The Anatomy of a Hit: Music Collaboration in 2025

We’ve come a long way since the 1970s when the Bee Gees and Elton John ruled the charts and, according to iMusician, it took 1.7 songwriters on average to write a hit song.

Fast forward to today’s highly collaborative music landscape and the numbers look very different thanks to a number of factors that we’ll get into below.

But first, what does a hit song look like in 2025?

It’s been a while since anyone crunched the latest collaborator numbers, so we took a look at the current Billboard Hot 100 to find out.

Let’s dig in:

Music collaboration by the numbers:

According to our calculations, the average Billboard Hot 100 hit today has:

• “Voy A Llevarte Pa PR” by Bad Bunny, with 26 unique collaborators
• It also has the most songwriters (17)
• And the most producers (15)

The track with the least collaborators?

• “Sailor Song” by Gigi Perez is the only song on the list that was written, produced, and performed by the same person, making it a true solo effort.

Interestingly, the top 10 songs have the highest average number of unique collaborators (7.20).

The changing music collaboration landscape

	2000*	2025	% change
Average number of songwriters per Billboard hit	2.4	4.5	87.5%
Average number of producers per Billboard hit	1.5	2.7	80%

*data taken from Billboard Top 10 July 2000 (Source: MIDiA Research / Billboard)

Top 10 analysis:

The ongoing Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar rap beef is playing out in real-time and while Kendrick leads with the highest-charting tracks, Drake has the most tracks in the top 100 overall. Here are the names dominating the music landscape right now:

Top 10 Songwriters: 🔥

1. Drake (19)
2. PARTYNEXTDOOR (14)
3. Amy Allen (11)
4. Sabrina Carpenter (9)
5. Kendrick Lamar (8)
6. John Ryan (7)
7. Bad Bunny (7)
8. Sounwave (6)
9. Jack Antonoff (6)
10. Jose Jr. Roberto Rosado Torres (6)

Top 10 Producers: 🔥

1. Noel Cadastre (9)
2. Jack Antonoff (7)
3. Julian Bunetta (7)
4. Sounwave (6)
5. John Ryan (6)
6. DJ LEWIS (6)
7. O Lil Angel (6)
8. Kid Masterpiece (5)
9. Charlie Handsome (5)
10. La Paciencia (5)

Top 10 Artists: 🔥

1. Drake (20)
2. PARTYNEXTDOOR (15)
3. Sabrina Carpenter (9)
4. Kendrick Lamar (8)
5. Bad Bunny (7)
6. SZA (3)
7. Morgan Wallen (3)
8. Sexyy Red (3)
9. Bruno Mars (3)
10. Lady Gaga (2)

What’s behind the rise in collaborations?

The changing creative process

Modern hits require intricate production techniques, drawing in multiple specialists. Big-name artists like Drake, Bad Bunny, and Kendrick Lamar rely on extensive songwriting and production teams to maintain their dominance in the charts. 

Another key factor is the streaming economy. Where only top hits make real money, collaboration is as much survival as creativity. As one article puts it, “The winner-takes-all streaming economy forces artists to become more conservative, requiring multiple songwriters and producers to piece together hits like Ikea furniture.”

Today’s hits are often penned in collaborative “writers rooms”, or organized gatherings of producers and songwriters known as songwriting camps, with various contributors adding to the songwriting and production process.

Sampling and legal precautions

Sampling and interpolation have long been a defining feature of music production and play an increasing role in the ever-expanding number of collaborator credits.

Take Travis Scott’s 2018 hit “Sicko Mode,” which credits no fewer than 30 songwriters. Three MCs and six producers actively participated in the recording of the song, but look under the hood and you’ll see that the song also features 3 samples. One of these is Notorious BIG’s “Gimme the Loot”, which itself itself samples three other hip hop records 🤯.

And if we look at Bad Bunny’s “Voy A Llevarte Pa PR”, the current Billboard 100 hit with the most collaborators (26 total), it contains samples of three other songs. 

There’s also legal considerations at play here. Since the 2018 Blurred Lines ruling shook the industry, artists have taken greater precautions, often preemptively crediting original creators to avoid disputes.

Evolving genre trends

Compared to the 1970s and even the noughties, the modern music landscape is far more genre-diverse. Latin music, reggaeton, and hip hop, all heavily collaborative genres, dominate the charts.

Latin music, for example, thrives on collective production, with artists like Bad Bunny frequently bringing in multiple writers and producers. Meanwhile, hip hop and rap’s reliance on sampling and collaborative songwriting naturally results in more credits per track (a pain very much felt by music supervisors). 

Strategic cross-genre collaborations

Artists are blending genres more than ever to expand their reach and boost streams. Bad Bunny is a prime example – his partnerships with artists like J Balvin and Rosalía haven’t just shaped his unique sound; they’ve helped cement his global dominance.

Looking at the current Top 100 you’ll see Bruno Mars teaming up with K-pop star Rosé, or Tyler, The Creator collaborating with rising British singer-songwriter Lola Young. These cross-genre, cross-continent alliances aren’t random; they’re strategic moves to tap into multiple fan bases and maximize exposure.

The latest IFPI data underscores the potential of cross-cultural collaboration, with the fastest-growing music markets—Sub-Saharan Africa (24.7%), Latin America (19.4%), and Asia (14.9%)—offering huge opportunities for artists to tap into global audiences through collaboration.

The role of digital tools in collaboration

Modern technology has made it easier than ever to collaborate remotely. A recent survey by Soundplate found that 70% of independent artists have collaborated with someone they’ve never met in person.

Tools driving remote collaboration include:

• Splice, BeatStars, and Tracklib, who offer extensive sample libraries and beat-sharing platforms for music production.
• Soundtrap and BandLab, who provide cloud-based DAWs that enable real-time remote music creation.
• A growing number of AI tools opening up the floodgates for music creation, production, and collaboration, though concerns over copyright and ethics remain an ongoing debate (we’ll get into this in another blog!).

Music’s shift to social 

Social platforms like TikTok, Twitch, and Discord are already driving artist collaborations and direct fan engagement, but MIDiA Research predicts this will escalate in 2025.

“It’s social’s stage now,” says MIDiA, as the music industry leans further into monetizing superfans. Fans today don’t just want to consume, they want to participate, whether that means creating fan-made merchandise or collaborating and interacting with the artists and songs themselves.

This marks a major shift toward a more interactive, fan-driven music ecosystem where engagement fuels creativity, collaboration, and community.

Collaboration: great for creativity, chaos for admin

The future of music is undeniably collaborative, and that’s a powerful thing—collaboration drives innovation and new possibilities. But there’s no getting away from the fact that increased collaboration = increased admin. 

More collaborators mean more complications in crediting, royalty splits, and payments. With so many songwriters and producers involved, disputes over revenue can lead to delayed payments and legal battles.

Solutions like Mozaic help artists to easily manage their split agreements and automate royalty payouts to their collaborators, no matter how complex the deal structures.

As the industry moves toward an increasingly collaborative future, these tools will become vital in keeping payments transparent and disputes minimal.