and event that flows through it.

Timeline