Spotify follows Stormzy with youth club fund - but will it help the future of music?

"We have a real opportunity not just to fund but to story tell," says Spotify's global head of social impact, Lauren Wurgraft.

Spotify has drawn criticism from artists over how much they get paid by the platform, and Youth Music says it had to consider that carefully when agreeing to the deal.

But it's been welcomed by south London rapper Still Shadey who tells Newsbeat music was a "saving grace" and a spark "for something positive" when he was growing up.

The MOBO award winner launched his own scheme to support young people in his area over the summer with funding from Arts Council England, Mirror Mirror.

"We have huge brands taking a step that will hopefully create a catalyst where other organisations can do the same," he says.

Spotify would not tell Newsbeat how much it's spending on the project with Youth Music but Matt says it's "over six figures".

The money will be used to protect youth clubs across the UK that are at risk of closure in a bid to get more young people into music.

It follows Youth Music's Sound of the Next Generation report, a survey the charity does every five years, with its latest one asking 2,100 young people about their lives and attitudes towards music.

"Top of the tree as their favourite thing in their lives is music," says Matt.

"But there was also a contrasting [finding] about access to music getting more limited, particularly access to making music and creating and composing your own music."

Girls and people from the North of England are particularly affected according to the report which highlights the cost of music education as a major block.

Meanwhile, research from the YMCA suggests that since 2011, about half of England's youth clubs have closed - rising to 60% in Wales.

The Local Government Association adds that, in that same time, government funding for youth clubs has declined by 73% in real terms.

Shadey says it was "the last phase of youth clubs" when he was growing up, describing the centres as little more than a warm space.

"We felt this was ending, things were closing down, derelict buildings, old PlayStation games, nothing being updated.

"That's not enough to keep a young person engaged. They want to learn and grow and be a part of something."

Lauren agrees that access is a "huge barrier".

"You can dream about being an artist but if you don't actually have a place where you can go and create and learn, then that really is never going to become a reality."

The 15 youth hubs which will be receiving the money haven't yet been decided - although according to Matt the funding could be allocated as soon as Christmas.

Youth Music says it will be targeting programmes and centres across the UK it already works with.

"It's very important these aren't just based in major cities because we know these spaces are important to youth all over the place," says Lauren.

For Shadey, he hopes projects like this will help with what he sees as the biggest problem facing young people: feeling "disconnected" from the areas where they live.

"Feeling like they don't belong," he says.

Youth Music's stated mission isn't just to help marginalised young people make music, it's also to help them monetise it.

And Spotify has a reputation - it says an unfair one - for not being very profitable for artists.

The platform pays royalties to copyright holders and while sometimes that's the artist, it often means publishers and labels.

Last year, 1,000 British artists were streamed enough to be paid £100,000 but on average they would only pocket 16% of what they earn from the app, all while Spotify reports record breaking billion dollar profits.

Spotify says UK recording artists made £750 million in royalties from streaming last year and it has no say in how the money's split - that's an agreement between the artists and their management.

Copyright holders are also not paid at all if their song is streamed fewer than 1,000 times in a year.

Matt says squaring that with Youth Music's ethos of helping artists monetise their work was something the charity had to "think about".

"The debate about how artists, particularly emerging artists, make a living is very, very live," he says.

"You make a judgement call that in the end, this is going to make a difference for young people and their lives in music at this urgent time."

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