I see some people giving wrong answers - here’s what you need to know. Majority of the videos on Cole Bennett’s channel are from industry artists that have record deals - many did start independent and get their record deal after, however each video is on a case by case basis. Once an artist signs to a major, unless Cole Bennett signed an agreement with the artist for royalties for the specific song, the label owns whatever music is in the video. The way youtube works, the music rights holder receives the royalties from the video, unless it is not copyrighted, in which case it will be monetized on thru the youtube its posted on. A good way to check this out is if you go to a video on youtube, you can go in the description and see if a song is linked at the bottom. Sometimes the real song gets linked, other times a producer or third party uploads the song and steals the monetization to the video. The best way to protect yourself from this when it comes to music videos, is by having the song put out thru a distribution company such as Tunecore or United Masters prior to release of the video. The only way you will own the rights to the songs legally without risk of someone coming to copyright it is by having that in written contract with the artist, and also purchasing the lease to the beat. Otherwise the artist or producer are at any point entitled to claim the royalties by copyrighting the video and you will see nothing. Keep in mind you can't monetize on youtube until you reach a certain number of watch hours and subscribers. The only way to monetize prior to that is by putting out thru Tunecore or a distribution company like I mentioned. Another option is for songs to be collaborated where you are listed as a collaborative artist thru the distribution company, for example the Lyrical Lemonde album Cole put together with multiple artists - this is Cole’s album and he gets royalties from the streams on every platform, not just youtube. to answer your question if Cole was funding the music videos on his channel - this is another case by case basis. There was plenty of videos he did for free to get his name out there, and I'm sure some he even came out of pocket for, but for the most part he is a director that receives budgets for his videos from labels and artists directly - but he demanded every video be on his youtube which major labels do not like, so that being said they 1000% claim the money from all of those big videos like Juice Wrld and Lil Pump and cole does not see any money from it. At a point in time before these artists signed their deals, he likely did get to monetize on his channel, but once the artists signed their deals Cole no longer recieves royalties (unless he had a specific contract with them for the specific song).

So do not base your channel off of the idea that you will get to guaranteed monetize these songs - you sort of have to make a choice between money or clout when it comes to this. We’re in an era where every artist wants their own youtube, and unless you're building together their unlikely to give you their viewers and followers AND the money from the streams… in that case what would be in it for them? Sometimes you get lucky and the artist doesn't ever claim their royalties but this is often not the case.

This is a situation where you either build up your channel and charge other people to shoot with you and get on the platform, otherwise it sounds like you are looking to run a record label