If your music in YouTube Music is on a channel you don't recognize, it may be on what's called a "topic" channel. A topic channel is an automatically generated channel created by YouTube that houses an artist's music releases. When you deliver your music to YouTube Music through DistroKid, your work will appear on YouTube's main website under a topic channel. A topic channel is separate from an artist's official channel.

Topic channels allow your music to appear in YouTube Music, which is YouTube's music streaming service. If you want your YouTube Music releases available on your own artist channel as well as the topic channel, you'll want to request that your own channel (also known as an Owned and Operated Channel) be converted to an Official Artist Channel (OAC).

Creating an Official Artist Channel

When you upload music with DistroKid, you can upgrade your personal YouTube channel for your artist project to an Official Artist Channel. You can access this by opening the Features menu in the upper-right of DistroKid, selecting "Special Access," and then "YouTube Official Artist Channel." Alternatively, visit https://distrokid.com/YouTubeOfficialArtistChannels.

Once you have an Official Artist Channel, all of your topic channel content will be linked to your own Official Artist Channel.

If you don't have an Official Artist Channel, your YouTube Music content will still be available on YouTube through the topic channel generated for you.

Click here to learn more about how to claim your Official Artist Channel.

Types of Topic Channels

There are two types of topic channels:

• Personal Topic Channels: Many artists are automatically assigned a topic channel. This is usually the artist name followed by  “- Topic.” For example, Drake - Topic. Note that this a different channel than his Official Artist Channel, Drake. Both of those channels contain his music.
   
• Various Artists - Topic: Many times, YouTube adds artists' music to a channel called "Various Artists - Topic." This is usually for undiscovered artists with smaller play counts. When an artist becomes more popular, their music is often moved (by YouTube) to their own topic channel.