A Gold-certified single usually means a major label somewhere in the credits, a marketing budget, and a contract that quietly takes the artist’s masters in exchange. Christian Gates earned his the other way. He is independent by design, and he has been clear that he intends to keep it that way.
I signed to a distro company, so it’s mostly independent. I’ve been with them for like a year or two. I own everything.Christian Gates, Bringin’ it Backwards
Distribution, not a deal
The distinction matters. Rather than sign to a label, Gates works with the distributor OneRPM, which handles getting his music onto platforms and collecting revenue while he keeps ownership of the recordings themselves. He has taken a separate publishing deal for his songwriting, but the masters, the actual recordings that generate streams forever, stay his. His debut album No Strings Attached carries his own copyright line, not a label’s.
Why it is unusual
Most artists who reach his level of streaming have already traded ownership for an advance. Gates did the opposite math: build the audience first, keep the leverage, and never need the advance in the first place. It is slower and riskier, and it requires being your own producer and engineer, but it means the upside is his.
Proof it works at scale
The model is not a compromise on ambition. His single NUMB went RIAA Gold and passed 175 million streams while he stayed unsigned. He books his own European tour carefully so each date pays for itself. And in 2026 he still landed a mainstream feature on Don Diablo and Wiz Khalifa’s Go Home With A Stranger without giving up the store to get it.
A Gold record, a major-label-sized collaboration, and he still owns it all.
Owner, not just artist
That same instinct led him to launch The Ring by Lux, a platform to help other artists reach fans directly. Control is the theme of the whole career: his music, his masters, and now the tools other artists use to keep theirs. More in the wiki.