Spotify has resurrected its long-dead partnership with Algoriddim’s djay, and for DJs who’ve been cobbling together awkward workarounds since 2020, this is basically like a resurrection patch note. After years in licensing purgatory, Spotify Premium subscribers can once again authenticate inside djay’s Mac and Windows desktop apps and pull in their playlists natively — no sketchy third-party hacks or endless crate-digging required.
Right now, the return is desktop-only, so don’t go refreshing your iOS or Android apps hoping to see Spotify pop up in the sources list. Both companies are staying quiet on whether mobile will eventually join the party, but the fact that this integration exists at all means the licensing boss fight that killed it off in 2020 has finally been cleared.
Back then, Spotify’s Terms of Service made DJing with its catalog strictly forbidden, pushing Algoriddim to double down on integrations with Tidal, SoundCloud, and eventually Apple Music. If you were running a serious rig, chances are you already defected to one of those. Still, Spotify returning to the fold feels like a long-missing piece of kit sliding back into the rack.
Even better: you don’t need to pay for djay Pro to access the integration. It works out of the box with the free version, though springing for Pro unlocks the good stuff — hardware support, advanced effects, MIDI mapping, and all the nerdy power-user tweaks DJs love to obsess over.
For anyone who started DJing in the mid-2010s, this is a straight-up nostalgia hit. Spotify plus djay was the starter pack for countless bedroom DJs, Twitch streamers, and college radio upstarts before Spotify slammed the door. Now the pipeline is back — and with today’s broader streaming ecosystems and hardware compatibility, it might even be better than before.
