It's been really interesting over the last 24 hours or so to watch the reaction from Joe Kay[0], whose label/collective Soulection[1] has shared hundreds of hours of mixes and dozens of original tracks and remixes on Soundcloud[2], and to an extent (at least initially) built their following on the site (not to take anything away from the impact performances, etc. have had on their growing popularity), but were always at high risk of this sort of takedown due to remixes of popular rap/r&b tracks.
One of my initial takeaways from this development is that while Soulection may not have come to exist without Soundcloud, the "next Soulection" will almost certainly take root anywhere but Soundcloud.
And even if hip hop/trap/neo-soul/etc aren't your style, if you're into any electronic music at all there's probably something for you on Rinse.fm (unfortunately they're more an internet radio station than a platform like Soundcloud, not exactly apples to apples from a user perspective).
Rinse has an FM license now, so they've gone from pirate to legit. It was funny listening to the DJs trying to curb their swearing (50 pound fine per naughty word) in the weeks after they were licensed.
One of my initial takeaways from this development is that while Soulection may not have come to exist without Soundcloud, the "next Soulection" will almost certainly take root anywhere but Soundcloud.
It's a shame.
[0] https://twitter.com/J0EKAY
[1] http://soulection.com
[2] https://soundcloud.com/soulection