> Facing paltry YouTube revenue, many lo-fi hip-hop channels have ventured beyond just curation and founded their own record labels, in order to build up a catalog that can be monetized elsewhere (e.g. on Spotify and Apple Music) in a more lucrative manner. Most of these labels sign non-exclusive deals with individual singles, rather than albums — meaning that artists can choose to release said singles with other labels as well, which can be useful for getting featured on several lo-fi compilations and mixes at once.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the incentive driving artists to work with these record labels rather than self-publishing? Is it not possible to "self-publish" to Spotify and Apple Music without a record label? Is it strictly to increase exposure in the way mentioned in this paragraph, i.e. to have their music included in various mixes/albums from different labels?

Finally, what is the barrier to starting a record label that anyone would want anything to do with? I would (in my ignorance) think that an artist would have more leverage here, since they already belong to the community