Cage Riot was built from a simple but increasingly urgent idea: independent artists need more than access to distribution. They need infrastructure, protection, strategy, and people who understand the reality of building a career outside the major label system.
Founded by Yvonne Claro and Craig Claro, Cage Riot is one of the newer names in music distribution, but it is entering the space with the same strength and capabilities artists expect from established platforms such as DistroKid, Too Lost, TuneCore, and Symphonic, while building a more powerful pipeline around the artist’s full business.
From audio and video distribution to publishing administration, sync, playlist strategy, real-life shows, events, and artist development, Cage Riot is designed to support independent artists on a global level from every angle. The goal is not simply to move music onto platforms, but to help artists build careers with stronger systems around them.
For Yvonne and Craig, the mission is personal. Cage Riot was not created as a faceless tech platform or a quick-entry distributor. It was built by people who have spent years inside the independent music space, watching artists struggle with fragmented systems, confusing royalty structures, missing publishing data, poor communication, and release strategies that often stop the moment a song goes live.
Their approach is intentionally hands-on. Cage Riot works with artists to think beyond a single release and towards a long-term catalogue, stronger data, cleaner rights management, and more intentional growth. That includes helping artists understand how their music is positioned, how their metadata is handled, how their publishing is tracked, and how each release can support a larger career path.
The company operates through several connected divisions, including Cage Riot Music Distribution, thirdXrecords, Cage Riot Publishing, Cage Riot Studios, SoundVault Capital, and The Cage, its editorial and discovery arm. Together, these pieces allow the company to support artists across distribution, visibility, sync opportunities, campaign development, live opportunities, and business infrastructure.
What makes Cage Riot stand out is its refusal to treat independent artists like numbers in a dashboard. The company’s model is built around the belief that artists need real infrastructure, but they also need real people behind it. In a music economy increasingly shaped by automation, artificial intelligence, and oversaturated platforms, that human layer matters.
Yvonne brings artist development and a technology-focused perspective to the company, while Craig leads its financial strategy, helping to shape Cage Riot’s structure, growth, and broader business direction. As the architects behind the developing Artist OS, they are building an operating system designed to help artists manage the business side of their careers, from releases and rights data to publishing, reporting, long-term catalogue growth, and funding. Together, Yvonne and Craig have built Cage Riot as both a service company and a creative ecosystem.
The company’s work reflects a wider shift happening across the music industry. Independent artists no longer want to choose between total DIY confusion and traditional label control. They are looking for partners who can offer structure without taking away ownership, and strategy without forcing artists into outdated industry moulds.
Rather than focusing only on distribution, Cage Riot is building a broader pipeline for independent artists: a connected system designed to support release management, quality control, publishing administration, rights data, marketing, reporting, sync, video distribution, and artist development in one place.
For Yvonne and Craig, the future of Cage Riot is not about chasing trends. It is about turning the independent ecosystem around so artists feel protected, supported, and properly equipped to grow.
In an industry where artists are often told they can do everything themselves, Cage Riot offers a different message: independence should not mean being left alone to figure everything out. It can still come with structure, care, strategy, and a team that understands what it takes to build something real.
