Red Bull Music Academy is to shut down after 21 years, the company announced in a statement Wednesday (April 3). Red Bull, an unlikely patron of underground music since the academy’s launch in 1998, said that RBMA and Red Bull Radio would close on October 31 in a move to “phase out the existing structure” and decentralize its operations in the creative industry. Yadastar, the marketing and consultancy company that partnered with Red Bull to develop RBMA, said in a statement that the companies had “mutually agreed to part ways.”

RBMA had long been held up as an apparently sustainable model for corporate partnership with artists. Acts including Flying Lotus, SOPHIE, Objekt, and Nina Kraviz benefitted to various degrees from a broad infrastructure that included international concerts and festivals as well as access to high-end equipment and studios. The funding model emulated some benefits of the traditional record label system without putting a premium on mainstream appeal, some pundits argued, despite wariness in underground music of brand tie-ins, particularly given Red Bull’s heavy branding at dance events. RBMA also ran an editorial platform and long-running lecture series, which featured talks with D’Angelo, Björk, and many more alternative music figures. Red Bull will continue to operate a decentralized music arm, Red Bull Music, without Yadastar’s involvement.

In a statement to Resident Advisor, Red Bull said:

After 20 years of supporting artists worldwide with its music program in a rapidly changing world, Red Bull will maintain its purpose of providing a global platform to promote creativity—but it is changing the means of delivery. Red Bull will be moving away from a strongly centralized approach, will gradually phase out the existing structure and will implement a new setup which empowers existing Red Bull country teams and utilizes local expertise. Red Bull will continue to explore new ways to support promising and cutting-edge artists wherever they may be.

Yadastar wrote on Twitter: