Photo Credit: Chappell Roan by Justin Higuchi / CC by 2.0

Chappell Roan has parted ways with her management team at State Of The Art, headed by Nick Bobetsky.

Hot on the heels of her first set of Grammy nominations, Chappell Roan has abruptly split with her management team. Her former management team at State Of The Art has been headed by Nick Bobetsky, who met Roan in 2018.

In 2025, the pop sensation is up for Album of the Year (The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess), Record of the Year, Song of the Year (both for “Good Luck, Babe!”), and Best New Artist — but her former management team didn’t mention her in their recent Instagram post congratulating their talent for their nods. That post has seemingly been removed, but the rumors were already circulating.

The news was confirmed by Nathan Hubbard, former Ticketmaster CEO, on a recent episode of the Every Single Album podcast. According to Hubbard, the news has sparked a frenzy in the industry as top managers scramble to make their bid to sign the rising star.

In addition to her Grammy nominations, Roan made her musical guest debut on Saturday Night Live, where she performed an unreleased track, the country-flavored pop track, “The Giver.” She also debuted an unreleased track, “Subway,” at her Governors Ball set over the summer. The 26-year-old has been busy writing new material.

But her rise to fame hasn’t been without its complications. Chappell Roan has been very outspoken about the “predatory” interactions she’s had with fans, and the toxic nature of fans who feel entitled to an artist’s time. “I don’t agree with the notion that I owe a mutual exchange of energy, time, or attention to people I do not know, do not trust, or who creep me out — just because they’re expressing admiration,” she said.

“I’m not afraid of the consequences for demanding respect,” she continued, explaining that the experience goes beyond just being famous. “Every woman is feeling or has felt similar to what I’m experiencing. This isn’t a new situation.”

Photo Credit: Pamela Neal (Brandi Carlile)

Singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile signs with CAA and Phantom Management, ditching Red Light and Wasserman in a major representation shift.

Brandi Carlile is busy making moves, announcing on Wednesday her signing with CAA for worldwide representation, and moving to an in-house management firm, Phantom Management. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter has been represented by Red Light Management for years, with Wasserman as her agency. The move seems to be purely in the interest of “fresh blood,” with no apparent bad blood existing between Carlile and her former representation.

Notably, Phantom is led by Catherine Carlile, Brandi’s wife, who has led her fundraising organization, The Looking Out Foundation, for 13 years. Now, she takes on the role of senior manager, where she will be aided by Carolyn Snell. Carlile’s new reps at CAA have not been mentioned by name in the announcement, but insiders reveal Bryan Lourd and Rob Light are taking the lead in representing Carlile.

Carolyn Snell, who will be working closely with Catherine Carlile to manage the artist at Phantom, has both managed and coordinated global tours for artists like Janet Jackson, Reba McEntire, John Mayer, and the Indigo Girls.

The change comes as Carlile looks to further expand her reach in the realms of film, television, and publishing.

While the singer-songwriter has not yet revealed any touring or recording plans for 2025, the announcement revealed a second book is on the way, via Harper Collins’ Dey Street imprint. Carlile’s previous book, “Broken Horses: A Memoir,” topped the New York Times’ bestseller list upon its 2021 release. The subject of the follow-up book is yet to be publicly known, but those close to the situation believe “all her writing is being looked at for potential development” across other media.

Brandi Carlile remains with Low Country Sound and Elektra as her label, as well as Sack & Co. for publicity.

UNIFI Music Founder & CEO La’Shion Robinson (Photo Credit: UNIFI Music)

Finding and retaining effective management is a significant hurdle for many emerging artists. Now, UNIFI Music is building an AI-driven intelligent platform for that.

Superstar music careers frequently start on the fringes: in a poorly-lit rehearsal space, late night on a laptop and cracked DAW, or as part of a local scene that hasn’t yet crossed over.

If an artist or group is lucky, an ardent believer is pulling the strings to get gigs, upload tracks to DSPs, monitor royalties from different licenses and platforms, and settle disputes. But professional managers with acumen, experience, and connections are usually out of reach at the beginning.

And that’s a problem.

The real artist management pros are usually overloaded with their high-demand clientele. And they’re generally inaccessible if they’re taking on emerging artists, or simply too expensive for artists in the early stages of their careers.

The music industry is laser-focused on the profound threat AI-generated music poses – which makes sense. But can AI fill a meaningful role in other areas like artist management?

That was the light bulb for execs at UNIFI Music, a company focused on building artist-focused solutions. “We’ve seen a huge need for artist management from artists in the 0-5 stages of their careers,” La’Shion Robinson, UNIFI’s founder and CEO, told Digital Music News.  “There’s simply an overload of tasks beyond the core competencies of creating music, building a cultural connection, and performing.”

‘Overload’ is a fitting descriptor.

From securing competent management to navigating the complexities of promotion and distribution, the path to success is often fraught with obstacles. And with tasks spanning social media engagement to booking gigs and navigating the complexities of streaming platforms, the workload can be immense – especially in the face of fierce competition.

With that problem in mind, UNIFI Music’s vision is to solve these pain points with an innovative AI-powered solution that could redefine artist management. That is perking the ears of investors, many of whom feel that AI-related models in the music industry are overlapping and saturated.

“Here’s something extremely useful, relevant, with tremendous potential to scale,” Robinson summarized. Just recently, UNIFI joined forces with DMN to further expand their concept.

According to Robinson, AI can play a meaningful role in streamlining artist management and empowering emerging musicians. UNIFI’s AI-powered platform, called Sasha, will act as a centralized toolbox, offering a range of features and services to support artists in their career development.

Sasha is designed to complement platforms like SoundCloud, providing artists with a comprehensive suite of tools to manage their careers effectively. That includes a question-driven interface, with Sasha understanding virtually any language. “This isn’t just a customized ChatGPT,” Robinson continued. “Sasha employs LLMs to provide customized guidance to the artist.”

The SaaS-like Sasha will also integrate with UNIFI’s “LinkedIn for Music” platform, enabling artists to connect with industry professionals and build valuable relationships. The broader aim is to bolster intelligent, AI-driven management with a rich network of connected musicians and opportunities.

According to Robinson, UNIFI Music’s vision for Sasha extends far beyond simple task management.

“This is a brand-new, functional direction for AI in music,” Robinson relayed. “We’re building a complete AI manager built from the ground up for musicians, music companies, and the entire music managerial ecosystem.”

The ultimate goal is to create a virtual manager capable of strategically, tactically, and emotionally guiding an artist’s career. For existing managers, the platform helps to eliminate time-consuming ‘assistant’ tasks like venue research, social media posts, and transportation logistics. “There’s less need for an assistant manager and more opportunity to create the ‘super manager,'” Robinson described.

Currently, Sasha can handle tasks like social media recommendations and identifying promising venues. However, as the platform evolves, it will take on increasingly complex responsibilities like contract negotiation, release planning, and tour management.

Ultimately, UNIFI Music’s vision is to create a virtual manager capable of guiding an artist’s career toward success.

Unifi’s Sasha in action (click to enlarge).

Unifi’s Sasha in action (click to enlarge).

Music management agencies may not like Sasha, but UNIFI’s vision is unique when compared to typical AI creation and management companies.

While the debate over AI-generated music continues, UNIFI Music is simply exploring the potential of AI in other areas of the industry. By leveraging AI’s capabilities, the company’s vision is to provide artists with personalized guidance and support, leveling the playing field and democratizing access to the tools and resources needed to succeed.

“UNIFI has the potential to revolutionize artist management and empower emerging musicians. We may also catapult fringe scenes and artists to the fore by boosting their industry savvy and experience overnight,” Robinson relayed. “That’s exciting stuff.”

If you’d like to connect with UNIFI Music, please contact La’Shion Robinson directly at l@unifimusic.ai.

The LA HQ of CAA, which is suing Range Media Partners for allegedly stealing confidential information to build its own business. Photo Credit: Minnaert

Range Media Partners “is an unlicensed talent agency built on deceit” – at least according to a firmly worded lawsuit filed by Creative Artists Agency (CAA).

CAA just recently fired off the complaint against nearly five-year-old Range Media Partners, which, as some know, is having a big 2024. In summary, the self-described “talent management and brand strategy” specialist scored a minority investment in April, finalized a UMPG admin deal via its publishing unit last month, and kicked off October by signing Rita Ora in all areas.

But as laid out by CAA, Range owes these feats to a foundation rooted in “stealing from and damaging” the plaintiff while simultaneously endeavoring to “improperly evade” the regulatory framework in place for talent agencies in California.

Beginning with the latter, the suit explores at length Range’s alleged effort to circumvent talent-agency requirements by operating as a management provider and then offering professional services well beyond the confines of that space.

“Put simply,” the legal text spells out, “Range’s business model is the pursuit of unlawful profit through deception: Range skirts rules that California legislators and artists’ guilds put in place to protect those working in the entertainment industry. The core ‘trick’ of Range is that it acts as a talent agency but labels itself a management company. Range thereby engages in lucrative transactions foreclosed to law-abiding talent agencies.”

That alleged move, the complaint explains (including by drawing from relevant emails sent by Range team members) in many more words, enabled Range to “avoid the rules designed to protect clients.”

Moreover, the same alleged failure to register as an agency allowed the five CAA vets who got Range off the ground to “claim to not be competing with CAA and try to continue to receive a share of CAA profits” despite “working to injure” the older firm.

Enter the second component of the action, which accuses Range co-founder and CEO Peter Micelli as well as fellow co-founder Jack Whigham and higher-ups David Bugliari, Michael Cooper, and Mick Sullivan, all CAA vets, of stealing confidential information.

In a nutshell, the individuals allegedly posed “as loyal CAA members, sitting shoulder to shoulder in confidential CAA meetings about clients and business, all while covertly working to benefit Range and themselves.”

And so it was that by the time Range officially announced its launch in August of 2020, the noted execs had for months been allegedly stealing CAA information, in violation of their confidentiality agreements to boot, for use at the new company, per the complaint.

This information refers in part to a variety of personal details about clients, “key entertainment industry relationships,” business plans, and data-analytics tools.

Additionally, the alleged information theft is said to have seen the mentioned persons send materials “from CAA’s systems to their personal email accounts and devices” and encourage multiple CAA employees to obtain sensitive details on their behalf. Some of the latter employees were later hired and “quickly” promoted at Range, per the text.

All told, CAA is accusing Range of violating California’s business and professions code, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duties, and more. Among other things, the plaintiff is seeking damages and an injunction compelling Range to cease using and return the allegedly stolen confidential information.

DMN reached out to Range for comment but didn’t receive a response in time for publishing.

Photo Credit: Matt Botsford

United Talent Agency (UTA) has announced a dedicated Christian music division as the genre experiences exponential growth.

The new division will be led by Jonathan Roberts, who joined UTA in May 2024. Roberts is an industry veteran with over a decade of experience in Christian-focused music arts and a proven track record as a cultivator of talent. UTA says the growth of Christian music is astounding, reaching wider audiences as demand for the genre grows.

“UTA is deeply committed to the growth of the Christian music division,” adds Scott Clatyon, UTA Partner and Co-Head of UTA’s Music department. “We are leveraging the full strength of the agency, bringing together agents who are inspired by the genre and its connection with fans.”

“We are witnessing an unprecedented moment in the music industry, where Christian music is resonating with wider audiences,” adds Jonathan Roberts. “UTA’s roster of Christian artists reflects the growing demand for the genre and we are thrilled to be part of this exciting moment alongside these artists.”

UTA has quickly grown its roster of Christian artists to include Brandon Lake and Phil Wichham, with the pair currently on their second sold-out “Summer Worship Nights” tour. UTA is also home to Forrest Frank, who was named Billboard’s #1 Top New Christian Artist, with his debut album reaching #1 on the Billboard Christian music charts.

UTA clients received a total of 32 Dove Award nominations from the Gospel Music Association, which recognizes outstanding achievement in the Christian music industry. UTA clients that were nominated include:

• Best Pop/Contemporary Album — “Coat of Many Colors” by Brandon Lake
• Best Rock/Contemporary Album — “The Beautiful Letdown” by Switchfoot and Jon Bellion, Dayglow
• Best Feature Film — “Ordinary Angels” by Andrew Erwin and John Erwin
• Best Worship Album — “I Believe” by Phil Wickham
• Best Children’s Recorded Song — “Holy Forever” by Phil Wickham
• Best Recorded Music Packaging — “Coat of Many Colors” by Brandon Lake
• Best Short Form Music Video, Concept — “Count ‘Em” by Brandon Lake
• Best Short Form Music Video, Performance — “Coat of Many Colors” by Brandon Lake
• Best Christmas Recorded Song — “Manger Throne” by Phil Wickham

Photo Credit: Joe Scarnici / Getty Images for Delta LA2028 Sponsorship

After a report accusing talent mogul Casey Wasserman of multiple extramarital affairs, Billie Eilish has reportedly dropped him. Here’s the latest.

A report published two weeks ago claims to have eleven sources that have accused the talent mogul of being a serial cheater. It suggests Wasserman ‘love bombed’ women with expensive gifts before dropping them after the conquest. Wasserman is the Chairman of the LA 2028 Olympic committee. These sources claim Wasserman began cheating on his wife with his assistant five years into his marriage in 2006 and is accused of a string of other romantic relationships with employees.

The Wasserman CEO served as live booking representation for Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas—though Eilish dropped Wasserman after the allegations. According to TheWrap, Eilish felt “very upset” about the allegations and prepared to part ways in the last two weeks before dropping the news on Tuesday. Billie Eilish sang alongside The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Snoop Dogg for the Olympics closing ceremony on Sunday.

“While grateful to their former live booking agents at Wasserman, Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell have opted to have film, TV, and music handled by the same agency, WME, moving forward,” a spokesperson for Eilish told TheWrap in comment on the situation. Wasserman Music acquired Paradigm Talent Agency’s North American live music representation business in 2021, bringing Eilish into the Wasserman fold.

Representatives for Casey Wasserman have not commented on Eilish’s departure or any of the allegations made in the Daily Mail report released on August 1. All of the eleven women cited in the report have remained anonymous due to “fear of social or legal consequences for speaking out about [Wasserman’s] infidelity.”

Other artists on the Wasserman Music roster include Kenny Chesney, Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, The Lumineers, Dave Matthews Band, Janelle Monáe, Kacey Musgraves, Old Dominion, Phish, Ed Sheeran, Lorde, Sturgill Simpson, Black Pumas, Brandi Carlile, Tyler Childers, Kaytranada, Normani, Run the Jewls, Tash Sultana, Diplo, DJ Snake, Flume, Jack Harlow, ODESZA, and Skrillex.

Photo Credit: Merch Cat

Live shows are where some of the greatest opportunities lie to capitalize on the artist/fan connection and drive home merch sales.

The following was created in partnership with Merch Cat.

Most of us inherently know that in today’s music landscape, artist merch is an important revenue stream, a great way to market and promote an artist’s brand, and a way to unite and engage fans. But something that no one seems to talk much about is merch strategy. 

We hear a lot of talk about music release strategy, booking strategy, tour planning, marketing strategy, rights protection and overall strategy for an artist, but what about merch strategy as a matter of course? As in approaching merch in an intentional way, with the goal of maximizing artist merch income and return on investment while taking a holistic approach and factoring in all of the pieces that go into the whole – i.e. building an actionable plan and then executing it, measuring results, and making go forward adjustments where needed. 

It may sound rudimentary, and I’m sure it gets discussed in some artist camps behind the scenes, but doesn’t this very fundamental and potentially very lucrative revenue stream deserve the attention to strategy that the other streams get?  After all, it is probably the lowest hanging fruit of revenue streams as far as getting real time cash in hand, especially for touring artists. Live shows are where some of the greatest opportunities lie to capitalize on the artist/fan connection and drive home merch sales.  

Artist merch strategy is needed because not strategizing results in lost revenue, lost data for future revenue generation, lost inventory control and lost opportunities. 

As fundamental a revenue stream as merch is, there often seems to be an undertone of afterthought or notion that it will somehow get done. And it may very well get done, but likely not with the optimal outcome. In fact, it’s probably not an overstatement to say merch is all over the place and super fragmented. 

From the way merch is sourced to the way it is sold, everyone has a different process. And a lot of merch out there lately seems like it’s a check the box item, and feels either disconnected from the artist’s brand or out of touch with what fans might actually want. Strategizing can help. Like other facets of an artist’s business, an overall merch strategy is necessary to provide an outline or game plan of how the desired objectives, namely profitability and marketing, can be achieved given all of the factors that go into it.

Speaking of factors, it’s not surprising that merch can be somewhat daunting. Merch can be super complex because there are multiple disciplines at play and not everyone is an expert at each one. Merch is a combination of: 

1) Branding/Logo/Design 

2) Physical Merch Purchasing (product selection, costs & shipping considerations) 

3) Product Decoration (printing/embroidery/imprinting) 

4) Touring & Logistics (if for live shows) 

5) E-Commerce (for online) 

6) Shipping to fans, venues, etc. 

7) Marketing; and 

8) Financial Planning/Budgeting. 

Sure, some of these factors might be out of our control, but rather than viewing them as stand-alone components aka “it’s not our focus”, “we don’t have time for that” or “the merch company is handling it”, we’d be better positioned if we took control by investing a little time into considering all of the pieces that go into the big merch puzzle, and how they work together as part of the whole picture. 

When we do that, things can become a little more cohesive. When things are cohesive, they are measurable. When they are measurable, they are able to be analyzed and improved. 

A merch strategy should consider the above factors and answer “What products and designs do we want to offer? Are they on brand? Are they items fans will want? How/where are we going to obtain them? What are we willing to pay for them and what prices can we sell them at to achieve targeted revenue? What is our target revenue and profit? Where will we sell these items? How will we use the merch to fuel relationships with fans? What platform/tools will we use to sell the merch and retain the data and information related to fans and sales? How will we use this data going forward?

By laying out a merch strategy this way, a few things will happen – 1) You will be able to determine if the merch you are planning to make is feasible. 2)You will be able to be thoughtful about products 3) You will be able to take time to consider whether or not fans are being served 4) There will be structure, organization, and a blueprint to follow which will remove some of the pain points involved in the merch process 5) There will be an accountability factor where you can and should check in and see what is working and what is not, re-evaluate and adjust accordingly. 

Merch is a journey not a destination, and needs to be evaluated in an ongoing manner to ensure the proper exploitation of this revenue stream. 

There may not be a one size fits all answer to the many challenges of merch, but putting strategy at the forefront can certainly help us get closer to clarity, organization, a game plan to follow, accountability, transparency, data insights, and ultimately increased revenue.

Merch is a fan connector and touches every part of an artist’s business either directly or indirectly. A merch strategy should be considered along with the other components of an artist’s business to create synergy so that all facets are working together to maximize the outcomes. Strategizing will help ensure that the main objectives of merch – revenue, marketing and fan engagement – don’t get buried in the process shuffle leading to lost time, money, and opportunity. 

Vanessa Ferrer is the founder of Merch Cat, a company that provides a user friendly live show merch management platform for artists and their teams, with a connected direct to fan app that enables fans to pick merch up at the show or ship to home. Merch Cat also provides merch strategy and sourcing services to help artists maximize the merch revenue stream.

Photo: James McCartney IG

After dropping two new music collaborations with Sean Ono Lennon, James McCartney’s next release is a cover of Joni Mitchell’s iconic “Circle Game.”

The following was created in partnership with earthprogram.

McCartney recently teamed up with Sean Ono Lennon for the release of “Primrose Hill,” co-written with the youngest son of the late John Lennon. McCartney said at the time that the acoustic ballad is named for an idyllic park in Camden overlooking London’s Regent’s Park. The song itself was inspired by a vision the young McCartney had as a child on a summer day in Scotland. 

The release of “Primrose Hill” follows the release of “Beautiful,” which the pair of Beatles’ sons dropped in February 2024. The McCartney-Lennon collaboration songs are McCartney’s first new music since he dropped his second album in 2016. He released his full-length debut album, Me, in May 2013, which was co-produced by Paul and David Kahne. 

James McCartney’s music carries a unique blend of melodic pop and introspective lyrics, reviving the 60s style his father helped make so popular. It also echoes the folk-infused sound of artists like Ray LaMontagne and Damien Rice.

McCartney’s newer releases are distributed by earthprogram, an industry firm founded by A&R vets Jason & Joel T. Jordan, in a distribution and IP protection collaboration with Virgin Music.DMN profiled earthprogram earlier this year — and have now locked arms with the founders to showcase new releases. 

The industry incubator offers expert consulting and business development services for artists, labels, startups, and ‘green’ investors. For artists like McCartney, earthprogram aims to expand creative output and capture audience attention by collaborating and marketing across multiple platforms.

Jason told Digital Music News that his team’s expertise and extensive network of music industry partnerships places it in a unique position to market their artists.

The twins say they founded the business because they realized many artists are ‘green’ when it comes to the business side of the music industry. “Playlisting is not a marketing strategy,” Jason told Digital Music News recently. Musicians who put their entire album online at once ‘simply blew their investment’ Jordan adds, instead of building a story out over a year, forming the building blocks for a career in the industry.

“Circle Game” is the latest single from James McCartney, releasing today as a teaser for his upcoming EP set to release Fall 2024. McCartney’s version of the song beautifully complements the enchanting charm of Joni Mitchell’s original recording, while adding upbeat energy and an infectious joy.

James McCartney is an English-American multi-instrumentalist, prolific singer-songwriter. He has contributed to solo albums by his parents, including Flaming Pie and Driving Rain by Paul McCartney and Wide Prairie by Linda McCartney.

Photo Credit: Paul to my Linda / CC by 4.0

Morgan Wallen quietly changes management, launching a new firm with his longtime agent, Austin Neal. Wallen will be Sticks Management’s sole client, whom Neal will manage, alongside continuing to operate The Neal Agency.

Country star Morgan Wallen is making a big change in his management, quietly changing hands to Austin Neal, his longtime booking agent. Wallen and Neal are launching a new management company, Sticks Management, of which Wallen will be the sole client.

Wallen’s relationship with Seth England’s Big Loud Records will remain unchanged. Neal, England, and Wallen will continue to collaborate on all aspects of the country singer’s career. Likewise, Austin Neal will continue to operate The Neal Agency as usual, whose roster includes artists like Hardy, Ernest, Anne Wilson, Bailey Zimmerman, Nate Smith, Chase Rice, and more.

Meanwhile, Wallen’s former co-manager Kathleen Flaherty has also been named Executive Director of the Morgan Wallen Foundation, where she has served since 2022.

Morgan Wallen recently released his highly anticipated hit, “Lies, Lies, Lies,” and continues to tease new music hot on the heels of his historic collaboration with Post Malone, “I Had Some Help.” That track, which has been dubbed a song of the summer, has commanded Billboard’s Country Airplay chart for four weeks, the first song to lead for that long among the 15 singles that have debuted atop the chart this year.

The song is Wallen’s 13th Country Airplay No. 1, and Post Malone’s first. The latter begins his foray into country music with his first country album, F-1 Trillion, out August 16. That album’s second single, “Pour Me a Drink” featuring Blake Shelton, currently sits at No. 34 on the Country Airplay chart.

Interestingly, Wallen also holds the No. 2 spot on the Country Airplay chart with “Cowgirls” featuring Ernest, making him the first artist in the chart’s 34-year history to hold both the No. 1 and 2 spots simultaneously for three weeks. Luke Bryan held the top two spots for two weeks back in 2014, while Luke Combs landed them both for a week in September 2023.

Photo Credit: Raph PH / CC by 2.0

Miley Cyrus signs with CAA for representation in all areas after a four-year run with William Morris Endeavor.

Creative Artists Agency (CAA) has announced the signing of singer-songwriter and actress Miley Cyrus for representation in all areas. The move follows her four-year stint with William Morris Endeavor (WME) after having previously parted ways with CAA in 2020.

Cyrus’ return to CAA comes 15 years after she switched from UTA to CAA when she began to focus on her music career over her acting career. She parted with CAA and signed with WME in February 2020, which in turn saw her signing with Columbia Records and joining Crush Management in 2021. She is currently still represented by Crush and her attorney Bill Sobel at Laird and Sobel.

Her return to CAA follows the success of her eighth studio album, Endless Summer Vacation, which was released in March 2023. The project launched Miley Cyrus to the top of the charts with her phenomenally popular single, “Flowers,” which sat atop the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks, breaking Spotify’s record for most streams in a single week.

In February, “Flowers” won her two Grammy awards for Record of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance — her first wins at the event. The artist recently revealed she felt she hadn’t been taken seriously at the Grammys until her “Flowers” wins.

“No shade, but I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and this is my first time actually being taken seriously at the Grammys,” she said. “I’ve had a hard time figuring out what the measurement is there, because if we want to talk stats and numbers, then where the f—k was I? And if you want to talk, like, impact on culture, then where the f—k was I? This is not about arrogance; I am proud of myself.”

Cyrus recently made a cameo on Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter, joining her for the duet, “II Most Wanted.” Of the experience, Miley said she told Beyonce, “You know, between you being from Texas and me being from Tennessee, so much of us is going to be in this song.”

She had written the song two years prior and offered it to Beyonce when the latter contacted her about a collaboration. “When Beyonce reached out to me about music, I thought of it right away because it really encompasses our relationship.”

A live performance from the Black Keys, who have reportedly signed with Red Light Management following a much-publicized split from Irving Azoff, Steve Moir, and Full Stop Management. Photo Credit: Kenny Sun

Following a split from Full Stop Management’s Irving Azoff and Steve Moir – and the cancellation of a whole arena tour – the Black Keys have reportedly landed with Red Light Management.

The rock duo’s new management came to light in reports from outlets including Rolling Stone. At the time of this writing, though, the Black Keys themselves didn’t seem to have commented publicly on the matter.

Additionally, Red Light, which serves as the management home of the Kaiser Chiefs, Lionel Richie, and a number of others, didn’t look to have weighed in on the subject with a release. But logic suggests that a formal announcement will arrive sooner rather than later if the Ohio Players act is, in fact, part of Red Light.

Shifting the focus back to the present and what we do know about the situation, a representative for Azoff and Moir previously described the separation from the Black Keys as amicable.

However, the five-time Grammy winners don’t appear to feel the same way. Earlier in June, Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney in a since-deleted tweet claimed in firmer language that his band had gotten a raw deal.

And in a subsequent tweet, ultimately deleted but captured by Rolling Stone beforehand, Carney responded to a six-year-old post penned by Azoff. In that tweet, the Oak View Group co-founder Azoff, addressing non-disparagement clauses, is said to have advised artists that “it’s not disparagement if it’s true.”

“Thank you!” Carney reportedly responded. “This advice is very important for all musicians. So great you provided this for us all. It’s hard to speak up to the industry at times. So great to know you are always looking out for the artist. :)”

Those apparent hard feelings may well set the stage for public remarks about the ugly split down the line. Plus, there are, of course, two sides to every story; Azoff, who’s parted ways with Travis Scott and many other management clients during his decades in the industry, could comment at some point as well.

In any event, the Black Keys have already disclosed plans to hit the road and visit more “intimate” venues, and the duo’s documentary, This Is a Film About the Black Keys, is continuing to screen at festivals after premiering at SXSW in March.

Scooter Braun. Photo Credit: TechCrunch / CC by 2.0

Nearly one year after parting with clients including Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, and Idina Menzel, Scooter Braun has officially announced his retirement from management.

The 42-year-old, who became the sole CEO of Hybe America in January of 2023, confirmed his management exit in an all-image Instagram post. As noted, the Swifties nemesis appeared to step away from the space last year but, notwithstanding an abundance of related industry conversations, hadn’t commented on the matter at length until now.

“I have been blessed to have had a ‘Forrest Gump’-like life while witnessing and taking part in the journeys of some of the most extraordinarily talented people the world has ever seen,” the New York City native made clear. “I’m constantly pinching myself and asking ‘how did I get here?’ And after 23 years this chapter as a music manager has come to an end.”

From there, Braun dedicated a portion of the verbose message to underscoring his ongoing role at the BTS agency Hybe. Though he’s been part of the expansion-minded K-pop mainstay for some time, as mentioned, Braun indicated that he’d only decided to step out of the management arena last summer.

“Over the past two years I have been heading towards this destination, but it wasn’t until last summer that this new chapter became a reality,” Braun spelled out. “One of my biggest clients and friends told me that they wanted to spread their wings and go in a new direction.”

Among other things, Braun’s management retirement underscores the growing influence of Hybe and other leading K-pop players; the Universal Music-partnered Quality Control and Exile Music owner is continuing to try and bolster its presence on the global stage, which Braun emphasized as well.

While the exec cited a desire to spend more time with his family, the management development may also be indicative, at least in part, of the massive influence attributable to Taylor Swift’s diehard fanbase. Braun previously spoke out against Swifties’ responses amid his much-publicized dispute with the singer-songwriter. And predictably, today’s statement acknowledges “some hits” to the Hybe America head’s personal life and a period when he was “attacked.”

To put it mildly, that far-reaching fallout certainly didn’t help Braun’s public image or his management career. Nevertheless, the higher-up signaled that SB Projects is poised to keep on operating without his direct involvement.

Here are Scooter Braun’s complete remarks about retiring from managing artists.

“23 years. That’s how long I have been a music manager. 23 years ago a 19 year old kid started managing an artist named Cato in Atlanta, GA and my journey began. Along the way I have had so many experiences I could never have dreamt of.

I have been blessed to have had a ‘Forrest Gump’-like life while witnessing and taking part in the journeys of some of the most extraordinarily talented people the world has ever seen. I’m constantly pinching myself and asking ‘how did I get here?’ And after 23 years this chapter as a music manager has come to an end.

It’s a strange feeling because I think I have wanted this for a while, but I was truly afraid to answer the question ‘who would I be without them?’ I was really just 19 years old when I started. So for my entire adult life I played the role of an artist manager on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And for 20 years I loved it. It’s all I had known.

But as my children got older, and my personal life took some hits, I came to the realization that my kids were 3 superstars I wasn’t willing to lose. The sacrifices I was once willing to make I could no longer justify. It was time to step into a new role.

In this next chapter I have been honored to join as a board member of Hybe and serve as the CEO of Hybe America. My brilliant partner these past 3 years, [Hybe] Chairman Bang, has a vision I truly believe in. But even beyond that he has become a true friend who understands where I must be in my life these days. And that is a father first, a CEO second, and a manager no more.

Over the past 2 years I have been heading towards this destination, but it wasn’t until last summer that this new chapter became a reality. One of my biggest clients and friends told me that they wanted to spread their wings and go in a new direction. We had been through so much together over the last decade, but instead of being hurt I saw it as a sign.

You see, life doesn’t hand you YOUR plan, it hands you GOD’s plan. And God has been pushing me in this direction for some time. I have nothing but love for those I have worked with over the years, and as we develop a different working relationship, I will always be in their corner to consult and support them whether it be directly or from afar.

Every client I have had the privilege of working with has changed my life, and I know many of them are just beginning to see the success they deserve. I will cheer for every single one of them.

I have gotten to see my friend Andrew Watt win the Grammy for Producer of the year. I have laughed and cried as Lil Dicky truly became DAVE. I have witnessed an angel of a human Tori Kelly win Grammys and star in films. I have seen J Balvin live out his dreams of breaking boundaries, and Demi [Lovato] show kindness and grace that few megastars have. I have been moved as Zac Brown Band raised our flag and delivered the hits.

I was excited the first time I heard Animals with Martin Garrix, and learned a new world with David Guetta and Steve Angello. I have danced to Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe and smiled ear to ear as PSY brought us Gangnam Style. I have watched Quavo grow to be an entrepreneur, and served as Kanye’s ‘gateway drug to business’ as we had amazing years of success when I was once able to call him my friend.

I have marched with YG and flown to Australia with [The Kid] Laroi to see the hometown kid rock an arena. I have seen Dan + Shay go from local Nashville writers to sold out headliners and award winners. The list of artists goes on and on over 23 years. So many stories it would take me forever to name. From those first years with Asher Roth to watching my partner and brother Usher dominate the Super Bowl this year, it is truly overwhelming.

But it was this past Christmas Day when Ariana and Justin became the biggest male and female in the history of the Spotify Billions club that I just smiled and thought ‘what a ride.’ Justin and Ariana were both young teenagers when I began with them. Justin a 13 year old kid busking in Canada and Ariana a young actress on Nickelodeon. To see them both come up to be the legends they are today will forever be one of my greatest honors. As we change our working relationships now, I will continue to root for them with the same passion that I did at each of their humble beginnings.

I remember the pranks and the water park shows with Justin, and the first time Ari opened an arena tour and her excitement side stage, I remember as they both stepped up for others and I got to witness them each change the world and make history. There will never be a day where I don’t take great pride and honor in what we accomplished together. The same can be said for so many I have had the pleasure of once being called ‘manager’.

There has been a lot said about what is happening in our company… and in my career. When we had success I smiled, and when we were attacked I tried to always take the high road. But for the last 3 years I have begun to feel that taking the high road has created confusion and ambiguity as to who we are. I may have left my role in management, and my business relationship with many clients will alter and change, but this does not mean we as a company are leaving.

Both [SB Projects partner and president] Allison Kaye and [president of management] Jennifer McDaniels are more than capable to lead and as we combine new resources the opportunities with their leadership are endless. These two incredibly powerful women will now step into a role that I know will grow into the most impressive women-led management business our industry has ever seen. While my name may have been on the door all these years, the truth is there is no one as brilliant as Allison Kaye, and few who can manage with the grace and poise of Jen McDaniels.

We at Hybe will continue to grow. With the addition of QC to Hybe America and our existing business at Big Machine, we will continue to add amazing execs and artists to the roster. Our WeVerse platform and growing gaming unit is something the whole industry can celebrate and join. Getting the opportunity to A&R and Executive Produce the solo career of Jung Kook last summer, and work with the other members of BTS as we break worldwide records, has been an absolute honor.

With new acts like NewJeans, TXT, LE SSERAFIM, Seventeen, ILLIT, The Scarlet Opera, Ava Max, and many other new artists and ventures, the future is bright. I’m honored to join Chairman Bang and [Hybe CEO] Jiwon Park as we grow HYBE from the multi-billion dollar publicly traded company it is today to the worldwide multifaceted entertainment platform it is destined to be.

With Hybe going strong I am also looking forward to continuing to invest in a new generation of entrepreneurs and serve as a national board member of Make A Wish and help individuals and communities through our family’s Braun Foundation. Between all of this and coaching my kids I’m not worried about being busy : )

So yes, it’s been 23 years. And yes, this chapter has come to an end. But the great Berry Gordy once told me ‘young man, it never ends the way you wanted, but it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.’ That wisdom has proven to be correct. I never saw how this chapter would end, hell, I never even saw it happening. But it did. And I will cherish every moment of it. I made my plan… but it turns out I like God’s plan better. Cheers!”

The Black Keys, who have parted ways with managers Irving Azoff and Steve Moir. Photo Credit: Richard Abrahamson

Weeks following the cancellation of their North American arena tour, the Black Keys have officially split with managers Irving Azoff and Steve Moir.

Publications including the New York Times just recently shed light on the development, which arrived less than three years after the well-established rock duo inked with Azoff and Moir.

And that October of 2021 deal came to fruition in the wake of the Black Keys’ departure from the roster of Q Prime, where they’d long been managed by John Peets. According to its website, Q Prime continues to count as clients Eric Church, Cage the Elephant, Metallica, Muse, and a number of others.

Back to the Black Keys’ split with Azoff and Moir, the latter two individuals confirmed via a representative that they’d “‘amicably parted’” with the Ohio Players act. And while the Keys don’t appear to have publicly disclosed their exact management plans, the five-time Grammy-winning duo last month expressed a desire to rebook the nixed arena tour in more “intimate” venues.

Looking to the bigger picture, the Times and others are taking the opportunity to examine the possible commercial downturn that’s hitting certain components of the live music sphere. Besides the Black Keys’ tour-schedule shakeup, commercially prominent artists such as Jennifer Lopez and ultra-popular festivals like Coachella have reportedly grappled with slow ticket sales in 2024.

Notwithstanding Live Nation’s decidedly optimistic prediction that 2024 will mark yet another record year for its own operations, the mentioned sales slowdowns are raising questions about the trajectory of the broader live space.

As most know, live entertainment’s post-COVID surge delivered strong ticket sales for an array of events in 2022 and particularly 2023. Less widely known (and discussed), however, are the heightened operational costs that venues have been battling all the while, on top of the increased expenses associated with making festivals and concerts a reality on the promoter side.

Several artists have publicly discussed the matter, which, needless to say, is especially difficult for professionals without millions upon millions of rabid fans and ample promotional capabilities. Furthermore, a concerning number of venues are shuttering in the U.K. and elsewhere, with an abundance of festivals reportedly struggling as well.

In other words, for those artists, venues, and promoters not situated at the very top of the live sector, it’s been hard going for some time. That economic factors could be exasperating the difficulties at present – and, in another worrying sign, affecting the likes of Coachella and the Black Keys – is significant.

The points’ byproducts will be worth closely monitoring throughout 2024’s second half, as will the competition-related effects thereof. Equipped with no shortage of resources (but staring down a Justice Department antitrust lawsuit), Live Nation last year faced criticism from the National Independent Venue Association for allegedly attempting to “squeeze out independent venues.”

Photo Credit: Brian Message, Craig Jennings, Adam Driscoll, Don Jenkins / ATC / Raw Power Management

ATC Management announces a majority stake in Raw Power Management, with a roster including artists like Bring Me The Horizon, Bullet For My Valentine, and The Mars Volta.

London-based artist management firm ATC Management has acquired a majority stake in Raw Power Management, bringing together two of the leading artist management companies in the UK.

Under the new partnership, Raw Power’s UK team, including CEO Craig Jennings and commercial director Don Jenkins, will relocate to ATC Management’s HQ in London, while both companies’ Los Angeles-based operations will merge in the US.

Founded in 2006 by Craig Jennings, Raw Power Management represents rock artists like Bring Me The Horizon, Bullet For My Valentine, The Mars Volta, Don Broco, and The Damned.

“I am delighted to welcome the expertise and talent of Craig and the Raw Power team to ATC, along with their stellar roster of artists,” says ATC Group CEO Adam Driscoll. “At heart, our two companies have a common purpose — to support artists and empower them to achieve their creative and commercial goals. By coming together and combining forces, the capacity to deliver on those goals has increased substantially.”

“This is a significant milestone for ATC Management,” adds co-founder Brian Message. “Similar to Craig and the Raw Power team, ATC’s specialism is long-term talent development on a global scale — whether that’s breaking new acts or enabling iconic artists to continue pushing boundaries. There’s a mutual admiration of what each company has achieved in the past, and a real excitement of what we’ll achieve together in the future.”

As part of the independently owned ATC Group, which includes live booking agency ATC Live, merchandise company Sandbag, livestream business Driift, ATC Services, and ATC Experience, ATC Management represents over 60 artists, composers, and producers. Clients include Nick Cave, The Smile, PJ Harvey, Yaeji, The Hives, Sleaford Mods, Johnny Marr, Black Country, New Road, Kelela, Isobel Waller-Bridge, and Kwes.

Headquartered in London with operating offices in Los Angeles and New York, ATC Group has sought to strategically expand its range of services to artists and industry partners since listing on the Aquis Growth Market in 2021.

“For Raw Power, merging with ATC is very exciting,” Raw Power’s US president Matt Ash adds. “As two London-based companies with a well-established footprint in Los Angeles and a truly global outlook, we already share a strong crossover from a musical and commercial perspective. By coming together, we can now progress a wide range of new ideas that will add to the endeavors and ambitions of all our acts.”

“Along with Matt, Don, and the Raw Power team, I am delighted to begin a new era of the company with Adam, Brian, Craig, and everybody at ATC,” says Jennings. “It feels like we’re ready for ‘Raw Power Mark 2’ and this partnership fits perfectly with our ambitions for the company and our acts.”

“Both ATC and Raw Power value integrity, belief in the acts we look after, passion for the music, and doing everything for the benefit of our artists,” Jennings continues. “I have watched over the years as ATC have developed their artists on a global scale and have always had great admiration for the team and the way they go about things. This feels like a massive opportunity to take our artists to a whole new level. I feel that together we will be a powerhouse organization. It’s a very exciting time.”

What Is Radio in 2024? The question is surprisingly complex — so we assembled a panel for recognized radio experts to help pick it apart.

The result is a comprehensive discussion on the state of radio in all of its iterations, including broadcast, streaming, satellite, DSP-generated stations, AI DJs, car dashboards, and more. In this DMN Pro exclusive discussion, we pick apart radio’s reach, the format’s surprising competitive advantages, and where non-interactive listening is heading next.

We also had a few good laughs, with will.i.am keeping things light. Jump in!

DMN Pro subscribers only.

Panelists:

• Joel Denver | Founder, All Access Music Group
• RJ Curtis | Executive Director, CRB
• Mike Huppe | CEO of SoundExchange
• Rahul Sabnis | EVP, Chief Creative Officer, iHeartMedia
• will.i.am | Producer, Award-winning Artist, Technophile Futurist, Founder & CEO of FYI
• Lee Abrams | Commander, Lee Abrams MediaVisions
• Moderator – Paul Resnikoff | Publisher, Digital Music News

Photo Credit: Globalatino Music Partners

Gustavo Lopez has launched a new full-service independent music entertainment company—Globalatino Music Partners. The new venture will encompass label services, artist management, publishing, branding, distribution, acquisitions, touring, content creation, and strategic marketing.

Mr. Lopez is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the new company, which will leverage his team’s unprecedented track record to become the gold standard in supporting artists and their careers. As part of the venture, Lopez has acquired a majority stake in Cigol Music—the home of Colombian superstar Blessd. Carlos Núñez will serve as Partner and EVP of Cigol.

ReLo-Co Music is a new record label owned by Globalatino in association with Alejandro Reglero. Reglero will serve as Partner and CEO of ReLo-Co. Warner Music Latina has also entered into an arrangement with Globalatino for distribution and marketing services for selected artists. The deal launches with Blessd and DeMasters.

GUAU Talent Connect is a division of Globalatino that specializes in brand partnerships and is dedicated to connecting rising artists with top brands. Augusto Mendoza will lead this division.

Strat-Viz, another division of Globalatino, oversees all strategic marketing and content creation. This division will be led by Rodolfo Rodriguez.

TuStreams has also entered into a strategic partnership with Globalatino. The partnership will superserve up-and-coming acts with world-class specialized distribution and monetization with one of Latin Music’s preeminent independent content and distribution companies.

“Over the years, I’ve been privileged to work with some of the most important artists in Latin music, enjoying tremendous success in diverse genres from reggaeton to musica mexicana,” says Gustavo Lopez about the launch of the company. “Everything I’ve learned has now come together at Globalatino. At Globalatino we’re 100% dedicated to superserving our artists.”

“We have the executive team, the expertise, the relationships, and the funding to help artists accomplish their dreams—whether they need a strategic partner, a record label, management, distribution, publishing, branding, marketing, or all of the above—we are there for them.”

Photo Credit: Hudson Royal Management (Ian Rowe)

Media entrepreneur Ian Rowe has launched a boutique management company, Hudson Royal Management. Rowe is building on his experiences as a recording artist and then an artist manager, channeling his unique insights to capture talent from the global artist landscape.

The following comes from Hudson Royal Management, a company DMN is in collaboration with.

Hudson Royal Management focuses on creative development and brand partnerships, tapping into Rowe’s deep understanding of the industry’s global market. With a focus on the publishing side of the industry, Hudson Royal endeavors to ink clients who have written for other artists or are looking to build their own credits.

The outfit has already signed London-based dark-pop artist K RHEN, whose upbeat production and crafty lyricism are sure to make waves. The agency aims to find collaboration opportunities in sync, publishing, and social media—with a specific focus on producers and songwriters. Hudson Royal will help them build their fan bases across the worldwide market.

Ian’s career is defined by his astute understanding of the new media landscape and the impact digital platforms have had on society’s listening habits. From his A&R and management experience to his Sync Supervision role for the film Egghead and Twinkie, Rowe has consistently demonstrated his ability to create catchy yet thought-provoking soundscapes. His work with The Recording Academy and MGM/Amazon Studios honed his ability to intertwine the narratives of film, television, and music to build unique storylines for artists.

“At Hudson Royal Management, we’re not just building careers; we’re crafting narratives that resonate deeply with audiences worldwide,” Rowe told Digital Music News. “Our approach goes beyond conventional talent management—we’re dedicated to nurturing the producers and songwriters of the industry, fostering their unique talents, and bridging the gap between diverse musical landscapes and the global audience.”

Ian Rowe emphasizes that Hudson Royal’s mission is creating collaborative opportunities that showcase our artists’ talents and empower them to leave a lasting impact on the music industry and its listeners.

Photo Credit: Justin Higuchi / CC by 2.0

PPL signs singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi for international royalty collection — PPL’s first announced signing in 2024.

London-based PPL, which licenses the use of recorded music in the UK and collects neighboring rights royalties on behalf of performers and rightsholders worldwide, has announced its first signing of 2024 with Scottish singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi.

Capaldi will benefit from PPL’s network of over 110 agreements with collective management organizations (CMOs) internationally, as the company collects royalties on his behalf for the use of his music on radio, TV, and public spaces.

The news follows PPL’s recent announcement that it had paid out £18.8 million ($23.7 million) of international revenue in its Q1 distribution to over 22,000 performers and recording rights holders.

Lewis Capaldi is one of the UK’s most successful solo artists, and the first artist to sell out an arena tour before releasing an album. His debut, Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent, was the biggest album in the UK for two consecutive years.

In 2022, he was crowned the “King of Streaming” by the Official Charts Company when he overthrew Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” to become the UK’s most streamed song of all time.

“Lewis Capaldi stands out as one of the most accomplished and dedicated performers to come out of the UK in recent years. To have him choose PPL for the international collection of his neighboring rights income is a great way to end the first quarter,” said PPL Chief Membership and People Officer Kate Reilly. “We are committed to ensuring that the neighboring rights royalties he earns from the use of his records reflects the extensive global impact of his music.”

Capaldi’s manager, Ryan Walter, Managing Director of Interlude Artists, concluded: “We’re incredibly excited to be partnering with the brilliant team at PPL who consistently demonstrate exceptional dedication, care, and attention to detail across Neighboring Rights; it’s an honor to have the chance to work alongside them.”

Recently, Lewis Capaldi’s sense of humor and enduring popularity saw him score the highest number of views on TikTok of any UK artist in 2023. He also received a Grammy nomination for his Netflix film, How I’m Feeling Now.

Photo Credit: Smart Filters

How can you discover the next big music hit before it winds up on the radio and the Spotify Billions Club playlist? With 120,000 new tracks released on DSPs per day, it’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack. That’s why Chartmetric has its new ‘magnetic’ feature—Smart Filters powered by AI.

The following comes from Chartmetric, a company DMN is proud to be partnering with.

Chartmetric’s new Smart Filters quickly parse written prompts in 10+ languages into highly-customizable filters to make music discovery easier than ever. As a Premium Chartmetric user, you can now find out who is trending now on Spotify in the Afrobeats genre, or narrow your search to regional areas for booking and touring. Chartmetric’s highly customizable data filters are now more accessible than ever thanks to this feature.

“At Chartmetric, we have always challenged the status quo. Thanks to new technology, our innovation, our large database, and insights from our customers, we have taken the next leap in talent discovery.” – Akash Mukherjee, VP of Product Management.

How Chartmetric Smart Filters Work

Smart Filters make it easy to find new music acts in the discovery phase, before they’ve gone viral on TikTok or hit millions of Spotify streams. Finding these artists is as simple as typing the phrase ‘R&B artists trending on TikTok’ to search for R&B artists who have reached a certain metric that you define on TikTok.

Want to view developing talent under a million streams? Refine Chartmetric’s filters to a specific range and you’ll have narrowed the list from 50,000 artists down to around 5 to 10. The ability to sort through data using natural language processing changes the game for discovering new talent as its emerging.

At its core, Chartmetric’s Premium product combines a lot of unstructured metadata and analytical data from the music industry, and puts structure around it to aid decision analytics for artist & track discovery.

“Our Artist List has 10M artists and 100+ filters. That’s a lot of power for a lot of our advanced users. But with a lot of power, also came some complexity, specially for our less-technical users. Choice paralysis can be a pain. Today, we have taken that complexity away with Smart Filters, while retaining all the power,” continues Akash.

Smart Filters transform the artist discovery workflow for A&R, booking & touring, music supervisors and more by allowing a quick-scan of more than ten million artists across more than 100 data attributes. Chartmetric leverages AI and natural language processing to understand filtering instructions written in plain language:

• Afrobeats artists trending on TikTok
• Artists with 25% increase in streams on Spotify in Austin, TX
• Artists who released a song in the last 12 months
• Artists with small YouTube presence but skyrocketing Instagram engagement

With the search process of artist discovery simplified, it’s now easier than ever to see who is trending in which genres on a daily and weekly basis. Track their progress on social media like TikTok and Instagram and see how exposure there translates to more streams on Spotify and other digital streaming providers with Chartmetric.

YMU client Steve Aoki. Photo Credit: Collision Conf

YMU, the London-based talent agency behind Simon Cowell, Steve Aoki, and a number of others, has sold for a reported $76.18 million (£60 million).

40-year-old YMU’s reported sale came to light in a piece from Deadline; at the time of this writing, the agency itself, which has industry clients including Take That, Kacy Hill, and Lagos-born Kida Kudz, hadn’t issued a formal release about the ownership pivot. However, CEO Mary Bekhait confirmed and elaborated on the news in a lengthy LinkedIn post.

According to the mentioned report and post, London-headquartered Permira Credit scored the deal for YMU. Founded in 1985, Permira in August of 2023 became YMU’s majority shareholder following a restructuring and layoffs affecting about nine percent of employees, per a separate Deadline breakdown.

That development, which arrived after YMU’s less-than-ideal financial situation entered the media spotlight last summer, ushered in the rollout of a new parent company. Also in August of 2023, an entity called Yokozuna Newco Limited was incorporated with several YMU execs as directors, Companies House filings show.

Building on those points, Permira has now “taken full control” of Yokozuna, per Deadline, with a retooled “management incentive plan” reportedly in place at YMU. Said plan is expected to afford Bekhait and others equity stakes in the operation.

Shifting to the financial specifics of the play, Permira has reportedly converted $41.78 million (£32.9 million) worth of YMU debt into Yokozuna shares, canceled another $20.32 million (£16 million) in debt, and put up a fresh $12.70 million (£10 million) credit line for the agency. Meanwhile, Lloyds Banking Group has fronted a separate $20.32 million (£16 million) debt facility, per the noted outlet.

Bearing in mind this relatively large capital tranche, YMU, which named Twitter/X CEO Linda Yaccarino chair in February of 2023, is said to be exploring buyout opportunities at present. In a joint statement, Permira investment director Samuel Gross (a Kirkland & Ellis vet) and managing director Daniel Hatcher made clear plans to seize “growth opportunities ahead.”

“As longstanding partners with YMU Group,” the two communicated, “our decision to further our investment is rooted in our belief in the group’s unique position and potential. We look forward to a deepened relationship with management and supporting the group in seizing growth opportunities ahead.”

And in her LinkedIn post on the subject, Bekhait spelled out that her business has “been working behind the scenes for the last 6 months on some additions…which will further propel us in our core business areas.” Details are “coming soon,” the 12-year YMU head added, emphasizing for good measure that her company is “on the hunt for acquisitions.”

Sublime bassist Eric Wilson performing live. Photo Credit: Constantino14

A little over one month after levying a legal malpractice complaint against its former attorneys, Sublime is reportedly facing a firmly worded countersuit.

LA-based King, Holmes, Paterno, & Soriano (KHPS) just recently fired off the reported counteraction following the initial suit’s late-January submission. Filed against the music and entertainment law firm by parties including Sublime frontman Jakob Nowell (the son of deceased founding member Bradley Nowell), bassist Eric Wilson, and drummer Bud Gaugh, the complaint accuses the defendant entity and the involved attorneys of failing “in their ethical, fiduciary, and lawyerly obligations.”

In summary, the plaintiffs maintain that KHPS attorneys, behind “their façade as music industry power brokers,” opted to put their own financial interests before those of Sublime, allegedly spearheading related agreements and overlooking “conflicts galore” in the process.

Expanding on that point, the alleged “pattern of self-dealing” at hand is said to have seen KHPS represent both Sublime and “its one time manager Dave Kaplan…in the same transactions” while failing to disclose as much to the act. Moreover, KHPS “clearly favored” Kaplan in the negotiations, according to the legal text.

Once again per the filing parties, the firm directed the band towards a merch tie-up (as well as multiple extensions under the same “far less lucrative terms” than the open market would have provided) with a different of its clients, FEA Merchandising, in “another conflict of interest that was not properly disclosed and not properly waived.”

That alleged representation shortcoming ultimately resulted in an adjacent “loss of several millions of dollars” for the plaintiffs, the document shows.

(The dates associated with these and other purported occurrences are unclear; the plaintiffs are said to have initially discovered the alleged misconduct last April, and KHPS has allegedly refused to hand over Sublime’s “entire client file.”)

Finally, the Sublime plaintiffs’ qualms also include a production credit secured by KHPS partner Peter Paterno on a documentary about the band. The group says it didn’t ask Paterno to seek out the role, but the attorney allegedly “insisted on and obtained this producer title,” scoring a $30,000 fee and then billing Sublime “thousands upon thousands of dollars in legal bills for time spent negotiating,” according to the complaint.

Now, as mentioned at the outset, KHPS has reportedly fired back with a breach of contract countersuit, refuting the “Santeria” band’s allegations and demanding north of $108,000 in allegedly owed legal fees.

Per Billboard’s report, KHPS says it did in fact inform Sublime’s members of (and receive their approval regarding) any potential conflict of interest on the merch-deal front. Additionally, the filing is said to suggest that the victims pursued legal action due to the recommendations of their “predatory new advisors.”

At the time of this writing, Sublime, which appears to have joined the roster of Regime Management, didn’t look to have commented publicly on the countersuit.

Photo Credit: David “Odi” Wright

Singer-songwriter and producer Raphael Saadiq has signed with Tyler Childs at Forward Artist Management. Here’s the latest.

Saadiq has become a monumental force in popular music with his band Tony! Toni! Toné! Most recently, Saadiq co-wrote and produced both of Beyonce’s latest singles, “Texas Hold ‘Em,” which hit the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart and “16 Carriages.” Saadiq also won a Grammy last year for Best R&B Song for Beyonce’s “Cuff It”—a song he co-wrote and produced on Renaissance.

As a producer and writer, Saadiq has also worked for other superstar artists including Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, Usher, Erykah Badu, Mary J. Blige, Solange, and so many more.

As a solo artist, his latest endeavor is the album Jimmy Lee. Saadiq also co-wrote the Oscar-nominated song “Mighty River” from the film ‘Mudbound’ with Mary J. Blige and Tara Stinson. At the end of 2023, he revisited Tony! Toni! Toné for the first time in 25 years for a sold-out national theater tour. Raphael Saadiq is represented by Tim Mandelbaum of Fox Rothschild.

“Raphael is one-of-one. He’s been making history, creating some of the biggest musical moments of the last thirty years,” adds Tyler Childs. “He continues to write and rewrite the playbook on what an elite artist, producer, songwriter, and creative is. The entire FAM team is thrilled to support him and excited to get to work.”

Tyler Childs also manages RZA and The Wu-Tang Clan who launched their residency at the Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas earlier this month, with two more dates scheduled on March 22 & 23. More will be announced in the coming weeks. The Wu-Tang residency is a celebration of the 50th anniversary of hip-hop and was the brain child of RZA, who Childs has represented for 15 years.

Other artists managed by Forward Artist Management include Benjamin Booker, Tyler Cole, and Sarah Cothran. Tyler Childs previously served as Vice President of A&R/Creative at Sony ATV Music Publishing, working with a roster of A-list artists and songwriters. They include Ilsey Juber, Shawn Mendes, Mark Ronson, Miley Cyrus, Walk The Moon, Imagine Dragons, and Pitbull.

Photo Credit: H.E.R. / Apple Music

After a stunning performance at Super Bowl LVIII alongside Usher, H.E.R. has signed with Lighthouse Management + Media for management across all areas of her career.

The award-winning singer, songwriter, musician, and actress has been performing since she was young, singing the national anthem at a San Francisco 49ers game as a young girl. Known for her soulful voice and virtuosic musical talent, H.E.R. is set to embark on a new chapter in her career—underscoring her commitment to expanding her artistic reach and exploring new creative avenues.

H.E.R. has won five Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and an Emmy—all before age 26. She has released multiple critically acclaimed music projects, ranging from her debut EPs H.E.R. Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 to the full-length album, Back of My Mind. She’s also released an eclectic mix of featured singles with artists including Usher (“Risk It All”), Foo Fighters (“The Glass”), and others.

In December 2022, H.E.R. made her acting debut as Belle in ABC’s ‘Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration.’ In December 2023, she appeared as ‘Squeak’ in the musical film adaptation ‘The Color Purple.’

H.E.R. joins an impressive roster at Lighthouse Management = Media whose clients include Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, Selena Gomez, Gwyenth Paltrow, Olivia Rodrigo, paul Rudd, Mark Ruffalo, Petra Collins, Miranda Kerr, and many others.

She recently shared a photo of herself singing the national anthem at the 49ers game (pictured, left) with the caption, “In honor of niners at Super Bowl LVIII here’s me at 11 singing the national anthem at 49ers game. Let’s get it!” While the 49ers lost to the Chiefs 25-22 in a nail-biting overtime game—H.E.R.’s performance with Usher was definitely one to remember.

Following the show, she wrote “Can’t spell Usher without H.E.R. Halftime Show? Whaaaaaaat. And it was the greatest ever, thank you for your talent, your live, and for sharing this moment with me. Wow, I have no words.”

Photo Credit: Spotify

After settling multiple lawsuits with Dr. Luke that spanned nearly ten years, Kesha is parting ways with the producer and his label, Kemosabe. Here’s the latest.

The drawn-out lawsuits have played out over the last decade, finally drawing to a conclusion in June 2023. Now a report from Variety suggests Kesha’s entire relationship with Dr. Luke’s label Kemosabe ended last week, seven months after the release of her last contractual album.

“jack Rovner confirms, after 16 years, Kesha and Vector Management have agreed amicably to part ways, with much love and respect,” her manager also confirmed in a statement made to Variety.

“My manager has been an unwavering supporter of helping me get through the lengthy legal battle I have been embroiled in for almost a decade,” the singer commented. “We have achieved many great successes and have shared a magnificent part of my life with me. I am so grateful to them and always will be. In need of a fresh start in my life, we have parted ways but I will remain forever grateful for the run we had.”

The pop-star settled her long-standing legal battle with Dr. Luke after her accusation that he drugged and raped her. He alleges she made up the allegations to defame him. After the suit was settled, Kesha commented, “only God knows what happened that night.” No terms of the settlement were disclosed, but both parties revealed they agreed to the resolution of the case.

The not-so-quick settlement averted the case going to trial this summer over the allegations. Several music industry professionals gave sworn testimony or statements releated to the case including Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, P!nk, Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, Adam Levine, and Taio Cruz.

Kesha made a name for herself in 2009 with her hit, “TiK ToK,” which recently hit the one billion streams threshold on Spotify. That hit was produced by Dr. Luke.

Photo Credit: Emma Sheehan / CC by 2.0

Ariana Grande inks a new management deal with Brandon Creed’s Good World Management after parting ways with Scooter Braun.

Four months after sources confirmed that Ariana Grande had parted ways with her longtime manager Scooter Braun, the singer has signed a new management deal with Brandon Creed and his newly formed Good World Management firm. Creed previously managed Bruno Mars, Lizzo, and many others as a former partner of Braun and member of Irving and Jeffrey Azoff’s Full Stop Management. In July, Creed left Full Stop and launched Good World.

Grande, who hasn’t released major content since 2020’s “Positions,” has been busy working on her first major film appearance in an adaptation of the Broadway musical “Wicked,” due in November next year. “Positions” spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. She has had 20 top 10 hits, with seven of those reaching No. 1.

Creed’s launch of Good World Management over the summer also saw him bringing Charli XCX, Mark Ronson, and Troye Sivan with him. He’s since signed Fifth Harmony’s Normani, as well as former Braun client Demi Lovato.

In August, after Grande’s split from Braun became public, the singer received numerous inquiries from potential managers, but it took time to both sort out the legalities of the separation and plan her next move. And with the management situation sorted, it makes sense that new music will be on the way for Grande, who recently posted pictures on Instagram of herself in the studio.

“This is her choice. It’s time for something new,” sources close to the situation told Variety in August, confirming her contract negotiations were underway as she worked to exit Braun’s management. “(Grande and Braun) are friendly, but she’s outgrown him and is excited to go in a different direction.”

Braun had managed Grande since the beginning of her music career over a decade ago, aside from a several month period in 2017. Representation for Grande, Creed, and Braun have declined or not responded to media requests for comment.

Photo Credit: Mavi

Mavi, one of the most popular bands in Turkey, has signed a worldwide recording deal with Warner Music.

Warner Music has announced the signing of the popular Turkish band Mavi to a worldwide recording deal. Their new song, “Sen Ve Yıldız,” due to release in November, will be their first on Warner Music, with a version in English to follow.

Founded earlier this year by 19-year-old Mavi Solman following his solo success, the band also features Arda on drums, Denizcan on bass, and Oul on guitar. The group has already received critical acclaim for their music, which pays homage to the legacy sounds of the ‘80s, blending them with warm analog synths.

Mavi is set to travel to London to record more new music, with plans to release three songs, performed in Turkish and English, in the next few months. They have primarily played Mavi Solman’s solo hits across Turkey, winning over fans with electrifying live performance.

“We’re super excited about the journey ahead. Our music is simply good! Borderless, seductive, and liberating. We want to get under your skin, and for you to feel free and moved. We want to conquer everyone and want to be conquered by the love of everyone,” the band says. “In each step, we want to create and influence more. We’re hungry like a wolf to make and to share more music, and basically all we want is for YOU to crave for us in every turn. Stay tuned!”

“We’re ecstatic at joining forces with such a talented band, to have the privilege of sharing their remarkable work internationally, and uplifting them to create more of their musical magic all around the world,” adds Gülce Ünal, General Manager at Warner Music Turkey. “The road ahead of us is shining with borderless possibilities, and we can’t wait to show the world what Turkey has been going insane for.

Alfonso Perez-Soto, President of Emerging Markets at Warner Music, concludes: “When I first heard Mavi’s music, I was blown away. These guys convey genuine emotions through bold lyricism and extraordinary live performances. They’ve already taken Turkey by storm, and their upcoming English version of “Sen Ve Yıldız” will help them take their electrifying sound to more fans around the world.”

Photo Credit: Epidemic Sound (Jordin Sparks)

Epidemic Sound has announced it has signed Jordin Sparks to its roster in a new move for the music licensing company.

The deal includes creating and distributing a collection of classic Christmas songs that will release later this year, bringing the self-proclaimed ‘Queen of Christmas’ some much-needed competition. Sparks will also be working in collaboration with Epidemic Sound’s in-house team for A&R. Epidemic says it will amplify Sparks’ artistry on a global scale, making the tracks available to content creators and distributing them on DSPs.

Jordin Sparks is a Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum singer-songwriter and actress who rose to fame in 2007 after winning season six of American Idol. She became the youngest winner in the TV series’ history and has released singles “No Air,” “One Step At a Time,” “Tattoo,” and “Battlefield,” among other global hits. Sparks also co-wrote Ariana Grande’s single, “The Way,” earning her a BMI songwriting award.

“We are thrilled to announce this partnership with Jordin Sparks. Jordin is an extraordinary superstar who has significantly impacted the music industry,” adds John Cleary, Director of Music Recruitment & Music U.S. “Creators, filmmakers, marketers, and storytellers know the power of music in telling a compelling story, and they seek amazing music to elevate their content.”

“By collaborating with Jordin, Epidemic Sound can continue catering to content creators’ needs while simultaneously amplifying her artistry globally and unveiling her tracks to our global ecosystem of creators and international fanbase.”

“I’m excited for this new partnership with Epidemic Sound,” adds Jordin Sparks about the deal. “They have empowered artists to thrive commercially, creatively, and to reach new audiences. The freedom they give artists to choose their own path and work on different projects at the same time is unique and inspiring. I’m excited to join a roster of incredible artists and I’m looking forward to working with the Epidemic Sound team.”

Epidemic Sound has an innovative music licensing model, but it also gives artists the freedom to work under non-exclusive agreements for multiple projects.

Photo Credit: ThxSoMch’s Instagram

Talent, entertainment, and advisory company UTA has signed singer-songwriter ThxSoMch for worldwide representation in all areas.

Global talent, entertainment, sports, and advisory company UTA has signed Canadian singer-songwriter ThxSoMch for worldwide representation in all areas. The Toronto artist, currently signed to Elektra Records by way of WME, released his first song only last year, gaining a massive fanbase with his music’s post-punk aesthetic and his online presence.

With nearly a billion streams across DSPs, ThxSoMch’s music blends emo rap, indie rock, and post-punk revival, for an energetic style that resonates with listeners. His hit song, “Spit In My Face!” is certified platinum, having landed him the No. 9 spot on the US Billboard Hot Rock Songs Chart, No. 56 on the UK Singles Chart, and breaking into the Billboard Hot 100.

His debut EP, Sleez, released in May, showcases new songs alongside previously released singles since he first entered the scene in 2022. Earlier this year, ThxSoMch released his singles “Caroline,” “Hate,” and “Crumbled.” On September 21, the artist wrapped up a sold-out international club tour, including stops at Los Angeles’ The Echo and London’s Underworld.

Despite his widespread success in such a short time and an approachable online presence, the person behind ThxSoMch has maintained a level of anonymity, complementing the ambiance of his emo-tinged music. The artist, named Carter De Filippis, is in his early 20s and a Toronto native — beyond that, he has rapidly garnered attention for his art without revealing his personal identity.

UTA Music features a client roster ranging from rising hitmakers to timeless icons. Over the past several years, the music group has expanded into numerous areas, including brand partnerships, music crossover, and tour marketing. UTA works with a wide range of artists across all genres, such as 21 Savage, Anitta, Bad Bunny, Bebe Rexha, Burna Boy, Cardi B, Common, deadmau5, Florence & the Machine, Guns N’ Roses, Halsey, J Cole, Jason Derulo, Jimmy Eat World, Karol G, Kaskade, Latto, Lil Nas X, Lil Wayne, Lizzo, LL Cool J, Machine Gun Kelly, Marshmello, Muse, Paramore, Post Malone, Rosalía, The Jonas Brothers, The Kid Laroi, Toby Keith, Train, Young The Giant, and many more.

Photo Credit: Natalie Osborne, Nick Barnes, Marissa Smith, Fancy Hagood, Brian Hill, Lolo McClusky (Courtesy of UTA)

United Talent Agency (UTA) has announced it has signed singer-songwriter Fancy Hagood for worldwide representation in all areas—swiftly after signing Oliver Anthony.

Fancy Hagood hails from Bentonville, AR (home of Walmart) and first found success writing songs for stars like Christina Aguilera, Little Big Town, Rascal Flatts, and Anderson East. His debut album ‘Southern Curiosity’ was released in 2021 to widespread critical acclaim—earning him a nomination for ‘Best Country Record’ at The Libera Awards. Last year, Hagood released “Blue Dream Baby” featuring Kacey Musgraves.

Fancy has received support from iconic artists like Brandi Carlile, who called him an “artist to watch,” and Sir Elton John, who asked Fancy to appear as a guest on his Rocket Hour Radio Show. Fancy Hagood also hosts two Apple Radio shows—’Trailblazers’ and ‘Hallelujah Anyway.’

‘Trailblazers’ celebrates artists who have expanded the country music genre by breaking down barriers, while ‘Hallelujah Anyway’ explores the intersection between music and spirituality.

His music has resonated with listeners, earning Fancy Hagood more than 30 million streams across multiple listening platforms. “Southern Sound,” the first single off of his highly anticipated sophomore album was released on October 4. He is currently touring with the Brothers Osborne, opening for a handful of dates on their fall tour.

UTA Music aims to be at the forefront of culture with a client roster that ranges from timeless icons to rising hit makers. That rising hit makers category is especially interesting as it now includes Oliver Anthony, the singer behind the viral hit “Rich Men North of Richmond.” UTA also represents veteran country singer Jamey Johnson, who appeared with Anthony during his first rural gig. Other UTA Music clients include Lizzo, Post Malone, Paramore, Cardi B, Karol G, Lil Nas X, Muse, Halsey, Anitta, 21 Savage, Guns N’ Roses, and Burna Boy.

Photo Credit: Jay Mehta, Naushad Khan, Darshan Raval, Alfonso Perez Soto

Warner Music acquires Indian artist management company E-Positive and signs superstar Darshan Raval.

Warner Music has announced the acquisition of the Indian artist management and live events company E-Positive, further solidifying Warner Music India’s market-leading position. The deal will enable its artists to tap into new expertise in brand partnerships and live events.

E-Positive will continue to act as a standalone company led by founder and CEO Naushad Khan. A prominent figure in the live entertainment industry, Khan has built an unrivalled network of contacts while promoting over 15,000 shows. Since launching E-Positive, he has also been instrumental in managing the careers of a growing number of artists, including Darshan Raval, one of the top five most-streamed and fastest growing artists in the region.

“I’ve worked towards developing a legacy for over 10 years and carved the journey of each one of my artists. I’m delighted that we’ve found a new home at Warner Music India,” says Khan. “The team there will help us grow in the international market and will hep our artists connect with more fans from around the world. We’re looking forward to the next chapter of E-Positive.”

“Naushad has done an incredible job of positioning E-Positive as a leading management company, and his knowledge of brand partnerships and the live sector will be a great asset for us at Warner Music India,” adds Jay Mehta, Managing Director at Warner Music India. “It’s a privilege to welcome such a phenomenal artist as Darshan Raval into the global Warner Music family. Darshan is a true star, and we believe he can become a staple on the global stage.”

“This deal once again reinforces our desire to become the number one destination for artists in India, and welcoming an artist like Darshan onto our roster is a real statement of intent. Darshan, as well as the whole of the E-Positive roster, will be able to harness Warner Music’s global network and start to connect with a wider international audience,” concluded Alfonso Perez Soto, President of Emerging Markets at Warner Music.

“(The acquisition) helps us to level up and enhance our 360 offering to artists by bringing in the knowledge and expertise of Naushad to Warner Music. Our improved suite of services will enable our artists to transcend the whole of India and help bring Indian culture to the rest of the world.”

In the past 12 months, Darshan Raval’s daily streams have quadrupled, with over 9 billion streams altogether. He has 43 million monthly listeners on DSPs and 17 million Instagram followers. Raval is renowned for his ability to blend different styles, having released songs in languages including Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, and Bengali.

Warner Music Group and HuManagement execs including WMG president of emerging markets Alfonso Perez-Soto (center). Photo Credit: WMG

Amid continued growth throughout MENA’s music market and broader entertainment space, Warner Music Group (WMG) has invested in Dubai-based talent agency HuManagement.

The major label revealed its “strategic investment” in HuManagement today, after purchasing Dubai-headquartered distributor Qanawat Music in 2022 and debuting a joint-venture label with Five Hotel and Resorts (which likewise operates out of Dubai) earlier in 2023.

While Warner Music opted against disclosing the exact financial and ownership details of its HuManagement investment – the Big Three label also possesses a substantial interest in Rotana Music, it’s worth noting – execs did tout the agency’s regional reach. (HuManagement co-founder Hady Hajjar was for more than 12 years marketing director for the overarching Rotana, whereas fellow co-founder Tarek Abou Jaoude is a veteran music manager.)

With a “distinguished” client roster of more than 300 individuals, HuManagement is said to serve as the professional home of the Middle East’s “most sought-after artists.” To date, HuManagement has scouted two acts, Riyadh-born singer Dalia Mubarak and Beirut-born vocalist and personality Maya Diab, who were subsequently signed by Warner Music, the businesses noted.

Now, as part of the underlying WMG-HuManagement investment deal, the companies have finalized “a long-term A&R scouting agreement” to identify and sign other talent in the region, with the potential, of course, to market these artists through Warner Music’s “expansive global network.”

On the other side of the equation, WMG’s roster (including international acts) will benefit from the agency’s local marketing and branding initiatives, the entities drove home.

In a statement, Warner Music Middle East general manager Ahmed Nureni emphasized the perceived opportunity to discover “many more potential superstars” via the HuManagement tie-up.

“HuManagement has an incredible relationship with the Middle East’s most exciting artists and through this partnership we will have access to them early on in their careers,” relayed the longtime Qanawat exec Nureni. “We’ve already enjoyed success with Dalia and Maya, and we believe there are many more potential superstars we can identify through this collaboration.”

Predictably, Warner Music isn’t the only music company that’s working to capitalize upon MENA’s well-documented industry growth. Universal Music Group closed out August by scooping up Dubai-headquartered marketing and distribution agency Chabaka Music, for instance.

Meanwhile, the for-profit BMI and Music Nation are coordinating on a “world-class performing rights infrastructure” in the United Arab Emirates, and the government of Saudi Arabia is continuing to invest billions in the development of its domestic music market.

Photo Credit: Don Diablo / MTArt Agency

Don Diablo, renowned artist and music producer, has signed with MTArt Agency for global representation in his visual art career.

Leading art sector talent agency MTArt Agency has announced the signing of Don Diablo, the globally acclaimed Dutch artist, to their roster. The partnership will further Diablo’s work in the art world and increase his exposure to collectors, public audiences, and brands.

A creative pioneer and musician with a robust social media presence, Don Diablo’s distinctive style fuses music, visual art, and technology, garnering widespread international acclaim and earning him numerous accolades. In 2021, his debut works achieved top sales at Sotheby’s, Pace Gallery, and SuperRare Gallery. Referred to as the DutchMan, Diablo has also designed clothing items for global IPs, including Star Wars and Stranger Things.

“At MTArt Agency, we are constantly looking to nurture exceptional artists who redefine art for the modern world,” says Marine Tanguy, MTArt Agency’s founder and CEO. “Don Diablo is a pioneer in his field and represents a developing genre of visual artist who merges the art and entertainment worlds. We can’t wait to partner with him to see what he does next.”

“I am thrilled to join MTArt’s team this year; we found that our vision, our commitment, and passion for art and creativity is especially aligned and I can’t wait to see the great projects that will unfold as a result of this alliance,” adds Don Diablo.

“Since 2019, I have been investing more and more time in developing my art career, and joining MTArt feels like the right step towards establishing my presence in the art world. The future looks bright!”

The new partnership will develop the latest chapter in Don Diablo’s career. Diablo has previously collaborated with several renowned art world figures, including Drift with whom he debuted an aerial drone performance, “Social Sacrifice,” during the opening of the Venice Biennale 2021, as well as creating a physical-meets-digital work titled “Block Universe” that debuted and sold during Miami Art Basel. His most recent project with Sotheby’s, “HΞXAVΞRSΞ,” a physical-meets-digital portal to the Metaverse, was publicly displayed between 2022 and 2023 in collaboration with K11 in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Photo Credit: Frank Schwichtenberg / CC by 4.0

Following her split with former manager Scooter Braun, it seems Demi Lovato has landed with Brandon Creed for management.

Variety is reporting that a rep for the singer has confirmed she has signed with Good World Management. The news of the signing was first suggested as a rumor by Hits among broader rumors about Scooter Braun. Digital Music News reported on the departures of Demi Lovato, Ariana Grande, and Idina Menzel earlier this year. CAA still reps Lovato, while Rob Cohen at Carroll Guido Groffman Cohen Bar Karalian handles legal.

Brandon Creed was Bruno Mars’ manager and is riding the success of the Barbie movie soundtrack—which he co-produced. Good World artist Charli XCX also features on the soundtrack. Meanwhile, Lovato is prepping the drop of her next album, ‘Revamped,’ which consists of re-recorded rock versions of her hits.

“With ‘Revamped,’ I wanted to pay homage to the songs that resonated the most with fans and played a big role in my career by breathing an exciting new life into them,” Lovato said about the album in a press release. “Creating this project has been incredibly fun and allowed me to express my passion for rock music in a new way—I can’t wait for everyone to hear more!”

The new album is expected to drop on September 15. Lovato has released three songs from the album so far including “Heart Attack (Rock Version” on March 24, “Cool for the Summer (Rock Version)” on May 25, and “Sorry Not Sorry (Rock Version)” on July 14. Here’s a peek at the rest of the tracklist for this upcoming album:

1. “Heart Attack” (Rock Version)
2. “Confident” (Rock Version)
3. “Sorry Not Sorry” (Rock Version) ft. Slash
4. “Cool for the Summer” (Rock Version)
5. “Tell Me You Love Me” (Rock Version)
6. “Neon Lights” (Rock Version) ft. The Maine
7. “Skyscraper” (Rock Version)
8. “La La Land” (Rock Version) ft. Nita Strauss
9. “Give Your Heart A Break” (Rock Version) by Demi Lovato & Bert McCracken
10. “Don’t Forget” (Rock Version)

Photo Credit: Emma Sheehan / CC by 2.0

Despite claims to the contrary from Team Scooter, more sources point to Ariana Grande’s split from Scooter Braun and HYBE.

Ariana Grande has bid farewell to Scooter Braun’s SB Projects and HYBE, sources close to the situation have confirmed to Billboard and Variety. The news first broke last week as part of the sudden mass exodus from Scooter’s management, which includes Demi Lovato and Idina Menzel — but sources from the Braun camp have refuted those claims as they pertain to Grande. Insiders have since doubled down on their alleged truth.

“Scooter’s team is spinning the story. Ariana is leaving both Scooter and HYBE. There is absolutely no truth to her staying,” said a source in a statement, noting that the singer unfollowed Braun on social media earlier this week.

Sources close to Grande have said she has been planning to part with Braun on “friendly terms” and is “excited to go in a different direction.” Reports indicate that her decision to leave is driven by her having “outgrown him” rather than any distractions arising from Braun’s new obligations as HYBE America’s CEO.

Ariana Grande has been with Scooter Braun’s SB Projects since 2013 when she released her debut album, “Yours Truly.” The star recently released the 10th-anniversary deluxe digital edition of the album, featuring new live recordings of songs like “Honeymoon Avenue” and “Daydreamin’.” Currently, she is involved in a film adaptation of the musical “Wicked,” which Universal has been hoping to adapt to film since 2012.

Rumors continue to circulate that Braun’s other longtime client, Justin Bieber, is actively seeking to exit his relationship with SB Projects despite another four years remaining in his contract. Sources close to the Scooter camp have vehemently denied those claims; sources on the Bieber side have told Billboard that the star is looking for ways to terminate his contract with Braun with the help of his new music lawyer, David Lande.

Photo Credit: Jason Deramo / WME

WME acquires True Grit Talent Agency, furthering its presence in Texas with a roster including Cody Jinks, Charles Wesley Godwin, Whitey Morgan, Ward Davis, and Dexter and the Moonrocks.

WME has announced the acquisition of True Grit, a talent agency based in Austin with a roster including Cody Jinks (pictured), Dexter and the Moonrocks, Whitey Morgan, Charles Wesley Godwin, and Ward Davis.

Additionally, True Grit agents Mike Krug, Carrie Creasey, and Shelby Vanek have joined WME and will continue to work out of Austin. Arthur Penhallow continues as True Grit Management with clients including Charles Wesley Godwin, Whitey Morgan, Erin Viancourt, and Coleman Jennings.

Mike Krug’s clientele includes Cody Jinks, Dexter and the Moonrocks, and Whitey Morgan and the 78s. Krug’s assistant, Lair Reina, has also joined WME. Vanek’s roster includes Ward Davis, Bart Crow, and Charles Wesley Godwin, while Creasey brings client Mitchell Ferguson.

“We are very excited that what we do caught the eye of a company like WME,” says Krug. “We are proud of all we have built here in Austin and know that joining WME will create exponentially more opportunities for our clients.”

“We’ve long admired the business and roster that True Grit has developed, and we are excited to bring their artists and the team into the WME family and expand WME’s footprint in Austin,” adds Jay Williams, WME Partner and Nashville office co-head.

WME’s acquisitions of Red 11 and True Grit this year have expanded the agency’s presence in Texas and the American Roots music genre. Other 2023 highlights include WME’s representation at top country music festivals, including all three headliners at Stagecoach — Luke Bryan, Kane Brown, and Chris Stapleton — and clients winning the most categories at the Academy of Country Music (ACM) and Country Music Association (CMA) Awards multiple successive years. WME clients represented over 60% of all headliners at country music festivals in 2022.

Photo Credit: TechCrunch / CC by 2.0

The exodus of talent from manager Scooter Braun has left the exec joking he no longer manages himself. But what is actually going on?

Scooter Braun’s noted beef with Taylor Swift was the subject of much debate on social media—and this latest exodus seems to be filling the same space. It has left casual observers wondering if there is something going on behind the scenes or if noted talents Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, and Idina Menzel have found greener pastures beyond the Braun corral. So what’s up?

According to industry scuttlebutt, Braun says he’s taking a step back from the day-to-day management of artists to focus on being CEO of HYBE America. According to that rumor, clients like Ariana Grande and Bieber aren’t leaving as Braun shifts his responsibilities. However one particular Variety report contains a juicy bit of info that might lend some insight into the situation.

“He’s imploding,” one source told the outlet. “It’s a different world since the pandemic. You just can’t be an asshole like that anymore,” this person is quoted as saying. They’re also cited as saying ‘unsavory relations’ about Braun may come to light—though that particular tea hasn’t spilled yet.

Social media is full of speculation of what could cause so much talent to leave. Others took to making a meme out of no longer being managed by Scoot, with some choice chuckles to be had below.

“The dancing old man Six Flags guy has parted ways with Scooter Braun and is no longer managed by him,” tweeted one person following the news. With so much talent departing, where does that put Justin Bieber? Bieber’s representatives have denied that the artist is dumping Braun, but the story seems to be different behind the scenes.

“Justin’s been working on his new record for the last six months. Scooter and SB Projects have not set up one session or done one thing for this record. The relationship with Scooter has run its course,” an insider told People, adding that Bieber hadn’t spoken with Braun personally in more than a year.

Idina Menzel, who’s reportedly no longer a management client of Scooter Braun. Photo Credit: Ted Eytan

When it rains, it pours: Idina Menzel has reportedly become the latest individual to cut professional ties with power-manager Scooter Braun.

Word of Menzel’s reported exit from Braun’s management roster came to light in a piece from the Hollywood Reporter, which cited an anonymous source with knowledge of the matter. At the time of writing, though, neither the Hybe America CEO Braun nor the Broadway vet Menzel had commented publicly on the rumored split, which is said to have occurred back in January.

(Notwithstanding the lack of a response to the headlines involving Menzel, Braun this afternoon addressed the influx of reported departures, writing on Twitter/X: “Breaking news… I’m no longer managing myself.”)

But the Drama Queen act Menzel had signed with Scooter Braun Projects in 2019, and once again at the time of writing, she was listed as a music client on the appropriate website. However, so too were Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato, both of whom only recently stepped away from Team Braun, according to reports.

(As another pertinent aside, TMZ today refuted said reports of the Grande-SB Projects split, indicating instead that Braun has been negotiating retooled pacts with clients as he dedicates a growing amount of time to his aforementioned role with BTS agency Hybe.)

Additionally, J Balvin remained part of the same SB Projects artist page despite having reportedly jumped ship for Roc Nation in May. And even with the high-profile reported exodus, the Taylor Swift nemesis Braun still reps commercially prominent acts including Ava Max, the Black Eyed Peas, David Guetta, Quavo, and Justin Bieber, to name some.

On the latter front, different rumors yet have suggested an imminent Braun-Bieber separation, but neither party has confirmed as much. Plus, the previously noted article from TMZ – which, incidentally, has covered multiple non-gossip industry topics on the year – claimed that the longstanding business relationship between Braun and Bieber is going strong.

Nevertheless, SB Projects has been attempting to hammer out new agreements with Grande and Bieber “for several months” amid Braun’s pivot towards Hybe, per TMZ. The involved parties are said to be working to determine “what the new structure will look like.”

Of course, it’s unclear whether this positive assessment of the situation is accurate, especially given the timing of the reported SB Projects talent exits. Braun sold Ithaca Holdings to Hybe as part of an over $1 billion deal in April of 2021 and became the sole CEO of the Quality Control owner’s U.S. division in January of 2023.

Photo Credit: Batud / CC by 2.0

Ariana Grande is parting ways with manager Scooter Braun after reports surfaced that Demi Lovato was doing the same.

Rumors surfaced last month that singer Demi Lovato would be parting ways with manager Scooter Braun, with whom the singer signed in 2019. That report was confirmed Monday alongside the news that Ariana Grande, who signed with SB Projects in 2013, was also seeking new management.

Lovato was signed with Phil McIntyre of PhilyMack before her 2019 signing with Braun’s SB Projects. A source close to the situation says it was “time for Lovato to go in a new direction,” although she is “thankful for her time with SB Projects.” Conversations are ongoing, though she has yet to secure new management.

Since signing with Scooter Braun, Demi Lovato released two albums: 2021’s “Dancing with the Devil… the Art of Starting Over,” which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, and last year’s “Holy Fvck,” which hit No. 7. Lovato has charted 36 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart since the start of her career in 2008, four of which reached the Top 10. All eight of her studio albums have debuted within the Billboard 200’s Top 10, with “Here We Go Again” debuting at No. 1 in 2009.

Ariana Grande, who has spent the entirety of her post-Nickelodeon career signed with Braun, has released six albums — all but one of which has been a No. 1 hit on the Billboard 200. Grande is currently gearing up for the tenth anniversary of her debut album, “Yours Truly,” which will feature the release of a deluxe digital version of the album on August 25, along with newly-recorded live performances of “Honeymoon Avenue” and “Daydreamin’.”

Grande’s other upcoming projects include a starring role in the two-part film adaptation of the musical “Wicked,” the first part of which is scheduled for release in November 2024.

SB Project’s roster still includes longtime client and superstar Justin Bieber, who reportedly wanted to leave SB following rumors on Friday (August 18). However, representation for Bieber and Braun have told the press that the “rumors are not true.” J Balvin also signed with Braun in 2019 but left in May this year to be managed by Roc Nation.

Photo Credit: CAA

Creative Artists Agency is prepping a round of layoffs to reduce staff numbers as the Hollywood strikes wear on.

According to reports, around 60 people will be impacted across the agency. Layoffs are targeted for August 15, but could happen any time within the next few days as the news makes its rounds, sources report. Staff reductions are aimed at trimming each department and come around 18 months after the CAA acquisition of ICM Partners. ICM agents were given one-year CAA contracts at the time of the merger.

Sources say these cuts are not related to the acquisition and ICM agents were not targeted anymore than CAA agents. CAA has diversified its representation beyond just film and TV to include sports, music/touring, books, and other departments not impacted by the ongoing strikes. The company is estimated to have around 3,200 employees working across 25 countries.

The move comes as French billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault is said to be interested in acquiring a majority stake in the talent agency. “The talent agency, backed by private equity firm TPG, could fetch a valuation of at least $7 billion,” sources told Fortune when the deal came to light earlier this year.

CAA offers talent management services similar to rivals WME and United Talent Agency, backed by funds managed by a private equity firm. TPG acquired a 35% stake in CAA in 2010 before boosting its ownership to 53% in 2014 to take control of the business at a $1.1 billion valuation.

The Pinault deal would see the French billionaire expanding his reach beyond the luxury businesses that made them rich. Pinault is the biggest shareholder in Kering SA—owner of brands like Gucci and Bottega Veneta. Pinault’s holding company Artemis also grants them control of assets like the Christie’s auction house and the Chateau Latour Bordeaux vineyard. Adding the behemoth talent agency to the list of assets is just one small checkmark for Pinault.

Photo Credit: Ronald Woan / CC by 2.0

Taylor Swift promotes a high-powered attorney to be general counsel of 13 Management in a rare staffing change to her closely-guarded Nashville-based company.

Taylor Swift is promoting attorney Douglas Baldridge, a partner at Washington, D.C. law firm Venable, to be the new general counsel of her 13 Management company, replacing Jay Schaudies, who is retiring. This shift in staffing is rare for the popstar’s closely-guarded company, run partly by her parents, including her father, Scott Swift, a broker.

The 33-year-old singer-songwriter is known for keeping her circle tight and her business close. Swift typically takes an active role in her business activities rather than delegating them, such as not using a booking agent for the U.S. leg of her continuing Eras Tour.

Baldridge is a veteran commercial litigator and serves as outside counsel for Swift, successfully representing her in a highly-publicized sexual harassment trial against an on-air radio personality in 2017. He also defended her against trademark infringement and dilution claims in 2015, when Swift settled a legal disagreement out of court with clothing company Blue Sphere.

A one-time chair of Venable’s Washington litigation group, Baldridge has represented major US corporations in the pharmaceutical, technology, and consumer products industries, as well as entertainers and real-estate developers. He is expected to complete his tenure with Venable in the coming weeks as he transitions to Swift’s team full-time.

Swift’s 13 Management handles much of her business independently, but this change in staffing does not mean the star is bringing her entire legal team in-house. Swift will retain the services of Venable, according to a person directly familiar with the matter. Venable’s music clientele has also included Snoop Dogg and Barry Manilow.

Taylor Swift also continues to work with well-known music industry attorney Donald Passman of Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman, who is the author of the book, “All You Need to Know About the Music Business.”

What about the rest of Venable?

Taylor Swift has repeatedly turned to Venable to handle legal disputes for her—most recently in attempting to stop her plane’s movements from being tracked. Venable also handled her U.S. trademark application filed January 27 by Swift’s TAS Rights Management LLC for TAYLOR-CON, a fan convention thrown in Dallas by Taylor Swift fans. The trademark is for merchandise for the festival including candles, kitchenware, jewelry, towels, and more.

Venable is a 750-lawyer firm that advertises itself as empowering clients “to be the best version of yourself in any circumstance.” Swift tapped Baldridge in 2014 when he was still a partner at the firm to represent her trademark lawsuit vs. clothing company Blue Sphere. With Baldrige now under the 13 Management umbrella, Venable’s Katherine Write Morrone dealt with the jet tracking issue.

Wright Morrone drafted a letter on December 22 to college student Jack Sweeney threatening legal action if he did not stop tracking Swift’s private jets. “You have engaged in stalking and harassing behavior, including consistently publishing real-time and precise information about our client’s location, the letter reads.

Meanwhile, Rebecca Liebowitz, Co-Chair of Venable’s Trademark Prosecution and Brand Management Group, is the signatory to the trademark application filed in January 2024 by TAS Rights Management. Venable is a general practice firm based in Baltimore and Washington that pulled in $723.6 million in gross revenue for 2022. It specializes in issues such as intellectual property, real estate, wealth management, and other areas of expertise demanded by high-net-worth individuals.

In the ‘90s, rock was rock, hip-hop was hip-hop, and never the twain did meet. Then, at the turn of the century, a 73-minute, genre-bending bomb exploded onto the music scene, shattering notions about the limits of creativity and collaboration. Uneasy Listening, Vol. I, a joint record from like-minded DJs P and Z-Trip, broke genre conventions by mixing rock ‘n’ roll mainstays like Rush and Pat Benatar with dance and hip-hop cuts from Madonna, Redman, and The Pharcyde.

The following comes from Crewest Studio, a company DMN is proud to be partnering with.

Welcome to The Conduit, a podcast featuring candid conversations with professional musicians who give listeners the unvarnished truth about being an artist in the music industry. In today’s episode, host and LA-based DJ, producer, and musician Dan Ubick (aka Constantine “Connie” Price) sits down with Zach Sciacca (better known as DJ Z-Trip) to discuss the musician’s pioneering work as a key player in the mash-ups movement.

“It wasn’t like I set out to become a DJ,” says Z-Trip, whose Uneasy Listening arrived on the scene in 2001, just as samples, remixes, and mashups were gaining credibility as a valid form of self-expression. “It was very much about me having this music and wanting to share it,” he continues. “Once I realized that I could put it together and I could expose people to the things that I liked, the DJ thing came into play.”

Widely known as both the godfather of mashups and “America’s Best DJ,” an award he received in 2009 from the DJ Times, Z-Trip is also renowned for his technical abilities and production skills. Over the years, he’s collaborated with innovative artists like Nas, Beck, Public Enemy, and DJ Shadow, remixing songs from artists as varied as Bob Marley and the Butthole Surfers. In his interview, Z-Trip shares the brightest pearls of wisdom he’s pocketed along the way: “One thing I learned through the arc of my whole career is take chances,” he says. “Be risky, try to push boundaries. Don’t always play it safe. There’s a time to play it safe, there’s a time to lock in.”

Z-Trip also touches on his favorite genre-bending tracks (see Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock”), why creative consistency trumps big milestones, and how to find like-minded artists traveling a similar career path. His advice to aspiring DJs? “Every gig, go into it like it’s your first [and last],” he says, adding, “put your heart and fucking soul into it because you never know who’s watching.”

CAA, which reps John Mayer (pictured) and many others, is reportedly in advanced talks to sell to Kering’s François-Henri Pinault. Photo Credit: Thatcommonkid

A little over one year after closing its reportedly $750 million acquisition of ICM Partners, Creative Artists Agency (CAA) itself is reportedly in “advanced” talks to sell a majority stake to French billionaire François-Henri Pinault.

Word of CAA’s rumored sale just recently entered the media spotlight in a Bloomberg report, though predictably, neither the agency nor the Groupe Artémis president and Kering head Pinault appeared to have commented publicly on the matter at the time of this writing.

Despite the fact that media last year assigned an estimated $5 billion enterprise value to the combined ICM-CAA entity, Bloomberg has attached a valuation of “at least $7 billion” to CAA in connection with the present talks. Needless to say, time will tell whether the deal actually closes (and which price tag it brings with it).

But the same outlet, citing an anonymous source, went ahead and drove home that the discussions “could still end without an agreement.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Kering made clear that the reported talks hadn’t involved the luxury-goods company (and Gucci parent). Separately, the sale rumors have of course arrived amid well-documented writer and actor strikes in Hollywood. (Pinault’s married to actress Salma Hayek, who’s reportedly part of the CAA roster.)

Beyond the silver screen, however, the Primary Wave stakeholder CAA represents a number of high-profile artists – among them Beyoncé, The Weeknd, Ariana Grande, John Mayer, and even virtual acts. Fort Worth-based TPG (which backed lyrics platform Musixmatch one year ago) owns 53 percent of CAA, having last invested in the company, at a $1.1 billion valuation, in 2014, per Reuters.

More broadly, CAA’s sale would mark the latest in a series of shakeups in the talent sphere. Laid-off Paradigm agents went ahead and established their own operation, TBA, for instance, and the relatively new firm now counts as clients CHVRCHES, English Teacher, feeble little horse, and The Beths, to name a few.

(Paradigm subsequently cashed out of its live music touring division altogether; the unit was purchased and then rebranded as Wasserman Music in April of 2021. April of 2022 brought Wasserman’s buyout of Paradigm UK’s music-representation business.)

Additionally, UTA – a substantial portion of which belongs to private equity firm EQT – has finalized multiple acquisitions of its own, including deals for Echo Location and MediaLink. BMG has been quietly broadening its presence on the management side, and most recently, WME in April scooped up Red 11 Music.

Photo Credit: Nexoom

Sony Music Latin has partnered with Switzerland’s Nexoom AG to extend business and sponsorship opportunities for ‘Tier 1 Artists’ in the US Latin region.

Swiss-based interactive entertainment company Nexoom AG has secured a partnership with Sony Music Latin. This collaboration will extend business and sponsorship opportunities for Sony Music’s “Tier 1 Artists” in the US Latin region.

The collaboration focuses on unlocking unparalleled value for Sony’s artists and their fans, tapping into Nexoom’s innovations and digital ecosystem to offer unique experiences. The companies view the deal as more than just a business agreement — “a commitment to a long-term partnership based on mutual growth and shared values of innovation, excellence, and artist empowerment.”

“This partnership marks a monumental step forward for Nexoom and Sony Music Entertainment into the new era of interactive entertainment,” says Cristina Niculae, Nexoom CEO. “By leveraging our combined resources and shared vision, we will amplify the voice of incredible artists and enable distinctive opportunities for Sony Music Latin.”

“We are not just signing a contract; we are building a bridge,” Niculae continues. “This alliance signifies a bold step towards our vision for the future of entertainment, where technology and talent coalesce into something truly exceptional.”

“We are very excited to work with Nexoom in bringing initiatives that reflect our commitment to integrating music and lifestyle, offering fans unique experiences beyond the music,” adds Alex Gallardo, President of Sony Music US Latin.

A strategic digital entertainment company, Nexoom is dedicated to revolutionizing how people experience music, video, and other forms of digital entertainment. Nexoom seeks to create immersive experiences through innovative technology and strategic partnerships that bring artists and audiences closer together.

Sony Music US Latin is the top Latin music label in the world and home to the most prolific Latin artists, from rising and independent artists to global superstars. As a full-service record label, the company prides itself on its comprehensive artist services that elevate and support creators at every stage of their careers.

Photo Credit: Rhythmic Rebellion

Indie labels and artists, did you receive your invitation to join WeVerse? No, you didn’t.

The following comes from Rhythmic Rebellion, a company DMN is proud to be partnering with.

What does the future hold for indies when major labels have their own platforms for community and fanbase building and you’re left out?

It was great ten years ago when indies could build a fanbase on Facebook and Instagram, just as easily as a big artist. You could make a post and get a like from almost all of your followers. Now, Mark Zuckerberg has changed the rules. Only a small percentage of your followers see your posts, and you must pay for more followers to see them.

Facebook and Instagram have turned into music career killers. Today, many of you have close to a million followers on socials. You make a post and get 2,000 likes. Is this because people stopped liking you?

No. It’s because for years, your posts have been squashed. And those followers who are randomly shown your posts barely remember you. What a mess! Creators spent years building fanbases only to have them taken away.

This is exactly why Hybe created WeVerse. Hybe wanted their own platform, where they are in control of fan data and the fan experience. 

Universal Music Group was so impressed that they partnered with Hybe and are placing their artists on WeVerse. They’re building a database of super fans. Thanks to the app, they can freely communicate with these fans, with no squashed posts, and no email spam filters. This truly is the future of the music industry.

Good news! You’re not left out! Here’s your invitation!

You’re invited to join the Rhythmic Rebellion platform, which is a lot like WeVerse. It’s a place where you can build communities of fans and message them through the app. Each artist account has its own emailing system. There’s a built-in website builder, merch store, and lots of other features.

There’s strength in numbers and indies need to work together!

Why is Hybe happy to share WeVerse with Universal Music Group? Because Universal Music Group will bring millions and millions of fans to the platform, and every artist on the platform can be exposed to those fans.

If indie labels and artists work together, they can have your own platform with millions and millions of fans. The Rhythmic Rebellion platform is the perfect place for you to do this.

So who, what, and where is Rhythmic Rebellion? My name is Greg Allen and I live just south of Macon, GA, USA. I’m a singer-songwriter. I wrote my first song at 12, spent my 20s on the road with my band, had a real job for 20 years, and in 2016 I decided to get back into music by finding ways to assist other artists. 

I quickly discovered that many people were complaining about low streaming royalties. Streaming had killed album sales, which not only hurt artists but really hurt the songwriters.

My solution was twofold: (1) Create a platform where the music creators, labels, and management were in control; and (2) Come up with creative solutions for increasing income that supplemented streaming royalties.

Selling a karaoke experience and access to a 10 track/stem player were ideas designed to help increase songwriter and artist incomes. 

In January of 2017 I put together a great team of software developers that made my vision a reality. 

When I looked at Facebook and Instagram, and the billions of fans they had there, I knew that the only way we could build our own version of this was if we all worked together. 

Imagine if every indie artist on the planet joined Rhythmic Rebellion today and built their website. Then tomorrow, each artist went out and invited their fans to go to their website, click their FOLLOW button, and join their community powered by Rhythmic Rebellion. Instantly, we would have 500 million fans that we could all market to and communicate with. We would have our own version of WeVerse. 

The Rhythmic Rebellion platform has been live since July 2017. It is well seasoned and tested. There is nothing to stop us from making this happen.

I want Rhythmic Rebellion to be that place where artists, songwriters, labels, and management work together to make the rules for the platform and help decide what software we create next. I want this to be a platform where everyone feels fairly treated and that they have a voice.

With Rhythmic Rebellion, you can:

• • Create your albums digitally for sale with instant listening and downloads, and bundle that with a CD or Vinyl. 
  • Bundle albums with the karaoke experience or/and access to the 10 track/stem player for each song. 
  • Sell access to exclusive videos inside our Artist Premiere feature. 
  • Your merch store can include on-demand printing and fulfillment of CDs and vinyl by Printful. 

You can also use a gift code and offer free access to these exclusive videos. This is a great way to get fans to join your community. 

You continue to use Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to find new fans, but constantly give them reasons to go to your website and join your community. Fans join one time and can interact with and buy music and merch from any artist on the platform.

Communication with those fans is the most important thing. 

Each artist and label account comes with its own emailing system. But, each time you send an email, we place a copy inside the Fan Account Message Center. The fan instantly gets notified on their phone by the app. They tap the notification and see the message you sent. 100% delivery. No spam filters. They also see this message in the browser if they are logged in there. This message can also be sent without using email. 

Each artist and label has ownership of the fan info for fans that are your followers and part of your community. You can export this info weekly if you want. We want you to know you have control over your fanbase.

 There is artist, music, and video discovery in the app and at Rhythmic-Rebellion.com. The Rhythmic Rebellion team provides receipts for purchase and support. We retain a small percentage of sales, and it’s free to join.

Photo Credit: Rhythmic Rebellion

Artists that use our platform, like Ray Scott, are finding it easy to build their communities, message those communities, and sell more music and merch than ever before.

RayScott.com was built using our website builder, and his merch store and emailing system are powered by Rhythmic Rebellion. 

Ray is driving music sales by allowing fans to hear unreleased songs exclusively on his website, while the album is on pre-order. Fans go to his website, hear the song, and not only buy the album, but they also shop and buy lots of his other albums and merch. 11% of Ray’s income comes from tips thanks to the tipping buttons we provide at checkout. 81% of his album sales were CDs and 19% were digital only. You can learn more here.

It’s time that we take control over our business and stop letting others dictate how and when we can communicate with our fans. Hybe and Universal Music Group are taking action now. That’s proof that this approach is the future of music.

Email me at support@rhythmic-rebellion.com, tell me you agree and want to be part of this movement. We can have Zoom meetings where everyone is included, where we discuss our progress, solve problems, and plan future software improvements. I will respond to everyone that emails me within 48 hours. If you don’t get a response, check your spam folder or email me again and include your phone number. I’ll text you.

Platforms like this will be the biggest thing to happen to the music industry since the invention of music streaming. We don’t have to be excluded. We have our own platform. What if, at least for a little while, our indie platform had more fans than WeVerse? It might happen if you all start joining right now. 

Let’s do this!

Photo Credit: Rhythmic Rebellion

WeVerse is owned by Hybe. Hybe is the South Korean music label supporting BTS, Tomorrow X Together, ENHYPEN, and a host of other music acts. Hybe is one of the most successful labels in the world, mostly thanks to BTS. 

The following comes from Rhythmic Rebellion, a company DMN is proud to be partnering with.

WeVerse is a community building platform with a merch store built in. Fans get access to exclusive content, there is artist to fan messaging, and fan to fan interactions. 

Why is WeVerse such a good idea? If you’re a label, an artist manager, or an indie artist, you’re frustrated with how hard it is to communicate with your fans. Over 60% of your emails go into spam or promo folders. Many of you have swapped from collecting emails to collecting phone numbers, but now there’s a spam filter for that. 

Thanks to Facebook and Instagram algorithms, less than 1% of your followers see your posts. You are asked to pay the social media god for more fans to see your posts. This makes many of you mad, because you already paid once to find these fans and now you must pay again to communicate with them. 

Hybe saw WeVerse as a solution to these problems. Now, they have their own platform, where they control the fan experience and can communicate freely with the fans. All their artists are there. The fan joins the platform one time, and can interact with, and buy merch, from any artist on the platform. 

Why should Sony and Warner be worried? Universal Music Group was impressed with how Hybe was creating new opportunities for themselves and decided to partner with them. UMG already has a few artists on WeVerse and plans to place many more of them there in 2023. 

The most powerful tool in the world for driving fan actions is the app. When Hybe can send a message through the app that says “BTS has a new song out now, go stream it on Spotify,” and every signed up fan instantly sees that notification on their phone, the results are phenomenal. This is by far the best means of communication there is.

Sony and Warner vs. WeVerse — as you can see, Sony and Warner are currently at a huge disadvantage in the music label wars. Are Sony and Warner creating their own version? Probably, but creation of these apps and platforms take time and a lot of money.  

Is there another platform out there that can compete with WeVerse? The Rhythmic Rebellion platform is the only one that comes close.

It has the community building, the merch store, access to exclusive content, and possibly even better ways to communicate with fans than WeVerse. Each artist and label account comes with its own emailing system and a copy of the email is placed in the fan’s message center, and the fans get notified through the app…100% delivery. There is a built in music player, so fans can buy music and have instant listening. There’s live video streaming, subscription fan clubs, and more.

Artists can also build their website right on the platform, which is perfect for community building. You can learn more here.

Should Sony and Warner build their own platforms, or should they take advantage of the RR platform? If there is a SonyVerse, WarnerVerse, and WeVerse, which platform do you think will have the biggest community? Yes, WeVerse. UMG, through their many partnerships with other labels, has a lot of huge artists.

These artists will invite their fans to join them on WeVerse, and this community will have “buying power” that’s never been experienced before by a music label.

I expect UMG will start selling albums on WeVerse months before they release it on streaming platforms. UMG will offer subscriptions to exclusive content, which will include early releases of music videos and other exclusive artist content. Fans will be able to rent and view a movie there. I can even imagine a day where Spotify tries to play hard ball with UMG, and UMG says “Thanks to WeVerse, Spotify is no longer a necessity.” Diversification! It’s a smart business move.

So, as you can see, the future is bleak for Sony, Warner, and let’s not forget all the indie labels and artists out there….or is it?

What if Sony and Warner decided they would both join the Rhythmic Rebellion platform, and then invite all the indie labels and artists to join them there? RR was born back in 2017 and is a well seasoned platform, with more functionality than WeVerse.

Within a few months from now, Sony and Warner could have their biggest artists on the platform, and be well on their way to having a bigger community than WeVerse.

The indie artists would join in groves and invite their fans. This works for indie artists, because RR is not just a platform built for super stars and labels. It also has the DIY capability. RR management would get suggestions from Sony, Warner, and the indie labels and artists on what the RR rules should be and what software should be developed next. They can be reached at support@rhythmic-rebellion.com.

So, what will they decide? One thing is for sure, you will either be part of a WeVerse type platform, or be wishing you were. Stay tuned….

Photo Credit: Crewest Studio

Founding an indie record label is no easy feat, but making that same label thrive over two decades is truly awe-inspiring. Stones Throw Records ringleader Chris Manak (better known as Peanut Butter Wolf) balances the stress of running a tiny but influential label with a healthy dose of enthusiasm: “When I sign new artists, I feel like I’m living through them,” he says. “When I see stuff that excites them, it excites me!” From record-collecting fifth grader to internationally acclaimed DJ, Wolf maintains a deep love of music that guides him through the valleys and peaks of life.

The following comes from Crewest Studio, a company DMN is proud to be partnering with.

Welcome to The Conduit, a podcast featuring candid conversations with professional musicians who give listeners the unvarnished truth about being an artist in the music business today. In today’s episode, host and LA-based DJ, producer, and musician Dan Ubick (aka Constantine “Connie” Price) sits down with Peanut Butter Wolf to discuss the DJ’s struggles and successes over the last 20 years at the helm of Stones Throw. Wolf shares his thoughts on making mixtapes, finding positive mentors with eclectic musical tastes, and working with the biggest names in hip-hop, from Madlib and MF Doom to J Dilla and Anderson Paak. He also touches on the ins and outs of running Stones Throw, why streaming services might be good for indie record labels, and which records in his now-massive (and famous) collection came first.

Wolf began collecting records in the late ‘70s, right as hip-hop emerged as an exciting new genre from the Bronx. As a precocious high schooler and “bedroom DJ,” Wolf saved his lunch money for the latest singles from indie labels like Sugarhill and Sunnyview. In 1990, he met 16-year-old Charles Hicks, who would become Wolf’s ride-or-die creative partner as MC and rapper Charizma. Wolf discusses the duo’s origin story, reflecting on their close friendship and creative output over a three-year period in the early ‘90s. He also touches on Charizma’s untimely passing at age 20, the subsequent grief that swallowed his creativity, and what eventually brought him peace: “Making beats and making tracks was what really got me out of [mourning Charizma’s death],” Wolf says. “It was my therapy more than anything.”

If there’s one lesson listeners can learn from Wolf and his 20-plus years of experience in the music industry, it’s how to stay excited about art in the face of adversity. “I’m still really proud and thankful for all of the great music I am able to surround myself with,” he says. Tune in to this month’s episode of The Conduit for a fascinating conversation about stamina and passion with the legendary Peanut Butter Wolf.

Dixie D’Amelio, whose family has reportedly partnered with Firebird to launch DamGood Mgmt. Photo Credit: Priyanka Pruthi

The D’Amelio family – including TikTok-famous sisters Dixie and Charli as well as their parents – has reportedly partnered with Firebird to establish a music-focused management company called DamGood Mgmt.

Word of the joint venture just recently emerged in a report from the Wall Street Journal, but the involved parties don’t appear to have formally announced or confirmed the endeavor. Founded in 2021 by former Gibson chairman and KKR partner Nat Zilkha and former Ticketmaster head Nathan Hubbard, Firebird itself has reportedly raised north of $400 million from backers including Goldman and the aforesaid KKR.

Far from hesitating to deploy the capital, Firebird has been snapping up all manner of industry properties as of late – with plans in place to take ownership stakes in the newly formed JV companies of internet celebrities in and around the music sphere. Regarding the latter, the sisters D’Amelio partnered with Spotify last year; Dixie dropped an album via HitCo in June of 2022, and Charli won season 31 of Dancing with the Stars.

Now, with around 80 percent of the D’Amelios’ reported $30 million in annual income deriving from sources besides TikTok, DamGood Mgmt is poised to “manage the family’s varied ventures and aims to sign other online stars with a musical bent,” per the Journal.

The D’Amelio family will reportedly possess “an ownership stake” in DamGood, which is according to Hubbard prepared to try and drive revenue growth on multiple fronts as opposed to solely on the music side.

“Our focus is on growing the entire revenue pie for an artist, not just a single income stream,” spelled out the former Twitter exec Hubbard, whose current company is said to have committed an initial $20 million to DamGood.

Of course, time will tell which influencer clients (in addition to the D’Amelios) the management firm signs and markets. When it comes to the D’Amelios, though, the “revenue pie” already appears extremely diverse – with the family’s inexplicable following evidently being substantial enough to fuel a collection of ventures.

“D’Amelio Footwear” – not to be confused with the sisters’ Hollister-partnered Social Tourist fashion brand – launched last month, and Hulu has confirmed that a third season of The D’Amelio Show is forthcoming. In one of several testaments to the vast army of undiscerning supporters behind the D’Amelio brand, Dixie’s “Be Happy” has racked up an astonishing 103 million streams on Spotify alone – with 113 million YouTube views for the work’s official music video.

Photo Credit: YMU Group

Talent agency YMU hits financial turbulence with lending debts nearing $90 million.

U.K.-based Talent management agency YMU Group (You, Me & Us), which features a transatlantic music division, is exploring options for financial restructuring, according to Sky News. Reports indicate that the company has been involved in talks over its finances following a “slump in profits exacerbated by the pandemic.”

Sky reports that via sources in London’s financial district, YMU lenders Permira Credit and Lloyds Banking Group “hired AlixPartners several weeks ago to undertake an independent business review of the agency.” YMU reportedly owes Permira Credit and Lloyds Banking Group approximately $87 million (£70 million).

While a source cited as close to YMU suggested that there were no grounds for concern about the company’s future, Sky’s reporting indicates that a new Chief Restructuring Officer may head up a restructuring process at YMU and was “likely to draw takeover interest from industry rivals.”

According to YMU’s latest available accounts filed at UK Companies House, the company held net liabilities of £74.7 million “largely as a result of the Group’s long-term borrowings, which are not repayable until 2025 and beyond.”

“As part of the loan facilities with Permira Credit Solutions (…) and Lloyds Bank, the company has issued a cross guarantee secured on the assets held by the company and certain other companies within the group,” YMU wrote in its 2021 annual report.

“The cross guarantee relates to borrowings of YM&U Group Services Limited, comprising a loan facility of (GBP) £38,443,000 and a drawn acquisition facility of £15,242,000 with Permira, and with Lloyds Bank a loan facility of £5,888,000 and (USD) $12,000,000, and a revolving credit facility of £4,000,000.”

The Permira loan facilities are repayable on September 28, 2025, while the revolving credit facility and the Lloyds Bank facility are repayable on March 28, 2025.

YMU works with talent across music, sports, arts, and entertainment, majority-owned by private equity firm Trilantic. The company started in 2018 after U.K.-based James Grant Group, then part-owned by Metric Capital, sold a majority stake in its business to Trilantic, rebranding it as YMU.

Photo Credit: Viberate

Data monitoring is changing the way A&Rs discover and monitor emerging talent. Music data analytics platform Viberate is helping facilitate emerging artist discovery with useful tools like its Artist Chart. Let’s take a peek.

The following was created in collaboration with Viberate, a company DMN is proud to be partnered with.

Viberate’s Artist Chart is part of the platform that currently ranks and analyzes 700,000+ artists. “Fueled by streaming and social media data and customizable with country, genre, and performance filters, [Artist Chart] is built to change the way A&R teams discover promising artists,” says Vasja Veber, Viberate’s Co-Founder. “The Artist Chart should help you pinpoint artists you’re looking for, screen their performance and benchmark them in ten minutes. After that, you can track the artists’ growth and releases in one place.”

Seems pretty simple. So let’s take a peek at how this process works for talent discovery of upcoming Indie Pop artists in the United States. 

How Talent Discovery on Viberate Works

We want to isolate artists who are are trending, so we start with the ‘hot filter to find Indie Pop artists that are trending. Here’s a quick peek at the chart utilizing this filter.

Since we want to focus on emerging Indie Pop artists, we need to add a few more filters to really get these results drilled down. Adding a filter for country (United States), subgenre (Indie Pop), lower overall rank (Under 20K), and fanbase size (at least 10K+ TikTok followers). Sorting the artists with these filters based on their YouTube views in the last month gives us a shortlist of eleven potential artists who meet our requirements. 

Here we get a handy peek at the three-month trajectory graph of streams and listeners on the same chart. You can also listen to the artists’ signature tracks right on the chart. Not ready to drill down into the results? Save the results of the selected filters and return to it later—with potentially new artists on the list. 

Screening & Benchmarking Artists

The Artist Chart on Viberate also provides useful tools to look into each artist’s streaming and social media analytics. You can focus on aggregated metrics like social media, music performance, and other performance metrics to compare artists side-by side. 

With this information, you can compare artists side-by-side for metrics like fanbase size, country distribution and demographics, yearly growth, engagement, etc. 

Monitoring Development

Following artists on Viberate means you get ranked and analyzed updates on the ‘Followed Artists’ chart. That gives A&R execs a place to have cross-channel stats in one place for referencing an artist’s development. Aside from these charts, Viberate includes artist, track, and playlist analytics, plus reporting tools.

“If we want the entire industry to prosper, we need to provide tools at an affordable price,” says Veber. To that end, Viberate has reduced the price of its Viberate Premium plan from $129 to $9.90 per month. Viberate says it also has more announcements in store this year as it follows through on its plans to revolutionize the way the music industry uses data. 

It’s a great complementary tool to use alongside live performances to identify hidden gems more time-efficiently. It can help you discover emerging artists to focus on without having to attend every smoky bar and sweaty festival performance to surface underground talent. Discoveries happening online can be quantified using social media data and Viberate streamlines that process.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

Open On Sunday’s Market Development Partner Program is a lucrative way for connected people in the music business to earn substantial commissions off the growing music catalog sales market.

The following comes from Open On Sunday, a company DMN is proud to be partnering with.

With the stabilization of music earnings through streaming and improved data tracking, catalog acquisitions is one of the hottest growth sectors within music industry. But before any successful deal is struck, it takes the two sides first coming together to work out mutually beneficial terms.

Most successful acquisitions start with an introduction, often facilitated by an individual who knows both the seller and the potential buyer of the music catalog. Open On Sunday provides these “well connected” individuals the opportunity to earn tens of thousands of dollars by joining their team as a Market Development Partner or (MDP).

An Open On Sunday MDP is not a traditional broker, who often does little more than sit back and collect a “finder’s fee” after making the initial introduction. By contrast, an Open On Sunday MDP guides the seller through the entire deal process from start to finish.

The first role of an MDP is to help the potential seller request a free quote from the Open On Sunday website. This includes securing and uploading all necessary PRO documents, along with other statements and agreements for analysis within Open On Sunday’s proprietary pricing engine. When the catalog owner accepts the offer, the MDP walks the seller, step-by-step, through the simple closing process, until the deal is signed and funds are wired to the seller’s bank account. For their efforts throughout the deal process, the MDP receives a substantial commission on the sale.

Open On Sunday’s Jasmine Love talks about her experience as an Open On Sunday Market Development Partner.

“Being in the music industry with so many contacts and relationships, it just made sense to become an Open On Sunday MDP,” Love said. “I was actually able to use my network to increase my net-worth, all while increasing my relationships by getting music catalog owners the funds they needed in a fast time frame,” Love added.  “Who would have thought that one call in my network would lead to six figures for myself. Of course, I have made a bunch more calls since then and was very well taken care of!”

The MDP program is just another example of how Open On Sunday is reshaping catalog acquisitions with innovative ideas that are changing the landscape of the industry.

“Becoming an Open On Sunday Market Development Partner is all about who you know, and the ability to turn your contacts into cash,” said Open On Sunday Co-founder and President, Malcolm Thompson.“ The MDP program is ideal for individuals looking to establish a career in catalog acquisitions, while earning substantial commissions along the way,” Thompson said.

Open On Sunday was founded in 2018 and has completed more than 70 transactions to date across all genres of music. Notable names include the late blues legend, B.B. King, and Taylor Swift songwriter, Liz Rose, who was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2023.

For more information on how you can become an Open On Sunday MDP, visit the website here.

Photo Credit: Kentaro Toma

The National Independent Talent Organization (NITO) has released urgent concert ticketing changes needed to reform how tickets are sold.

45 independent booking agencies and management companies have signed on to the nine-point platform. With concert ticketing sales front and center in Washington D.C., NITO is hoping to protect the interests of thousands of musicians, independent booking agencies, and management companies. 

NITO formed in the early days of the pandemic and alongside the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), it helped secure $16.5 billion in Shuttered Venue Operating Grants for independent music agents and managers, independent music venues, performing arts centers, and museums. NITO members include hundreds of independent music companies. 

The organization is now turning its attention to focusing on unfair ticketing practices and the changes needed to protect musicians and NITO member companies. NITO has pledged to fight for nine major changes in its platform, the NITO Ticketing Platform. This platform supports:

• Itemized All-In Ticketing | All fees are clearly separated from the face value of the ticket.
• Fee Transparency | All fees are clearly listed and included on every offer sheet.
• Ticket Fee Caps
• Fan-to-Fan Face Transfer | Transfer at face value between fans, with no additional fees.
• Resale Ticket Control | Artists and their reps should control terms of resale.
• Speculative Ticketing Ban | Stop speculating on ticket prices in the secondary market.
• Ban Primary Ticketing Platforms from profiting from secondary market sales. 
• Artists and reps should have access to their own ticket buyer data for their use.
• Stronger laws and enforcement surrounding ticketing bots.

Forty-five NITO member independent management companies and booking agencies have signed on to publicly endorse and work to implement the NITO Ticketing Platform. They are in alphabetical order below.

Arrival Artists, Artisan Agency, Ashley Talent International, Big Fish Booking Company, Bonfire Touring, Cass Clayton Music, Ceremony Music Group, ComboPlate Booking, Concerted Efforts, Core Entertainment, Crossover Touring, Distance Management, Entourage Talent Associates, Fenway Recordings, Force Media Management, Fort William Management, Ground Control Touring, High Road Touring, Intrepid Artists International, The Kurland Agency, Leafy Green Booking, Leave Home Booking, Lobel Arts, Lytle Management Group, Madison House, Magnus Talent Agency, Manage This!, Mongrel Music, Musical Concepts, New Frontier Touring, Nimbleslick Entertainment, Nine Mile, Paladin Artists, Partisan Arts, Patrick Rains and Associates, Pinnacle Entertainment, RajiWorld, Skyline Artists Agency, Sound Talent Group, SRO Artists, The Mark Spector Company, This Is Management, TKO, TT Management, and Upward Spiral Music.

“A broken ticket-buying experience now overshadows tour announcements, and at some point, fans will say ‘enough is enough,'” adds NITO Ticketing Task Force Chairman Nathaniel Marro. “Between outrageous fees and scalpers, it’s harder than ever to buy a ticket at the price the artist sets.”

Photo Credit: Adrian Arredondo / CC by 3.0

Anitta says she’d ‘auction off her organs’ to get out of her Warner Music Group (WMG) deal.

Brazilian pop star Anitta vented on Twitter about her regrets about signing with Warner Music Group and that she would “auction off (her) organs” to get out of her contract. The artist had a bustling 2022 with the success of her album Versions of Me, a number-one track on the Billboard Global chart with “Envolver,” and performances at Coachella and the Latin Grammy Awards.

Fans of Anitta urged her to explain her sordid history with Warner Music, with one fan saying he wished she could be free of her contract. Anitta replied, “If there were a fine to pay, I would have already auctioned off my organs, no matter how expensive it was to get out. But unfortunately, there isn’t.”

“When you’re young and still don’t know a lot, you need to pay close attention to the things you sign,” Anitta continues. “If you don’t, you could spend a lifetime paying for the mistake.”

Anitta signed with Warner Music in the US in January 2020 after signing with Warner Music Brazil in 2013. Under her US contract, she produced Versions of Me, executive produced by Ryan Tedder. Anitta says she must deliver two more albums for the label to satisfy the contract. Anitta also signed a publishing deal with Sony Music Publishing in January 2022.

The artist has previously taken shots at Warner, having complained about having to pay for music videos out of her own pocket, including “Gata,” for which she says Warner refused to produce a video after they saw the song’s performance on streaming platforms falling below expectations. Ultimately, Anitta says she got a sponsor to help pay for the “Gata” video.

“They only invest after it pays off on the internet,” she said in her Instagram livestream in May. “Unfortunately, there are things I can’t get; that’s why I don’t buy millionaire cars because when I want to do something, I pay for it.”

Anitta also said that Warner only invests in her work after a song goes viral on TikTok, that the label is “very tied to TikTok, to what goes viral, and if they don’t get a hit right away, they say ‘later.'”

Additionally, Anitta says that Warner had resisted the release of “Envolver” until her dance in the song’s video — which she directed — became a global TikTok sensation. 

“They said the song wasn’t going anywhere and that I wouldn’t have the sway to release it alone (without a feature on the track),” she said during an Instagram livestream in December.

Her fans have also been critical of Warner for the label’s perceived treatment of the singer. Many complained on social media that Warner did not give her 2021 single “Girl From Rio” the marketing push they felt that it deserved by including it in playlists on streaming services. 

Anitta’s fans have been urging her to release a funk remix of her song “Practice,” which she recorded with A$AP Ferg and HARV — but the singer said that Warner wouldn’t allow her to do so.

“When I saw that you liked (the remix version), I asked to release it, and it has been a long time,” the singer told her fans on Twitter. “But things can only be released with their authorization.”

Fans have since organized a #FreeAnitta movement on Twitter, with one fan asking if her harsh comments might damage her relationship with the label.

“Is there a way it could get worse?” Anitta replied.

(Photo Credit: Spotify)

Artist numbers, rights holders’ payouts, and royalties — depending on your perspective, Spotify’s latest data dump could paint a promising picture for the future of streaming. The company’s self-reported royalty data for 2022 reveals who’s making money on Spotify (and who’s not).

So who’s actually squeaking out a living on Spotify? Out of 9 million artist profiles, Spotify says only an estimated 200,000 are ‘properly leveraging streaming as part of their career.’ These ‘professional or professionally aspiring artists’ have released at least 10 tracks, average a minimum of 10,000 monthly listeners, and conducted a commercial activity outside of streaming during 2022.

Spotify data reveals that just over a quarter (29%) of these 200,000 — roughly 60,000 serious artists — generated $10,000 or more in Spotify revenue in 2022. That’s either good or bad, depending on the perspective and subsequent number-crunching.

For Spotify, the analysis starts with an important working assumption. The streaming giant says it accounted for over 20% of global recorded music revenue in 2022— up from less than 15% in 2017. Also according to Spotify, the platform’s all-time payouts to music rights holders is approaching $40 Billion in recording and publishing royalties.

Spotify believes that during the last two decades, streaming has transformed the dynamic music ecosystem. With low barriers to entry, it has drawn passionate new musicians and creators from all over the world. Spotify’s report on its own royalty data also reveals that in 2022, only 12% of Spotify’s US streams were credited to the top 50 artists. Stats like these place the spotlight on how music industry revenue is reaching more than just mega artists and creators.

Spotify data also reveals that in 2022, a quarter of artists who generated over $10K from Spotify were self-distributed, and 35% reside in countries outside the top-ten music markets.

The number of artists generating over $100,000 per year grew 135% from 2017 to 2022. Moreover, artists reaching milestone annual-revenue levels of $10K, $100K, and 1 million, have more than doubled during the last five years.

With an ever-growing number of listeners, Spotify reports that in total, 913,000 songs have crossed the million-stream mark. In 2022 alone, 281,000 songs reached this milestone, with almost 350 songs already crossing the billion-stream mark by the end of last year.

Music catalogs also appear to have become ‘more valuable than ever.’ Spotify says catalogs ‘can still generate healthy revenues year after year.’

The company spotlights catalog musicians as ‘heritage artists,’ defined as an artist that averages more than 500,000 monthly listeners, with 80% of streams from tracks that are more than 5 years old. This exclusive group comprises 3400 artists that generated $433,000 from Spotify alone in 2022. Spotify estimates that  these heritage artists made well over $1 million in revenue across all streaming services.

With this powerful revenue-generating capability, the streaming giant is calling catalogs ‘a signal of optimism for the future value of music.’

Spotify’s royalty data is painting a pretty picture for the future of streaming and the overall music landscape, and the streaming giant says, ‘It expects growth rates shown on this site to continue.’

Photo Credit: Too Lost

Too Lost is the first music distributor to offer its independent artists and labels direct payout to their Nerve account. Not familiar with Nerve? Read on for more information.

The following was created in collaboration with Too Lost, a company DMN is proud to be partnered with.

Nerve is a business banking app designed for creators to make getting paid a cinch. With this new integration, artists’ earnings are sent with no fees to their Nerve business debit account. It helps artists create a clear separation between their personal finances and those of their business. Nerve also offers free invoicing, group accounts, and autosave function—all designed with creators in mind. 

Artists can send invoices directly from the Nerve app, helping them get paid faster. Once the invoice is paid, Nerve processes the payment and deposits it into the business debit account. Nerve also doesn’t charge its users to send money to others, or to move the money to another bank account. 

One of the most beneficial aspects of Nerve’s setup is its group accounts. This feature allows multiple artists to share a single account with a team so everyone in the group can access the balance and transaction information. The main account holder still retains control over transactions and how the funds are spent—but everyone in the group account gets transparency into those actions. 

Too Lost offers independent artists and labels a new way to track their music online through its Usage Discovery tool. The insights provided by this data can help artists focus their marketing efforts, resulting in higher royalty payments. Keep even more of those royalty payments by switching to Nerve banking and its creator-focused banking solution, which gives you a physical debit card to access those music royalties instantly.

Curious to learn more about Nerve banking? Here’s a quick rundown of the basics:

• Free FDIC-insured business checking with physical debit card attached, and free business savings account.
• No monthly fees. No minimum balance requirements. No hidden fees. 
• Send and receive money instantly from other Nerve account holders for free. 
• Access your money fee-free at a network of over 55,000 ATMs. 
• No credit check or paperwork for opening an account. 

Too Lost is dedicated to providing the most effortless way to do business for indie artists and musicians. It helps artists publish, monetize, and protect their songs across the globe with a roster of more than 100,000 independent artists and labels using the service so far. 

The company is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Los Angeles, Barcelona, and Reykjavik. Too Lost is also a proud member of The American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) and MERLIN. The distributor aims to provide all musical creators access to the tools to build their successful music business–whatever that may be. Efficient and comprehensive digital infrastructure for the independent music sector is the goal and its partnership with Nerve is just one of the many ways the company achieves that goal. Learn more about Nerve here. 

Karen Waldrup, one of a growing number of artists using Rhythmic Rebellion.

Rhythmic Rebellion has long helped artists, labels, and others to build and benefit from fan relationships by harnessing the power of one-stop digital platforms. Now, with a number of success stories to its credit, the company is making a stronger case than ever for controlling and capitalizing upon the listener support that fuels career results.

Rhythmic Rebellion’s value proposition to the music industry is straightforward enough. In a decentralized entertainment landscape, why not develop a centralized, all-encompassing online marketplace and community geared towards dedicated fans?

Founded by singer-songwriter Greg Allen, the company enables professionals (labels and management agencies among them) to do just that, beginning with an intuitive website builder and any necessary technical support. Rhythmic Rebellion also comes with an easy-to-use email generator, facilitates digital and physical music sales, hosts livestreams and fan clubs, and allows creators to offer exclusive content to their most engaged followers.

Meanwhile, in expanding the reach of supporter hubs, artists and their teams are simultaneously building email lists that will prove valuable in the long term, as social media upstarts burst onto the scene and formerly high-flying players recede from the spotlight or cease operating altogether.

What’s more is that these social services effectively own the fans (and their data) who follow and engage with artists – the most significant assets in the contemporary music arena.

Of course, just because fan relationships begin on TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter doesn’t mean that they must end there. But amid an industry-wide push to make a splash on social media, particularly with short-form videos, conversations about how to transition followers to a more targeted community are comparatively few and far between.

At best, the ultimate result of this tunnel-vision approach to social media is that labels, management firms, and artists themselves will pay to communicate with and promote releases to their followers. In doing so, members of the music community are missing out on revenue, data, and the inherent commercial longevity associated with cultivating diehard fanbases as opposed to part-time supporters. Just recently, DMN and Rhythmic Rebellion joined forces to shift the focus towards more controllable hubs.

“We need to use these other platforms like tools,” Rhythmic Rebellion head Greg Allen told Digital Music News. “While gaining followers on social media, we need to also make those fans part of a community that labels and artists own.”

Artists including reggae singer Gyptian have tapped into the commercial potential of robust fan communities via Rhythmic Rebellion.

With the highly competitive streaming era in full swing, it’s no longer enough to make excellent music available to fans and occasionally post on social media. Connecting with supporters (and analyzing the hard numbers behind their purchases and preferences) is an integral component of successful careers.

Importantly, the problem’s solution – a centralized platform for maximizing the professional advantages of hard-won fans – likewise presents a major opportunity. Aside from laying the groundwork for meaningful fan interactions, carefully maintained and feature-heavy online communities offer an array of benefits (including improved data collection and ARPU) that social media and run-of-the-mill websites cannot.

Seoul-headquartered Hybe has already demonstrated the viability of the overarching model with WeVerse, a roughly three-year-old fan-community platform that remains popular among BTS enthusiasts. Hybe disclosed that the service boasted seven million MAUs as of Q3 2022, and execs are expanding upon the ultra-dedicated userbase by adding more artists and paid-subscription features.

For the wider music industry, Rhythmic Rebellion says that its platform can enable labels, publishers, management teams, and others to generate material revenue from the high-volume (but low-paying and fleeting) fan interest delivered by streaming and social media.

“I like to think that we can help every label on the planet increase their revenue,” continued Allen, whose service is available on web browsers as well as iOS and Android. “We’ve got merch stores built right in. We’ve got livestreaming built right in, and we have fan clubs built right in. Subscriptions or free, however you want to do it.”

At the core of these varied offerings are communities – extending to individual artists and whole labels – that some of the largest music businesses in the world neglect or overlook entirely.

Energetic fans will always find a way to connect and support their favorite acts, including through social media groups and live shows. But when it’s harder than ever to generate interest in music, fragmented collections of dedicated supporters represent lost potential and missed opportunities.

That’s because interactive artist communities are inherently better positioned to drive engagement and revenue. And in the absence of a reliable community-focused solution, fan interaction will simply revolve around the exchange of occasional messages, culminating (in the best-case scenario) with merch sales at performances.

By enabling like-minded individuals to communicate (among themselves and directly with artists) between shows and releases, however, Rhythmic Rebellion says that it’s affording fans optimal experiences and allowing labels and others to capitalize upon the vast commercial potential at hand.

Some of the many items available for purchase through the merch store that Ariel Bellvalaire built with Rhythmic Rebellion.

Besides the above-mentioned core offerings, supporters can currently comment on releases and videos, participate in contests, and sing along to songs with karaoke mode on Rhythmic Rebellion, which intends to continue building out moving forward.

“We can take this foundation and get ideas from artists, get ideas from labels, and we can continue to build to truly make it the most – I like to call it the ultimate entertainment and shopping experience on the planet,” Allen told us.

If recent years’ industry evolution is any indication, there’s no telling exactly which changes are in store for the music world and the broader entertainment sphere. Nevertheless, it’s clear that securing the attention of fans, keeping them engaged, and monetizing their interest is becoming exceedingly difficult.

“I always tell everybody I have two goals,” finished Allen. “Number one, build communities. Number two, help monetize those communities. That’s what indie artists need more than anything, and increasing revenue is labels’ whole goal. Well, you need to have the community first. We’re built to do both of those things and do them well.”

Feel free to continue the community building conversation with Greg at gregea@rhythmic-rebellion.com.

Photo Credit: Gilles Vidal

Décibels Productions acquires leading French agency, Les Visiteurs du Soir.

The live entertainment and concert production company, Décibels Productions, has acquired a majority stake in Les Visiteurs du Soir, the leading French talent agency for over 30 years. Founded in 1991 by Olivier Gluzman (pictured), it produces and promotes French and international artists, including Jane Birkin, Rufus Wainwright, Imany, Paolo Conte, Pink Martini, Benjamin Millepied, and the MC Solaar New Big Band project.

Les Visiteurs du Soir also works with artists in development, acts as a consultant to festival organizers, and mounts theatrical productions and other live shows. Morgane Production, the audiovisual company and festival organizer that first invested in Les Visiteurs du Soir in 2011, will remain a key shareholder in the agency.

Established nine years ago, Décibels Productions produces artist concerts, comedy shows, and musicals for various audiences.

“I’ve known Olivier for many years. His relationship with artists, his passion for quality shows, and his commercial sense enabled him to create Les Visiteurs du Soir,” says Pierre-Alexandre Vertadier, President of Décibels Productions. “Now we will work together, and the synergies between our two companies will help us support the creation of even more innovative artistic projects both here and around the world.”

“Les Visiteurs du Soir is more than 30 years old. We’ve continuously evolved — notably when Morgane Production invested in us with the aim of creating bridges between our artists and its excellence in producing festivals and the wider audiovisual sphere,” adds Olivier Gluzman. 

“Now we’ll be harnessing new synergies in this deal with Décibels. It’ll enable our artists (to) tap into its production skills and global network. I’ve always appreciated the stress Pierre-Alexandre places on the importance of relationships as part of doing business, so we are well suited to working together.”

Décibels Productions is a standalone division of Warner Music France that works with artists signed to various major and independent labels. The company produces comedy shows, concerts, and musicals, with attachments to significant artists in the French market. 

Les Visiteurs du Soir exists to produce and promote French and international artists locally and abroad, as well as theater, dance, or “scenic projects of famous names in cinema.”

Photo Credit: Look Out Kid / Monster Artist Management

Look Out Kid Artist Management expands its global reach in a merger with Monster Artist Management, growing its presence in Australia and North America.

Look Out Kid Artist Management announces that the greatly admired and respected management team of Jacob Snell and Alexandra “Apple” Bagios will join the company. The move will ensure a global strategic approach to the company’s business by growing its presence in Australia and North America.

Snell and Bagios, formerly of Monster Artist Management, will bring with them a brilliant roster of artists, including Australia’s Methyl Ethel and Hatchie, New Zealand’s The Beths, American indie-punk darlings Cloud Nothings, sub-pop post-punk newcomers Sweeping Promises and prolific indie singer-songwriter Palehound, to the Look Out Kid catalog. There, they will join the ranks of Courtney Barnett, Middle Kids, Sarah Blasko, American Faye Webster, and Canadian Beverly Glenn-Copeland. The company will manage artists from offices in Los Angeles and Melbourne.

Look Out Kid has also hired touring specialist Emma Hawkes, most recently the production manager of Courtney Barnette’s US-based touring festival, Here And There. Hawkes brings a wealth of knowledge in the touring and music industry, having spent time as a production manager, stage manager, and tour manager for Australian music festivals, including Lost Paradise, Groovin the Moo, and Laneway Festival, as well as global artists Sofi Tukker, Hayden James, Dune Rats, Ruel, and Gang of Youths.

Formed by Nick O’Byrne in 2011 as a vehicle to manage Courtney Barnett, Look Out Kid has had a unique focus on the successful export of Australian musicians. But since 2018, it has become a global management company with the addition of its North American-based clients.

Jacob Snell founded Monster Artist Management in Perth, Australia, in 2011. Over its 12-year lifespan, the company and its roster have taken on an increasingly global focus, with international artists like The Beths, Cloud Nothings, Sweeping Promises, and Palehound.

“We’ve long had a huge amount of respect and admiration for Jacob and Apple. We love their roster, we share similar tastes, and we care about the same things when it comes to the business of music,” reads a statement from Look Out Kid. “It’s important to take notice when you find a kindred spirit in this crazy business, so this feels like a natural step for us. I’m excited to exchange knowledge and celebrate in each other’s wins. We couldn’t be more enthusiastic about the year ahead.”

“We couldn’t be more thrilled to join forces with Look Out Kid,” adds Monster Artist Management. “We’ve seen Nick and Katie (Besgrove) go from strength to strength with their incredible roster over the past decade and conduct themselves with an exceptional level of expertise, enthusiasm, and genuine care for their artists and the wider industry. We are so excited to work with managers and people that we respect so greatly and who share the same vision. We see this collaboration as an amazing opportunity to learn from each other and create opportunities for our collective artists.”

Photo Credit: Viberate

“Reducing the price from $129 to only $9.90 per month feels like the right thing to do,” says the co-founder of music data analytics platform Viberate, which also started the year by rolling out the most powerful artist chart on the market.

The following comes from Viberate, a company DMN is proud to be partnering with.

For the past couple of years, data was the strongest tool of the music industry’s power players – enabling them to discover promising talent, identify trends, and analyze their activities. However, access to high-quality analytics has mostly been a privilege for those who could afford them. For most artists and indie labels, access to comprehensive services was too expensive.

Viberate now wants to make the music business more inclusive by making access to one of the world’s leading music data analytics affordable for every industry professional.

Viberate’s co-founder, Vasja Veber: “Up until now, Viberate as well as other data analytics services were priced similarly, and we all catered to the wealthier, more established clients. We did offer a free tier, but we noticed that artists especially desperately wanted more data. Some of them even went as far as creating tens of different emails to keep using our free weekly trial. Reducing the price from $129 to only $9.90 per month might seem scary for us, but it also feels like the right thing to do. If we want the entire industry to prosper, we need to provide the tools at an affordable price. Streaming services nailed the price range and revolutionized how we consume music today. Now, we are doing the same for music data.”

Vasja Veber, Viberate’s co-founder

Veber announced the new pricing at the NY:LON Connect conference in London, effective immediately, and hinted that Viberate has more in the pipeline for artists this year.

The music data analytics platform also started the year by rolling out what’s currently the market’s most powerful artist chart. It provides a cross-channel ranking of every artist out there and features filters to help you find exactly the artists you’re looking for – by trending parameters, genre, subgenre, country, performance on specific channels, timeframe, and even by setting the fanbase size and ranking range. Viberate’s chart was created to simplify the way A&Rs discover new talent, event organizers find the right artists for their event, and generally, the way that music professionals benchmark the artists they’re following.

Photo Credit: Too Lost x Pex

Once you’ve created your music, understanding how your audience interacts with it is essential to promotional success. Enter Usage Discovery by Too Lost.

The following was created in collaboration with Too Lost, a company DMN is proud to be partnered with.

Digital distribution for music has opened up a huge new market for how music is consumed. Fans consume music in new ways beyond just listening to tracks now. They can become essential parts of a Twitch streamer’s identity or feature prominently as the opening theme for a popular podcast. The best way for independent artists to monitor their music across the internet is through Too Lost’s Usage Discovery, which is a first of its kind product offering powered by Pex.  

Independent musicians and artists can receive insights, data, and information on where their music is being used and consumed across various social media applications. Some of those integrations include YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Reddit, and others.

Usage Discovery costs $1.50 per month per track that is monitored as an introductory price for the service. It is free for artists and labels who have exclusive distribution deals with Too Lost. So what sort of data insights can independent artists gain from Usage Discovery insights on their music tracks?

Each time an artist’s music is used on a supported social platform, a wide berth of data is gathered. That includes the source URL for the share, the user URL for the person who shared the music, the sharer’s name, and the title of the content they posted featuring the music. Also included are the total views, shares, likes, comments, and user time stamps so you can identify your content in hours-long content (i.e., Twitch Clips). 

This Usage Discovery data collection makes it possible to identify leaks when they happen–giving artists a way to manage leaks and infringements of their musical catalog proactively. Ready to take the next step and track your music’s journey across the web? You can learn the moment someone across the globe discovers your music and shares it via social media with Too Lost and Usage Discovery.

Immensity is an intelligent marketing analytics system that uses AI and machine learning to calculate Return On Ad Spend (ROAS), and figure out which marketing campaigns are actually driving consumption and revenue.

The following comes from Immensity for Artists, a company DMN is proud to be partnering with.

Over the past decade, Immensity’s Co-Founder & CEO, Nick Minicucci, has gained significant exposure into how musicians and teams operate as well as how machine learning is impacting various industries. He graduated music school and joined several local bands, one that signed with APA, and did some heavy touring for 6 years. In addition, he has been working around artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies since 2016, most notably working at MIT for 3 years where he was project manager on a multi-million dollar AI education research study.

“Machine learning and artificial intelligence has permeated the music industry in some really fascinating ways, but there are still massive issues surrounding data” says Nick. “This isn’t really a unique problem, data is growing rapidly and causing difficulties pretty much everywhere, but other industries have seen further advancements in AI/ML-driven technologies that are addressing some of their data problems. That, plus the many disparate and antiquated datasets the music industry has to deal with, definitely opens up an argument that the music industry might have it a little worse than some others right now.”

“Metadata, royalties, streaming data, social media and marketing data… there are pain points in every area,” Nick continues. “There are incredible tools out there starting to solve some of these issues, but there is a serious lack of intelligent tools addressing some of the others. Particularly, issues surrounding some of the biggest datasets in the industry right now – social media, digital marketing, and streaming data, and the mystery of attributing growth in one area to activity from another. Platforms don’t talk to each other well, data is siloed, so it’s difficult to understand what digital channels or campaigns are actually helping an artist stand out in an ocean of content and maximize growth/ROI”

For decades record labels were focused on quality over quantity – get one hit and everything else could fall into place. Quality is still a necessity and always will be, but now quantity is too. Optimizing that quantity is integral, and we’re seeing a pretty steep increase in quantity.

“Immensity solves several challenges that labels and artists face. The platform turns data into tactical take-aways, provided on an artist by artist basis. It allows for quick access to correlative, causal, and predictive analysis without any interpretation needed by research and insights professionals. It can scale easily to an entire roster, and it’s affordable – perfect for label/artist budgets.”

-Larry Mattera, Former Label Executive / Immensity Advisor

Just a few years ago, there were 8 million creators on Spotify, now there’s 11 million+. There were 40,000 songs getting released per day, now there are 100,000.

Every artist has unique qualities and the digital strategies that work for one won’t work for another.

How can you possibly optimize and solve for this level of quantity and diversity?

This is the exact issue that Immensity is tackling. They bring a modern, data science-backed approach to this massive pile of data that every label, agency, artist or team has to deal with and helps each one understand what campaigns are truly moving the needle.

“Immensity helped our team identify that several social media content activities that appeared to be ordinary were driving significantly more traffic to DSPs than content we were originally focused on. It has changed our approach to future campaigns. I’m excited to share these learnings with fellow managers, promoters and merch companies to help increase conversions on their social commerce marketing.”

-Randy Nichols, CEO, Force Media Management / Immensity Advisor

An example of the information you’ll get from the Immensity system is something like this –

“Your ROAS (active streams per $1 spent) is higher around 2 specific marketing campaigns on TikTok than almost every other campaign ran across Meta, Google, and X. Even though the amount spent on those 2 campaigns was significantly lower, the others have reached a saturation point. To maximize streaming consumption on your upcoming album release, you should reallocate X% more ad budget to TikTok” 

This example is a paraphrase from an actual analysis for a band, We Came As Romans. Immensity teamed up with WCAR and Hyperculture Marketing Group to analyze 12 months of paid campaign data and identify which campaigns had been driving the most consumption for WCAR so HMG could optimize ad spend and strategy for an upcoming album release. You can read more about this analysis in Immensity’s joint case study with WCAR and HMG here.

“Attributing growth in streaming consumption back to paid media has always been a bit of a black hole in data / marketing analytics…Immensity was able to not only bring clarity to the consumption data to confirm the hypothesis, but saved both Hyperculture, the label & management team immense amounts of time…The return on investment here was unbelievably clear”

-David Puckett, Founder & CEO, Hyperculture Marketing Group

“Our mission at Immensity is to both democratize modern and intelligent data science for smaller teams, and also help larger organizations power-up and scale their AI/ML efforts,” says Nick Minicucci. “The Immensity system is set up really well to do both of these things and help the whole music industry optimize time and marketing budgets.”

Read more at immensityforartists.com, and reach out to learn more about their enterprise marketing analytics.

Streaming platforms have more than eight million artists and eighty million tracks. Sifting through that volume means having the right tool at your disposal. Here’s a peek at how Chartmetric can help you filter the noise. 

The following article was created with Chartmetric, a company DMN is proud to be partnering with.

Finding a needle in the haystack doesn’t have to be a monumental task–not with the right tools at your disposal. Ready for your metal detector? Chartmetric’s Artist & Track list filters give A&Rs the tools they need to find exactly the type of artist they want to develop. Meanwhile, their comparison features help A&Rs understand the kinds of investments they should be making. 

How to Discover Artists

A&R execs usually have a rough idea of the type of talent they’re looking to develop. But Chartmetric’s Artist Filters button can help home in on talent scouting, just like using a metal detector for our metaphorical needle. A&Rs can sift through all 8M+ artists in the Chartmetric database across 52 different metrics from 18 different platforms. Let’s take a look at an example of how these filters work.

Are you looking for a developing artist who identifies as she/her and is currently experiencing explosive growth? Here’s how to find her using Chartmetric’s Artist Filters on the Artists List. 

1. Click the ‘Artist Filters’ button in the upper left-hand corner of the Artists List.
2. Select ‘She/Her’ from the ‘Any Pronouns’ dropdown
3. Select ‘Developing’ from the ‘Any Stage’ dropdown
4. Select ‘Explosive Growth from the ‘Any Growth’ dropdown
5. Click the ‘Select a Preset’ dropdown to save it as a Preset for future reference

How about an artist with a majority female audience in the 18-24 age range, based primarily in the UK?

1. Click the ‘Audience’ toggle in the upper right-hand corner of the Artist Filters. 
2. Select the platform’s data you want to use (Twitter, YouTube, Instagram & more)
3. Move the ‘Female’ slider to have a lower limit of 50%
4. Under ‘Age,’ select 18-24 and move the slider to have a lower limit of 50%
5. Scroll down to ‘Countries’ and select United Kingdom

Other data you can use to refine your results include audience ethnicity, language, and location, in addition to artists’ Spotify Popularity, YouTube Views, TikTok Engagement, Instagram Followers, SoundCloud Followers, Radio Spins, Pandora Streams, Deezer Fans, and Wikipedia Views.

A&Rs can use these filters to toggle between 7-day change and 28-day change to get a clear picture of growth.

How to Discover Tracks

Talent discovery on TikTok is increasingly happening at the track level. Chartmetric gives the music industry the best way to find fast-rising tracks on any platform. The new tracks list allows A&R execs to sift through 80M+ tracks in the Chartmetric database across 20 different metrics and 11 different platforms. 

What if you want to find a track by a developing artist that has shown huge Spotify streaming growth in the last week? Here’s how using Chartmetric’s Tracks List.

1. Click ‘Filter by Platform Metrics’ and set your desired range of Spotify streams. 
2. Click ‘Filter by Change’ and set your desired range of growth.
3. Click the ‘%’ icon in the upper righthand corner
4. Sift through trending tracks from artists who might not yet be signed

With Chartmetric, you can sort tracks by genre, artist, album, IRSC, release date, Chartmetric Track Score, Spotify Streams, YouTube Views, TikTok Posts, Radio Spins, SoundCloud Plays, Shazams, and more….

Shortlisting the Artists and Tracks You Want to Invest In

A&R doesn’t end at discovery. Recognizing which tracks and artists are the best long-term investments is a huge part of the role, and shortlisting the artists that you want to consider signing is easy with Chartmetric. 

A quick way to examine how artists of interest perform across platforms is by using the Compare feature. This feature allows you to see what artists have grown the most across a number of different metrics, which is crucial, because long-term growth depends on the relationship between several metrics. Let’s take a look at an example. 

Of the three artists shown below, La Joaqui might have the biggest overall stats, but hemlocke springs has experienced the most meaningful growth in Spotify followers and Spotify monthly listeners. Grace Gardner, meanwhile, will require a closer look. 

Let’s check out each of these artists’ tracks on various platforms. After all, one viral hit does not necessarily guarantee sustainable growth for the artist; however, two successful tracks might indicate promise. 

In terms of Spotify streams, two of Grace Gardner’s top-streamed tracks are still showing growth potential. “Radio Silence” picked up steam even though it was released more than a year ago. 

The same is true of hemlocke springs, whose earlier track, “gimme all ur luv,” is starting to get more traction as a result of another track, “girlfriend,” going viral. 

It’s important to compare each artist’s stats to each other–particularly engagement stats vs. fanbase stats. If an artist’s fanbase is growing in tandem with their engagement, that’s a great sign; if only their engagement is growing, then they’re not converting listeners to fans. 

With hemlocke springs, we see that both her Spotify monthly listeners and Spotify followers are exhibiting 1200% growth, which is really healthy.

Grace Gardner–on the other hand–has off-the-charts Spotify monthly listeners growth, but her Spotify follower growth isn’t quite keeping pace. This isn’t necessarily a bad sign–since her followers are growing, but it is worth monitoring as she develops.

La Joaqui is a much bigger artist, which means there will naturally be less growth. For more developed artists like this, fan conversion becomes even more important, as the top artists usually have a fan conversion rate that approaches 1:1. That’s not the case with La Joaqui yet, as her Spotify monthly listeners have grown 3x more than her Spotify followers. With more music and a bigger audience at her disposal, she’s likely the safest bet among these three artists from an investment perspective. 

While both Grace Gardner and hemlocke springs would be riskier investments, based on their growth metrics, they may be worth considering. 

Photo Credit: Sebastian Pichler

Megan Thee Stallion has scored an early victory in her fight against 1501 Entertainment. A Texas judge has denied the label’s request to have her album Something for Thee Hotties to be declared not an album.

The rapper’s $1 million lawsuit against 1501 Entertainment can now proceed to trial. 1501 Entertainment filed a request for a partial summary judgment back in September. It argued that the court should bypass a trial entirely and rule the work was not an album under the terms of the rapper’s contract. One of the reasons cited was that it “failed to follow the proper approval procedures.”

In response to her label filing a motion for partial summary judgment, the rapper says her work with 300 Entertainment means the request should be rejected for the following reasons. 

• • “[Megan Thee Stallion] worked with 300 Entertainment pursuant to the Distribution Agreement to prepare Something for Thee Hotties for release.”
• • “300 Entertainment kept 1501 apprised of developments related to Something for Thee Hotties for months prior to its release.”
• • “[The rapper] delivered Something for Thee Hotties to 300 Entertainment in a commercially and technically satisfactory form in accordance with the Distribution Agreement.”
• • “300 Entertainment promoted Something for Thee Hotties as [Megan Thee Stallion’s] upcoming album prior to its release.”
• • “300 Entertainment provided 1501 with a link to Something for Thee Hotties at least three days prior to its release.”
• • “1501 Entertainment asserted no objection to Something for the Hotties until two months after its release.”
• • “Something for Thee Hotties meets the definition for album under both the Artist Agreement and Distribution Agreement.”

The motion asserts that Something for Thee Hotties satisfies the rapper’s ‘Minimum Recording Commitment’ for the second Option Period under her contracts and her latest album Traumazine satisfies her ‘Minimum Recording Commitment for the third and final Option period.

Megan Thee Stallion filed her lawsuit against 1501 in February 2022. The label then countersued her in March 2022. Now that a Texas judge has rejected the motion to declare the works ‘less than an album,’ the lawsuit can proceed to trial. 

Photo Credit: Caroline Trujillo

Grammy award-winning songwriter Xplicit signs with Electric Feel Entertainment for management and signs a global publishing deal with Sony Music Publishing.

Grammy award-winning songwriter Xplicit (pictured center) has announced his signing to renowned entertainment company Electric Feel Entertainment for management and Sony Music Publishing for worldwide publishing. 

The Cuban-American songwriter has written countless hits such as Justin Bieber’s “Anyone,” Big Sean’s “Beware,” Fifth Harmony’s “Work From Home,” Niall Horan’s “Slow Hands,” and Lil Durk’s “Broadway Girls” featuring Morgan Wallen. The Florida native has also written with artists like Kendrick Lamar, Rihanna, Pink, Selena Gomez, Charlie Puth, and Camilla Cabello.

“Not only can Xplicit write in any genre, but he brings his best game to every opportunity and is extremely dedicated to writing great songs — his diverse discography of hits is the proof! We are excited to be his partner for the next chapter of his impressive career,” says Katie Welle, SVP Creative, Sony Music Publishing (pictured front right).

“Xplicit is a once-in-a-generation hitmaker. He has one of the strongest pens in the industry, and adding his unmatched talents to our Electric Feel Entertainment family is the best way to cap off an incredible year for the company. Alongside the team at SMP, I look forward to building together and kicking off 2023 with more wins,” adds Austin Rosen, Founder and CEO of Electric Feel Entertainment & Ventures (pictured back left).

“I am super excited for Xplicit to join the Electric Feel family,” says Anthony D’Annunzio, General Manager of Producer/Songwriter Management at Electric Feel Entertainment (pictured back right). “We have been friends for quite some time, and to work with him on this next chapter of his career is an honor.”

“Along with Xplicit’s incredible talent as a songwriter, his passion for his craft and work ethic is invaluable,” D’Annunzio continues. “We look forward to not only working alongside X as a writer but teaming up to expand his business into other areas as well.”

“I’m excited to call EF my new home for management. I’ve known Austin and Anthony for a long time, and it felt like the next step for me in my career,” says Xplicit. “I’m looking forward to being the latest addition to an amazing roster filled with some of the best artists, producers, and songwriters in the business.”

“After knowing Katie Welle and admiring her work as an executive for nearly ten years, partnering with SMP and working with her directly is something I am looking forward to,” he concludes.

Photo Credit: Spinefarm Records

Spinefarm is announced as the first repertoire initiative under the new alliance between [PIAS] and Universal Music Group.

[PIAS], a leading independent music company that recently announced a global partnership with UMG, has entered its first significant repertoire initiative following the alliance. Beginning January 1, 2023, Spinefarm Records will join the [PIAS] group’s roster of independent labels to be distributed worldwide.

Acquired by UMG in 2002, Spinefarm will continue to operate as a standalone label — alongside its imprints Candlelight and Snakefarm — from its headquarters in New York, under the leadership of GM Jonas Nachsin (pictured). The current Spinefarm teams in the US, UK, and other markets worldwide will continue handling and overseeing all A&R, marketing, and promotion activities for the label while utilizing [PIAS]’ unrivaled international network, support functions, and global marketing expertise.

Spinefarm’s current roster includes bands like Bullet For My Valentine, American metalcore band Atreyu, Aussie hard rock band Airbourne, alt-rock legends Killing Joke, and punk pioneers Anti-Flag. Additionally, they’ve acquired newer acts like Sleep Token, Creeper, BRKN LOVE, Dead Poet Society, While She Sleeps, Kid Kapichi, and Dayseeker. 

“Over the last ten years, we have built Spinefarm up from its regional origin to become one of the premier global rock destinations for artists,” says Jonas Nachsin, Spinefarm’s General Manager Worldwide. 

“Given that achievement, we are only just beginning and are very determined and dedicated to our future together with our awesome and growing roster. Combining forces with the storied and amazing worldwide [PIAS] team — one of the best and most respected indie organizations ever in our industry — promises that future will be very bright.”

Founded in Finland in 1990, Spinefarm quickly cemented itself as an indie powerhouse for European metal acts from Nightwish to Children of Bodom. In 2016, Spinefarm acquired the metal label Candlelight Records and a year later launched the blues, country, and roots offshoot Snakefarm.

“Jonas and his team at Spinefarm have built a phenomenal artist roster and are one of the world’s leading rock labels,” says Edwin Schroter, Group Managing Director of [PIAS]. 

“It has been our ambition for some years now to develop an independent global network for rock and metal music. It feels great to be able to now do so as part of our strategic partnership with Universal and with two teams that share a passion, working ethos, and combined areas of expertise that is second to none.”

Photo Credit: Viberate

[CASE STUDY] The data behind Taylor Swift’s fan-focused marketing strategy, the “Midnights” album roll-out, and THE tour ticket sales incident.

The following comes from Viberate, a company DMN is proud to be partnering with.

The issues that accompany breaking the world’s largest ticket service provider aren’t something any artist strives for. However, creating a demand that big means that 1) you have masses of fans and 2) they REALLY want to see your show. This is certainly the case with Taylor Swift’s audience, which is eager to see her on tour after five long years and four new albums plus re-recordings.

In this case study, we won’t investigate the ins and out of the tour ticket sales debacle. Instead, we’ll take a couple of steps back and look into the numbers behind Swift’s fan-focused marketing strategy with Viberate’s music data analytics.

We’ll analyze her roll-out strategy for her latest album “Midnights”, how it translated into streaming numbers, and how her “The Eras” tour announcement ultimately crashed Ticketmaster. We’ll also break down the audience that’s been fueling the demand.

1) Taylor Swift as a marketing mastermind

If there’s one artist who understands how an immersive marketing strategy works, it’s Taylor Swift.

With an army of fans ready to decode every clue or Easter egg she provides (and she provides plenty), Swift generates an immense amount of buzz. “It’s really about turning new music into an event for my fans and trying to entertain them in playful, mischievous, clever ways. As long as they still find it fun and exciting, I’ll keep doing it,” she told the Washington Post about engaging her fans.

She does say she’s “only cryptic and Machiavellian ’cause [she] cares”.

1.1 The demographics: Who’s a Swiftie?

Most of Swift’s fans (41%) are in the 18- to 24-year-old Gen Z group. 78% are in the larger 18–34 age group. Below we can also see the age and gender breakdown of her fanbase. Overall, most of Swift’s social media following is female (61.5%). Interestingly, the older the fanbase is, the higher the percentage of male followers (it’s equal in the 35–44 age group).

On TikTok specifically, the fanbase is more female (80.8%) and younger (62% in the 18–24 age group), see below.

1.2 How engaged is her fanbase?

The total fanbase breakdown shows that Swift has the most followers on Instagram (233M). In the last 12 months, she’s gained 46.1M followers on Instagram (a 25% increase) and 6.8M followers on TikTok (a 75% increase). While her TikTok following is a fraction of that (granted, she only joined the platform a little over a year ago), it‘s much more engaged.

Below is a yearly comparison of Swift’s fanbase size and engagement in absolute numbers (combining social media and music channels). As she’s a well-established superstar, it’s not uncommon for the overall engagement line to be below the fanbase size – she’s built a huge fanbase through the years. We can see an engagement spike in August, when she announced the “Midnights“ album at the VMAs, and a massive peak in October, when she started dropping hints and teasing the album on social media.

Let’s look into the music marketing masterclass of Taylor Swift to see how she achieved that. To follow along, you can register for Viberate here.

1.3 Setting the stage: #Swifttok or how Taylor Swift embraced TikTok

Taylor Swift is known for her fan-focused strategy, be it dropping clues, special merch, secret sessions with pre-release concerts (at her house!), and even #Taylurking her fans online. This all helps build a strong bond that’s the backbone of her campaigns.

But Gen Z wasn’t always her biggest fan group.

Here’s one background factor that helped change that. After not being able to buy her masters, Swift decided to re-record her first six albums, much to the approval of her fanbase. The genius of it is that it not only energized her existing fanbase, it also introduced her work to new fans. She released her versions of the “Fearless” and “Red” albums during the Covid lockdown in 2021, when the public was hungry for new music. Her albums “folklore” and “evermore”, released in 2020, were also a sign of the times, encapsulating the mood with their minimal indie folk sound.

Ahead of “Midnights”, a couple of TikTok trends like “Love Story” and “Wildest Dreams” also helped set the stage. Even though Swift isn’t a Gen Zer, she’s present where her audience is engaged the most – primarily TikTok – with imagery that has a DIY, organic feel to it. Cue the birth of #Swifttok. See the rise of her TikTok fanbase below.

1.4 The teaser phase: Building the anticipation

“Midnights” is a concept album with a traditional roll-out, but it didn’t include a single or reveal any music teasers before its release (same as with “folklore” and “evermore”). Instead, Swift relied on fan-focused social media teasers. She revealed her tracklist via bingo balls on 13 TikTok episodes of “Midnights Mayhem With Me”, starting one month before the album release.

This way, she kept her fans constantly on their toes, transforming them into a community of internet sleuths (with their own influencers), re-listening to her previous albums to decode clues and taking apart every theory.

Swift combined her social media strategy with other channels, keeping the content unique to each. Here’s her post frequency:

1.5 Release: Prolonging the momentum

“Midnights”, which was released at midnight on Friday, October 21, 2022, set the record for the most streamed album in a single day in Spotify history.

Swift excels in keeping the ball rolling. Three hours later, she released “Midnights (3am Edition)” with seven additional songs, giving an additional boost to her streaming numbers. Then, she announced a Target-exclusive CD version, followed by remixes of the song “Anti-Hero”, and so on.

This is in line with her previous strategy of prolonging her work’s life cycle, for example the “deluxe version” and “the long pond studio sessions” of the “folklore” album, “From the Vault” additions to her re-recorded albums, and genre and mood variations of songs, e.g. “All Too Well (Sad Girl Autumn Version)” and the “dancing, lonely and moonlit witch version” of “willow”. That’s a hefty number of versions right there.

Additionally, she boosted her vinyl sales by offering four variants of “Midnights” that form a working clock with the help of an additional purchase from her site.

Alongside came the music videos for “Anti-Hero” and “Bejeweled”, with especially the latter being a real Easter egg extravaganza, created for her fans to go to town. For example, the 13 floors in the elevator (the singer’s lucky number) each correspond to an album in her discography.

Each of these steps kept the momentum going. Below, you can see that the boost in monthly listeners was the biggest compared to Swift’s previous album releases. In the month following the “Midnights” release, she gained 26.4M monthly listeners (she gained 16M listeners after “folklore”, 14.7M after “evermore” and 16.6M after “Red (Taylor’s Version)”).

1. July 2020 – folklore
2. December 2020 – evermore
3. November 2021 – Red (Taylor’s Version)
4. October 2022 – Midnights

2) Midnights: Streaming analysis

Since the album release on October 21, the “Midnights” tracks have gotten a total of more than 2.1B streams. Swift’s most streamed track in the past month was “Anti-Hero” with 282M streams, followed by “Lavender Haze” and “Midnight Rain”.

Recorded on November 30, 2022

All the “Midnights” tracks have reached the top of the Spotify streaming chart. This is what the 7-day chart looked like 20 days after the album release:

We didn’t dive into branding in detail, but Swift’s a master in creating a comprehensive visual identity with images, outfits and communications that reflect the sound of each album and in doing so, create “eras” that are easily recognizable by her fans.

As a contrast to “folklore” and “evermore”, Taylor Swift returns to introspective songwriting in “Midnights”, diving into the stories that kept her up at night. Style-wise, the album is a sort of blend of all her previous albums, again prompting the listeners to guess which era a certain song corresponds to.

That’s why the subsequent “The Eras Tour” announcement on November 1 fit into the picture so well.

3) “The Eras Tour” announcement & the Ticketmaster incident

As part of the Eras Tour pre-sale, fans received a code that was supposed to let them buy tickets ahead of the general public, but things didn’t go quite as planned.

Because scalpers were eager to take advantage of the soaring prices on the secondary markets, fans had to compete with bots, and Ticketmaster’s technology couldn’t handle the demand. The site crashed during the Verified Fan ticket sale and hours of waiting and error messages ensued.

“The Eras Tour” still broke Ticketmaster’s record, selling over two million tickets in the November 15 pre-sale – so much so that there weren’t enough tickets left for the public on-sale.

This wasn’t just a lesson in supply and demand, but also a course in antitrust laws.

After Ticketmaster’s merger with Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promotor, many artists feel they don’t have a choice but to work with the ticketing service, and fans feel they have no choice but to deal with dynamic pricing and fees.

Remember when we mentioned Swift’s fanbase isn’t just Gen Z? Well, some of them are lawyers taking on Ticketmaster for violating antitrust laws under the name “Vigilante Legal”. Plus, the issue of competition in the ticketing industry is about to get an epilogue in a Congressional hearing.

Taylor Swift is proof that an engaged fanbase can move mountains, but we’re about to see whether Swifties can change the music industry itself.

You can monitor Taylor Swift’s streaming and social stats with Viberate music data analytics here.

Photo of Taylor Swift on the cover image by Eva Rinaldi (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license)

Third & Hayden founder Kei Henderson, whose company has finalized a JV agreement with SoundCloud. Photo Credit: SoundCloud

Nearly 10 months after inking a talent-discovery deal with Solid Foundation Management, SoundCloud has officially formed a joint-venture label with Kei Henderson’s Third & Hayden “to develop the next generation of artists.”

Berlin-headquartered SoundCloud unveiled its partnership with Atlanta-based Third & Hayden (and specifically the label arm of the “creative incubation hub,” once again) today, via a formal release that was emailed to DMN.

Former 21 Savage manager Kei Henderson founded Third & Hayden (previously Governed By Loyalty) back in 2007, according to her LinkedIn profile, and is a co-founder of SinceThe80s, a joint venture with Universal Music’s Motown.

But after departing SinceThe80s in 2021, Henderson that same year established Third & Hayden as the previously noted “creative incubation hub,” per SoundCloud’s announcement message. And SoundCloud, which rolled out an artist platform in October, is now expected to provide “robust resources” including A&R, marketing, distribution, and PR for the label component of Third & Hayden.

Also under the tie-up, SoundCloud and Third & Hayden are poised “to develop the next generation of artists,” according to the involved parties, while simultaneously enabling the music professionals at hand “to remain fully independent and keep ownership of their own masters.”

Moving forward, Third & Hayden (seemingly referring to the namesake label as well as the entity’s publishing division and management firm) is set to operate out of BNDWTH Studios. The latter is described on its website as “a private music facility in Atlanta that houses 3 recording studios, a content studio and event space.”

Lastly, regarding the multifaceted pact’s details, Third & Hayden’s label has revealed Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Jordan Hawkins and Atlanta-based rapper Key! as its first signings. Meanwhile, the management side of the operation currently counts as clients Ben Reilly, Asiahn, Kenneth Whalum, Annahstasia, and Nutso Thugn.

Addressing the SoundCloud JV in a statement, Kei Henderson (who’s a consultant and strategic advisor for beatBread) made clear her goal of helping indie artists record significant professional accomplishments in the approaching years. 

“We want artists to find success as independents to set the foundation for long-term careers and move through their careers with leverage, and creative control,” Henderson said in part. “SoundCloud is typically one of the first touch points for indie artists and I feel a great part of my career has been brand building with artists from day zero – for this reason they’re the best partner for what we’re building. We’re being intentional on ground up development.”

Back in May, SoundCloud acquired AI-powered Musiio “to identify what’s next in music trends and talent,” and October saw the music-sharing service announce a partnership with credits and collaboration platform Session.

Photo Credit: The Come Up Show / CC by 2.0

One week after adding Yusuf/Cat Stevens to its client roster, WME has officially signed Snoop Dogg “in all areas.”

WME unveiled the agreement with the “entertainment industry mogul” Snoop Dogg today. The Endeavor subsidiary hasn’t publicly shed light upon the deal’s specifics, however, instead dedicating the majority of its formal announcement message to highlighting the rapper’s varied professional undertakings.

And at the time of this writing, the Death Row Records owner Snoop Dogg (who debuted “Death Row Records Wine” last month) didn’t appear to have addressed his newly finalized WME pact on social media. But in a general statement, the 51-year-old touted the union and its broader significance with regard to his multifaceted career.

“WME is the only place that can handle the career I’ve built and grow it even further,” the “Snoop Loopz” owner said. “I look forward to gettin’ it with the WME team to continue innovating across music, film, TV, business, and digital and break barriers across entertainment.”

Meanwhile, WME took the opportunity to explore Snoop Dogg’s projects (music and otherwise), as mentioned.

Among these professional efforts are some 20 studio albums (two of which have release dates in 2022), parts in Netflix’s Day Shift as well as MGM’s The Underdoggs, a role on a children’s show called Doggyland, a spot on FaZe Clan’s board, and, to capitalize upon his Super Bowl Halftime Show performance, a clothing store in Inglewood.

(Snoop Dogg likewise joined The Weeknd in investing in creator-collaboration platform Pearpop last year, and on the crypto side, the Long Beach native has a partnership deal in place with Stage11.)

Separately, WME has announced the hiring of Anthony Reyes as VP of communications, having made four agent promotions in its music division and elevated Lucy Dickins to global head of contemporary music and touring two months back.

More broadly, 2022 has delivered a number of far-reaching shakeups in the representation sphere, which had already changed materially when crowd-based entertainment was shelved in 2020 and much of 2021.

Wasserman Music in April scooped up Paradigm UK’s live music business, for instance, and Creative Artists Agency (which cut ties with Kanye West two weeks ago) over the summer completed its $750 million buyout of ICM Partners. Lastly, CAA in July re-signed John Mayer after the Bridgeport-born musician exited the agency in 2018 in favor of WME, while the latter closed a contract with Stormzy (also in July).

Reprtoir is now simplifying its multi-product offering and switching to plan-based pricing with four major tiers. With the B2B shift, Reprtoir’s CMS is now courting bigger companies.

Juggling a list of digital chores can quickly become overwhelming for even the most well-staffed of labels. But that spells opportunity for those that dare to manage the chaos.

Enter Reprtoir, which has daringly grouped disparate musical assets into a comprehensive content management system. With Reprtoir, files, playlists, contracts, accounting details, and analytics can be organized in one place, even for the largest companies. Reprtoir’s updated, B2B-focused model now aims to offer more simplified organization and a dose of sanity for overloaded teams and companies.

Reprtoir says its streamlined SaaS workspace helps labels, management agencies, and others focus more on music development, release strategies, monetization ideas, and royalty accounting and management. Transitioning clutter and disorganization into actionable strategy is the name of the game. Just recently, Reprtoir and Digital Music News joined forces to expand awareness of the retreaded platform.

Regarding the timing of its model overhaul, Reprtoir says it completed its pricing transition in June. But the planning for this change had been in the works for over two years, with lots of client consultation involved.  “We have been working as closely as possible with our customers to understand their needs and methods, and we acknowledged them to create our new model,” commented Mathilde Neu, Content Manager at Reprtoir.

Apart from the streamlined solutions and modified pricing, there are other changes that current Reprtoir customers will notice.

For starters, customers are now billed in US dollars, no matter their country of origin. With a per-user pricing model, each plan now includes a limited number of authorized users, from a one-user limit in the Starter Plan to 10 users for the Enterprise Plan (though subscribers can add more users for a fee). Moreover, tracks, videos, and works are pooled under the name ‘Assets,’ with the Starter Plan facilitating 5,000 Assets, incrementally increasing to 100,000 Assets for Enterprise subscribers.

Features such as Metadata Collector and Business Analytics are no longer offered as add-ons but are standard in all plans.

Customers can also subscribe yearly, gaining an immediate discount of one free month and spreading the royalty-processing quota over the entire year.

Reprtoir has streamlined its extensive portfolio of nine solutions and complementary add-ons. The company now offers four straightforward business solution categories: Catalog Management, Music Sharing, Release Builder, and Royalty Accounting.

Catalog Management replaces earlier products Audio Manager, Metadata Collector, Videos Manager, Works Manager, and CRM. The Music Sharing solution replaces Playlists for Business and Business Analytics. Release Builder will replace what was originally the Release Manager, while Royalty Accounting takes the place of Rights and Royalty Manager.

Reprtoir’s solutions are now focused solely on label and production company use.

“Reprtoir is changing to offer solutions more suited to the work methods we’ve been observing for a few years,” Neu continued. “Our habits are evolving, and to keep providing one of the most complete solutions on the market, we are taking the step to evolve.”

Reprtoir’s client portfolio includes labels like DeeVu Records, Big Star Recordings, Cleopatra Records, and Genencia 360, as well as organizations like ACEMLA — to name a few.

From a music management perspective, Reprtoir offers an all-in-one workspace for record labels and music publishers, allowing powerful collaboration and productivity solutions.

Catalog Management at Reprtoir is a state-of-the-art catalog management system for record labels and music publishers’ extensive portfolio of music assets. With sound recordings, musical works, albums, videos, releases, contributors, rights holders, and more — the SaaS platform places storage and management of tracks and metadata in one place.

As a comprehensive SaaS suite for labels and companies, bulk imports to Reprtoir with Spotify Importer or Reprtoir Sheets allow streamlined management of more extensive catalogs. From our review of the platform, the collaborative space will enable users to fill thousands of rows into an online spreadsheet quickly. Reprtoir’s team of data experts and developers will also assist label managers for free for complete catalog migration.

Moreover, an intelligent bot called ‘Metadata Enrichment’ autonomously collects data from the web. For music catalog management, users can also mass edit and utilize advanced filtering for business catalogs and data export, alongside hundreds of other features.

The Music Sharing solution creates and shares playlists, monitoring traffic in real-time and enabling sales teams to pitch tracks for sync and licensing deals faster. While keeping complete historical data with no retention limit, contact filtering displays real-time playlist analytics, keeping track of opened playlists, streams, and downloads. Linking content and release planning expedite delivery to any distribution company with all metadata updated.

Reprtoir’s Release Builder appears to be the only available solution for a persistent industry concern: the creation of pre-formatted metadata packages that are compatible with distributors. Tailor-made for labels and publishers, Reprtoir’s Release Builder allows its users to submit releases as pre-filled, bulk-upload spreadsheets for distribution platforms such as Believe or The Orchard.

For any other music distribution company, aggregator, or streaming download service, Reprtoir will set up a specific feed for submission on their CMS by creating custom import packages in Reprtoir’s workspace.

The Royalty Accounting solution is a ‘supercharged accounting solution built exclusively for labels and music publishers,’ the company says. Seamlessly handling a bulk of income fees, advances, and royalty statement processing, Reprtoir’s signature Automated Statement Mapper is compatible with standard files from dozens of retailers, distributors, aggregators, performance mechanicals, or neighboring rights organizations.

Label managers can add royalty breakdowns to assets while bulk-assigning contributors, rights holders, and roles to generate royalty statements.

Discussing the old pricing model, Reprtoir’s original announcement on their website states, ‘While the pricing was ideal for small structures, it was not ideal for medium and large companies. In the majority of cases, they’re dealing with yearly approved budgets. The lack of long-term vision quickly became a problem.’

Reprtoir also aims to ‘reward our users who commit to us in the long run, by offering discounts, and those using the authorized royalty processing amount for a long period.’

The four pricing subscriptions are Starter, available at $79 per month, Professional at $129 per month, Business at $299 per month, and Enterprise at $999.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of the plans and their features. 

The Starter Plan is designed for companies that require only catalog management and music-sharing features—priced at $79 per month or $869 per year, with top features of Catalog Management, Metadata Enrichment, Contact Management, and Music Sharing. Starter Plan subscribers have access to email support, 100 GB of storage, and the ability to store and manage 5,000 assets.

The Professional Plan is tailor-made for small organizations that need advanced royalty management features. Priced at $129 per month or $1,419 per year, it includes everything offered in Starter but adds Release Builder, Contract Management, Royalty Accounting, and Sales Analytics. Professional Plan allows three users, 200 GB of storage, and the ability to store and manage 10,000 assets. It also enables users to process $20,000 of royalty statements per month, or $240,000 per year. The Professional Plan, like the Starter, offers email support.

The Business Plan subscription starts at $299 per month or $3,289 per year—and this is where the platform features get bigger and better. Built for medium-sized organizations that require more royalty management quotas, assets management, and storage, Reprtoir’s Business Plan includes all elements of the Professional Plan while adding Rights-Holders Portal, CWR Exports, and Multiple Organizations for five users.

With 500 GB storage and the ability to manage 25,000 assets, this plan allows royalty statement processing of $50,000 a month, or $600,000 a year. To meet the high-end demands of organizations, business assistance for this plan includes online documentation, email support, and chat support, available 24/7.

The Enterprise Plan fits the complex needs of labels and organizations that control large catalogs. Available at $999 per month or $10,989 per year, the plan includes all features of the three lower-tier subscription plans and adds Reprtoir API, Single Sign-on, and Customer Development. The numbers get big on this one, with the plan allowing ten users, 100,000 assets, 2TB of storage, and the ability to process $200,000 of royalty statements every month, or $2.4 million annually. Business assistance and support go beyond email and chat. This plan adds exclusive phone call support and a dedicated customer success manager to speed things up.

According to Neu, “Our transition into a platform for labels aligns with our long-term vision while making an impact on how the music industry transitions into the digital world.”

Photo Credit: Minnaert / CC by 3.0

The Creative Artists Agency (CAA) has dropped Kanye West after antisemitic remarks the rapper made.

The talent agency has confirmed it stopped representing the artist within the last month. CAA ended its run with the rapper, while both UTA and WME have addressed antisemitism directly. Jeremy Zimmer, leader of UTA sent a companywide email entitled “Rise of Anti Semitism and Hate” to his staffers. THR says the email addressed Kanye’s comments and said they “embolden others to amplify their vile beliefs. We can’t support hate speech, bigotry, or anti-Semitism. Please support the boycott of Kanye West.”

MRC Entertainment also cut ties with the rapper, shelving a recently completed documentary about him. “Kanye is a producer and sampler of music. Last week he sampled and remixed a classic tune that has charted for over 3,000 years – the lie that Jews are evil and conspire to control the world for their own gain,” says MRC in a letter to the Los Angeles Times.

“This song was performed acapella in the time of the Pharaohs, Babylon and Rome, went acoustic with the Spanish Inquisition and Russia’s Pale of Settlement, and Hitler took the song electric. Kanye has now helped mainstream it in the modern era,” the letter continues.

Several entities have distanced themselves following Kanye’s antisemitic remarks. JP Morgan Chase ended its banking relationship with the rapper last week. Both Gap and Balenciaga have ended their retail relationships with the rapper. Following its scrapping of the documentary, MRC encouraged other businesses to support a boycott of Kanye West.

“Lies are an important part of all discrimination, and this one is no different. When well crafted, they create the illusion that the action is just, that the bigot is ‘punching up’ at the victim. The silence from leaders and corporations when it comes to Kanye or antisemitism in general is dismaying but not surprising. What is new and sad, is the fear Jews have about speaking out in their own defense,” the letter continues.

Photo Credit: Chartmetric

Including Chartmetric’s precision data in your electronic press kit (EPK) just got easier with these new tools.

The following article was created with Chartmetric, a company DMN is proud to be partnering with.

As reported by Digital Music News, Chartmetric’s recent acquisition of onesheet has made it easier than ever to create EPKs for any artist. Now Chartmetric is rolling out a new learning hub — learn.chartmetric.com — to help artists and their teams to present data in a meaningful and compelling way. Chartmetric also launched a $10 monthly Artist Plan for its analytics tool earlier this year.

What is an Electronic Press Kit?

An EPK is an essential component of an artist’s success in today’s music industry. onesheet’s elegant solution can distill all of Chartmetric’s data into a sleek webpage, presenting key insights and highlights from millions of points of data gathered by Chartmetric. The best part is that the presentation of this data is customizable. 

Artists and their teams have granular control over which sections to include, which stats to show, and what to feature at the top. With so much control over how the data is displayed, how do artists and their teams know what suits them best? Which information should be displayed to a booker vs. a playlist curator vs. a record label? That’s where Chartmetric’s new learning hub comes into play. 

learn.chartmetric.com – Chartmetric Learning Hub

Chartmetric is on a mission to collate all the possible sources of music industry data into one cohesive source. The new learning hub includes a certification program for anyone who wants to demonstrate their proficiency in navigating the Chartmetric platform. It also provides a study guide, music data glossary, and links to additional multimedia educational content. Most importantly, however, the learning hub teaches users — from artists to record executives — how to apply Chartmetric data to everyday music industry situations, including putting together EPKs.

For instance, the need for presenting data to bookers and labels is different from sharing with playlist creators. Artists looking to route a tour or get signed need to show they have a viable audience ready to tap into. That should include a substantial social footprint with a clear identity to help market the artist. Showing existing tour dates can help bookers see other venues at which the artist has played as well.

Artists looking to garner more reach through playlist curators may want a completely different EPK. Playlist creators want to see how many other playlists an artist has been featured on and what makes the buzz about an artist’s music online worthy of inclusion in their curation process. 

Highlights from social media and Spotify can help solidify placement. With Chartmetric data, artists can highlight how their Spotify followers and YouTube subscribers have grown across multiple time periods. No math required—just go to your artist profile page on Chartmetric and adjust the time period on the Social & Streaming stats section.

With the learning hub, Chartmetric hopes to give users the skills they need to get the most out of music data so they can create a compelling EPK that can help advance their careers in music. With onesheet.club, learn.chartmetric.com, and the Chartmetric Artist Plan all at your fingertips, Chartmetric is putting the power back into the hands of artists and their teams— with one of the most powerful and affordable tech stacks in the music industry. 

Photo Credit: Petr (Happy24) / CC by 4.0

U2 ditches longtime manager Guy Oseary and joins Irving and Jeffrey Azoff’s Full Stop Management.

U2 is joining Irving and Jeffrey Azoff’s Full Stop Management after almost a decade with manager Guy Oseary. Given Full Stop Management’s vast strength in the touring business, a new album and tour seem likely. The band has not released a new album since December 2017’s Songs of Experience, nor have they toured since completing the Joshua Tree anniversary tour in December 2019.

Full Stop manages Harry Styles, whose global tour over the past year has been phenomenally successful under the Azoffs’ wealth of experience in the touring industry. It stands to reason that that was a factor leading to U2’s change in management, coupled with the company’s close working relationship with tour promotor Live Nation. 

Additionally, rumors have surfaced of Irving Azoff’s affiliation with the Sphere, the new Las Vegas venue — and a perfect home for U2’s signature 360-concert model, used on its many worldwide stadium tours.

News of the change in management does come as a surprise. Oseary, who also works with Madonna and Red Hot Chili Peppers, began managing U2 in 2013 with the encouragement of the band’s former longtime manager Paul McGuinness, who had then retired. Having been a fan of the band since he was a teenager, Oseary described the succession as “a great responsibility” that he had been granted. 

“Trustworthiness is an old-school term, and whilst the manager-client relationship does not require a Hippocratic oath, Guy O. takes this very seriously,” said the band’s singer Bono in a July interview with Variety. “That’s one of the reasons we work so well together. He is a most trustworthy person.”

Bono also recently announced a book tour in support of his memoir, “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story,” which arrives November 1. He will be touring North America and Europe throughout November to promote the book.

Photo Credit: OneSheet

Chartmetric has acquired OneSheet, a simple tool for creating instant artist data representations.

OneSheet creates beautiful artist sheets in just seconds, pulling data from multiple sources across the web. The acquisition will allow OneSheet to be powered with Chartmetric data–giving an exclusive drill down of artist data for insights, trends, and more. Chartmetric says it plans to show how it will integrate OneSheet into its platform in the coming months.

OneSheet makes it possible to generate electronic press kits (EPK) for artists with just the touch of a button. Having a representation online is key for building a brand for any music artist. Generating EPKs for music websites used to be a time-consuming process.

OneSheet makes it easy by gathering data that is already present on the web. OneSheet’s artist data includes Spotify and social stats, recent YouTube videos, tour dates pulled from Bandsintown, and more. Each OneSheet can be edited to include the data the artist wants to display. Chartmetric is keeping the app available for everyone to use, and it’s 100% free–for now.

Chartmetric itself has become a one-stop solution for managing an artist’s presence online with meaningful and impactful insights. The company launched in 2016 and it provides access to data from multiple social platforms, including Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, Pandora, Instagram, and Facebook.

OneSheet’s Co-Founder Mike Miller says, “Chartmetric is best positioned to take it to the next level. We’re very excited to see the product evolve and help a wider audience simplify and supercharge their artist marketing.”

Digital Music News has already explored several ways in which Chartmetric is helping change how the music industry handles data. We drilled down into social media scandals and how they can impact an artist’s following across multiple channels–like losing Spotify monthly listeners and engagement across Twitter. These unique insights are only available because of how Chartmetric collates massive amounts of data into easy-to-use insights.

Photo Credit: Day After Day Productions

The Yucaipa Companies invest in Seth Shomes’ Day After Day Productions — Seth Shomes join DWP Talent Services as a partner.

The Yucaipa Companies have announced an investment in Day After Day Productions (DADP), the leading booking agent for over 25 years in the casino and soft ticket industry. Founded and led by Seth Shomes, DADP is widely considered the industry standard in booking and producing entertainment for casinos, city events, fairs, theaters, PACS, and corporate entities worldwide.

DADP’s roster features over 30 clients across a variety of genres, including 98 Degrees, Aaron Lewis, Brian Wilson, Celebrating Meat Loaf, Flo Rida, Ice-T presents The Art of Rap, Jeff Bridges & The Abiders, Matt Fraser, Missy Elliott, Staind, T.I., The Commodores, Tony Orlando, Tyler Henry, War, Wayne Newton, and many more.

“Over the last decade, I have watched with great interest Ron Burkle’s foray into the agency business, and I am thrilled to partner with him and Yucaipa,” says Seth Shomes, DADP CEO. “As I re-launched DADP in April 2021 with just myself and a laptop, it is a proud moment that our immediate growth has quickly led to a partnership with one of the biggest entrepreneurs out there, and I look forward to finding internal synergies within Yucaipa’s portfolio of agencies and related entertainment companies.”

“We are extremely pleased to be going into business with Seth Shomes,” says David Barnes, Partner at Yucaipa. “We greatly admire the company he has built and look forward to having a successful partnership with him for years to come.”

Initially founded in 1996, DADP was re-launched in 2021. The agency held unparalleled sway in the casino world for nearly two decades until Shomes joined The Agency Group in 2014 — and UTA after that — opening the first dedicated Casino Division at each agency. Through this work, Shomes has received five “Agent Of The Year” awards from the prestigious Casino Entertainment Awards in Las Vegas. 

Shomes is an accomplished leader and recognized expert in the casino-entertainment industry. He has established himself as a pioneer by building a platform for non-traditional entertainment programming to thrive in the gaming industry. Among his accolades, Shomes has received praise throughout his career from casino executives, talent buyers, artists, managers, and record and PR executives for his ingenuity. The unique marketing strategies that he has developed have continually proven successful across all parties.

As part of the investment, Yucaipa portfolio company Danny Wimmer Presents has partnered with DADP to grow its DWP Talent Services (DWPTS) division. Launched in 2021, DWPTS is a division of DWP that focuses on the casino and fair business. In a move that makes sense given his wealth of experience, Shomes has been named partner of DWPTS.

(l to r) TM Ventures founder Tarsame Mittal, UMG India and South Asia MD and CEO Devraj Sanyal, UMG AMEA CEO Adam Granite, and TM co-CEOs Alaap Gosher and Saurabh Abbi.

Universal Music Group (UMG) has officially acquired a majority interest in Mumbai-headquartered TM Ventures, which bills itself as “a close-knit family of businesses that has earned its reputation as a trusted marketplace for popular entertainment and talent in India.”

The Big Three label announced its buyout (executed specifically via Universal Music India) of two-year-old TM Ventures in a formal release. Founded by “widely respected Indian entrepreneur Tarsame Mittal,” the newly purchased company encompasses a management business, the producer of an annual industry conference called All About Music, and Music Plus (billed as “the country’s leading B2B digital publication”), among other divisions and holdings.

On the representation front, TM is said to count as clients talent from throughout the Indian entertainment space, including music professionals such as singer Arijit Singh (whose Spotify profile shows 23.39 million monthly listeners), electronic producer Nucleya (1.45 million monthly listeners displayed on Spotify), rapper Badshah (10.20 million), and vocalist Sunidhi Chauhan (10.29 million).

And while the transaction’s financials haven’t been publicly revealed, Universal Music India and TM Ventures intend to build upon “UMI’s leadership of the domestic Indian non-film music business” to spearhead growth initiatives, besides “providing TM clients with the resources of UMI locally as well as UMG globally,” according to the companies’ formal release.

More specifically – and solely on the artist side – the entities likewise touched upon plans to “offer enhanced services, encapsulating virtually all aspects of an artist’s journey,” including “music creation, marketing and release, live events, brand solutions,” and sync.

Addressing the acquisition in a statement, Universal Music India and South Asia CEO Devraj Sanyal said in part: “Universal Music India and TM Ventures share a belief in developing and boosting the careers of homegrown talent and artists. Together, with Tarsame and his excellent co-CEOs Alaap and Saurabh, we will expand the scope of opportunities available to Indian artists and accelerate the growth of the Indian music market, building a new, more expansive model of services available from UMG to all Indian artists.”

Universal Music Group’s deal for TM Ventures arrives about seven months after Warner Music Group (WMG) partnered with Indian pop artist Armaan Malik to debut a label called Always Music Global.

WMG indicated that it would work to popularize Malik’s music on the world stage under the agreement, in addition to jointly “building IPs, backed by the technical prowess and extensive distribution network of Warner Music India.”

In another testament to the present growth within and expansion of India’s music market, Lollapalooza two months ago announced that it would debut in the nation of 1.4 billion residents with a late January installment in Mumbai.

Photo Credit: Sumerian Records

Sumerian Records signs a distribution pact with Virgin Music’s Label & Artist Services.

Independent rock label Sumerian Records has signed a long-term distribution deal with Virgin Music Label & Artist Services. Announced today by Virgin President Jacqueline Saturn and Sumerian Founder & CEO Ash Avildsen, the first music released under the new pact will come from alt-rock favorite Palaye Royale. 

Virgin Music will provide the label with a wide array of services to support its releases. These services supplement Sumerian’s already robust functionality, which it has been developing since its founding in 2006.

“Sumerian has established a stellar track record for finding and breaking artists within the rock, alternative, and metal genres,” says Virgin Music General Manager Matt Sawin. “We’re honored that Ash and Sumerian are partnering with Virgin Music, and are excited to help bring their label and outstanding roster of artists to new heights.”

“Virgin Music and Capitol are two incredibly iconic brands in music. I hope to build Sumerian into that echelon and believe the teams at these companies are the best ones out there right now for me to do it with,” says Avildsen, who also went on to thank Stacy Fass and John Greenberg for their help in facilitating the deal. “They have shown true passion and persistence in getting this deal done as well as a full understanding that Sumerian is much more than just a record label. I am honored to call them my new partners and thrilled for the future together.”

Sumerian Records is considered a leader in fully independent record labels for rock music and culture. With several Grammy nominations and over 2.35m YouTube subscribers, Sumerian Records is the only indie label in the genre that already has over 125k organic followers on TikTok.

Bad Omens’ latest single under Sumerian, “Like a Villain,” recently became the number one most listened to song on Sirius XM Octane Radio. Their other current single, “Just Pretend,” is the number one most thumbed-up rock song on Pandora. Sumerian also reached an industry first in over 20 years, with Nita Strauss reaching number one rock radio song for over three weeks in a row for a female artist.

Photo Credit: Alfred Marroquin / CC by 3.0

Megan Thee Stallion is seeking $1 million in damages from her label 1501 Entertainment. She also says her latest album fulfills her contractual obligation to the Houston label.

The initial lawsuit was filed in February 2022 and sought non-monetary relief. But now the rapper has amended the complaint to seek damages and release from the contract. The complaint says Traumazine, her newest album released on August 12, “both constitute an ‘album’ as defined in the parties’ ‘recording agreement,’ and therefore Megan ‘has satisfied all option periods’ in her contract.”

Megan Thee Stallion has been locked in a legal battle with her label, 1501 Entertainment, since March 2020. The rapper has posted to social media about her efforts to remove herself from the contract she signed as a young artist.

Former baseball player Carl Crawford owns the label and has pushed back against Megan’s claims that she has satisfied the album requirements. The label claims Something For Thee Hotties is less than an album. 1501 Entertainment also contends that Megan Thee Stallion still owes the label “millions” from her activities like touring, endorsements, merchandising, and other commercial efforts.

The rapper hired Roc Nation as her management firm in September 2019 and the filing alleges this action irked 1501 Entertainment. In the amended complaint, the rapper says Roc Nation helped her understand the contract she signed was not in keeping with industry standards.

The contract has a 60/40 split of recording income in 1501 Entertainment’s favor. Payments to outside parties (producers, sound engineers) must come out of her 40%. The initial contract also gives 1501 Entertainment a 30% cut of her touring and merchandising profits.

Megan Thee Stallion says she believes 1501 Entertainment was the source of the August 4 leak of her latest album, Traumazine. She says the leak left her no choice but to release the work early and that she’s been hired to hire “forensic investigators to determine the source of the leaks.”

1501 Entertainment counter-sued Megan Thee Stallion in March 2021 with new claims. The label says the rapper “must include at least twelve new master recordings of her studio performances of previously-unreleased musical compositions” for a release to qualify as an album. Megan Thee Stallion will sit for an in-person deposition in October, and discovery for the case won’t close until 2023.

Photo Credit: Jaxsta

Whether you’re collecting and distributing royalties, valuing catalogs for acquisition, licensing music or promoting your roster, Jaxsta’s verified music credit metadata has the solution to your business needs.

The following comes from Jaxsta, a company DMN is proud to be partnering with.

Jaxsta recently unveiled its Business and Enterprise membership plans, which tailor the company’s official music credits data specifically to meet the needs of businesses. 

The world’s most extensive resource of official, verified music credits – meaning that its 270+ million credits are sourced from official avenues such as record labels, publishers and industry organizations – Jaxsta’s data is trusted as a single source of truth. Too often, music recordings and songs are not linked with the proper metadata to identify and credit the creators and contributors, resulting in inefficient processes and incorrect compensation for creators and rights holders – until now.

Here are eight common ways Jaxsta’s data, and their Business and Enterprise memberships, can help your business, whether you’re a record label, a manager, a publisher, a PRO or CMO, or a music IP investment company.

1. Simplify Catalog Acquisition and Transfer

Record labels, publishers and music IP investment companies looking to acquire music catalogs find Jaxsta an invaluable resource to identify an artist or songwriter’s entire repertoire, including cover versions and re-releases on compilation and soundtrack albums. This allows a more accurate valuation of that catalog to be calculated. Once the acquisition agreement has been signed, Jaxsta’s data can be used to accelerate the transfer process by providing all the metadata including critical industry identifiers (ISRCs, UPCs, ISWCs), which are required to redistribute the catalog and start generating revenue.

2. Custom Repertoire Reports Improve Workflows for A&R

Here’s one for A&R reps – say you need to track the credits and chart results for a particular set of creatives you’re interested in signing, or with whom you want to set up collaborations. Jaxsta can prepare repertoire reports showing all the creatives who worked on the songs on the playlists of your choice, ie. Rap Caviar by Spotify or TikTok’s viral chart. And because Jaxsta’s credits are deep-linked, you can instantly see what else each person has worked on and with who. It’s an incredible resource at your fingertips – now, you will always know who your artists need to be in the room with.

3. Easy Access To Royalty Information

Royalty Collection Societies including PROs and CMOs need to identify and verify the artists, performers, songwriters, labels and publishers associated with the streaming or performance of musical recordings to ensure royalties are paid to the right individuals and organizations. Unlimited access to Jaxsta’s database via an Enterprise membership means they have a one-stop, single source of truth for recording, release and works information, saving them from wasted hours visiting multiple sources in search of verification. Not only can they trust Jaxsta’s data to help them do their job, but they can trust it to save them time.

4. Streamlining the Music Licensing Process

Via Jaxsta’s verified credit data, music supervisors can identify which label and publisher they need to contact to license a recording for inclusion in TV, movies and commercials, as well as find other recordings of the same composition which may be more cost effective to license compared to the original version. Labels looking to release cover versions of songs can easily identify the publishers and songwriters associated with the recording they wish to cover to secure the Compulsory License for its distribution.

5. Trustworthy Data = More Royalties Recovered

When Jaxsta receives a credit for a creative from one of its 300+ official data partners, a profile page is created for that person, to which all their credits are added. A management company can claim and manage the profile pages of their entire roster, whether they’re artists or work behind the scenes. Via Jaxsta’s partnership with Songtradr, they can then use these profiles to claim neighboring rights and/or find any missing royalties they weren’t aware of. Artist manager Hank Teverbaugh (Naturally 7, Leon Russell Estate) used Jaxsta to find royalties for his artists – check out this video to find out how.

6. Monitor and Promote Your Entire Roster In One Place

Record labels, studios, distributors and managers can monitor their roster’s charts, awards and certification activity in one place. The PR and marketing teams can use that information to help promote the achievements of their roster when pitching for editorial or other opportunities. 

7. Save Time Creating Easily Updatable One Sheets For Your Entire Roster

The Jaxsta One Sheet pulls all the relevant information – bio, image, key releases, links and contact details – from your client’s Jaxsta profile, and can be published within minutes. It also contains official Fan Metrics, meaning artists and their representatives can display social media stats from 14 platforms including TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, Instagram and Twitter, all of which are updated in real time. Not only can you create your own One Sheet vanity URL to send to others, but the Jaxsta One Sheet can be embedded on your website, meaning your site will always have current information without you having to spend the time updating it manually.

8. Generate Insights and Enhance Your Existing Content With Jaxsta’s API

Jaxsts’a API is the industry’s most comprehensive source of music metadata. Use it to access 270+ million official music credits that will enrich your organization’s data or add full album and creator details to your platform. Jaxsta’s data is used by The Recording Academy for their annual ‘Behind The Record’ campaign and Billboard for their ‘The Players Behind’ series, to list just two examples.

To find out more about Jaxsta’s Business membership click here.
To find out more about Jaxsta’s Enterprise solution click here.
To find out more about Jaxsta’s API solution click here. 
Or to speak to a member of Jaxsta’s customer support team, email support@jaxsta.com

After a decade-long run, BTS announced plans to take a break and pivot to the second chapter of their respective careers—solo albums. But is BTS really breaking up? In a recent interview — and latest walk back — band member J-Hope said the band “are definitely not on hiatus.”

Universal Music’s Geffen Records were to release BTS members’ solo albums after the members had clarified that “BTS will become stronger that way.” But now, BTS may have ‘rethought’ the decision to break up.

After news of the K-Pop band’s breakup sent shockwaves around the world, BTS’ management company and agency Hybe suffered a massive fall in market cap—nearly $2 billion. That was a crushing blow, and exposed a serious lack of talent diversification at Hybe. But events that followed appear to have changed the trajectory and implications of BTS’ decision.

Now, it appears that the Seoul-headquartered Hybe has implemented some damage control by claiming that the band’s hiatus news was “taken out of context” and only spurred “unnecessary drama and misunderstandings.”

After Hybe’s market-cap dip, Hybe and Disney announced a partnership, which included “two exclusive series featuring BTS” — a BTS special and a show starring member V.

BTS’ now-infamous hiatus announcement also followed reports that members of the band were duty-bound to serve in the South Korean military. This service is a mandatory requirement for all Korean male before a certain age, and it isn’t clear whether the musicians would receive a waiver due to their star status and GDP contribution.

It’s worth noting that mandatory military service was once a requirement in the US — back in 1958, Elvis Presley had to serve in the military despite being a superstar icon. High-flying athletes and entertainers were also forced to serve, regardless of the net losses career-wise.

Within the wobbly BTS world, the Hybe agency market crash, subsequent Disney partnership, and South Korean military service expectation, the unfolding events are now embellished by the latest narrative that the group is not “putting a stop on BTS group projects.”

It appears as if the Kpop sensation is either backtracking on their original decision or didn’t mean it in the first place.

In an interview with Variety, BTS member J-hope sat down to discuss his ‘old-school hip-hop’ solo album Jack In The Box. In the chit-chat, he made clear that the group is “definitely not on hiatus.” According to J-Hope, “there was a little bit of loss in translation as we conveyed that message.”

J-Hope also emphasized BTS’ bolstered future, saying, “we’re on the verge of starting chapter two for BTS—and we will definitely be working on group projects as well as solo projects.” The rapper hoped there was “no misunderstanding about where we are going and what kind of directions we’re taking as a team.”

One can’t help but recall the June 14th FESTA dinner in which BTS first announced this bewildering “hiatus.” Band members had spoken tearfully about their ‘break,’ making clear that it might be a while before the group gathered again in front of cameras.

The Nile River in Cairo, Egypt. Photo Credit: Sherif Moharram

Sony Music Entertainment Middle East has officially unveiled “an exclusive partnership” with Cairo-headquartered production and artist management company Craft Media, and the involved parties will work to discover Arabic artists under the deal.

Sony Music’s Middle East division and Craft Media, which was founded by Hamaki manager Hamdy Badr, revealed their talent-focused pact today. Building upon a 2021 tie-up, the straightforward agreement will see the major label and Craft (not to be confused with Cairo’s Craft Productions advert house) coordinate “to sign, produce and promote Arabic artists and music across the Middle East,” the companies said.

The businesses have already partnered on releases including Lebanon-based Wael Kfoury’s “Kelna Mnenjar,” Egypt-based Karim Mahmoud Abdelaziz’s “Elghazala Ra2ya,” and Lebanese star Elissa’s “Damayer.” And for further reference, Craft boasts north of one million YouTube subscribers, and its videos on the Google-owned platform have racked up a cumulative total of about 207 million views.

Addressing the deal with Craft Media in a statement, Sony Music Middle East GM Mike Fairburn said in part: “Craft Media’s creative prowess, coupled with our years of experience in the music industry and international network of talent and collaborators, give our artists an edge in a competitive market. Today’s partnership sets in motion a long-term strategy to expand the influence of Arabic music and artists across the region and beyond.”

Ahead of these plans to uncover and market Arabic artists, Sony Music and Craft also took the opportunity to tout the rapidly developing music industries in the Middle East, which the IFPI in May deemed the “fastest growing music region in the world.” This bold declaration arrived just two months after the same organization indicated that MENA had achieved 35 percent year-over-year industry growth in 2021 – nearly double the global total.

Predictably, given the double-digit expansion, the Big Three labels have taken a number of other steps to bolster their reach in the market.

Besides today’s union with Craft Media, for instance, Sony Music late last year rolled out a jointly owned label with regional streaming player Anghami. (Despite posting double-digit user and revenue growth in Q1 2022, Anghami hasn’t been exempt from the stock-price shakeup that’s affected the tech space; shares today touched a record low of $3.08 apiece.)

Meanwhile, late May of 2022 saw the Rotana Music investor and Qanawat Music owner Warner Music Group open a division in Tel Aviv, whereas Universal Music Group debuted Universal Arabic Music in April of 2021.

Photo Credit: Atlantic Records

Meek Mill has left Jay-Z’s Roc Nation Management after more than ten years.

Roc Nation has yet to comment on the split, though Meek Mill has confirmed the breakup. Over the past few days, Meek Mill has been scrubbed from the Roc Nation website and social media profiles. Meek Mill has been with the company since 2012, and his connection with Roc Nation runs deep.

He has a joint venture deal with the company for his Dreamchasers label and a non-profit he launched with Jay-Z to combat unfair sentencing laws. Both Meek Mill and Jay-Z banded together to form the Reform Alliance after Mill was sentenced to prison for probation violation in a ruling that was later overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

In recent years Meek Mill has expressed frustration with his label, Atlantic Records (WMG). That frustration resurfaced again today. “They didn’t put nothing into Expensive Pain and then said I can’t drop another project for 9 months at the end of my contract after I made them $100s of millions,” Meek Mill tweeted. “How can anybody survive that? Most rappers can’t speak because they depend on these companies. I don’t.”

Following speculation about the split today, Meek Mill later took to Twitter to address the rumors. “All I seen today was Meek and Roc part ways. I’m personally handling my own business so I can take risk and grow. We came to that agreement together. I have a label deal with Roc for my artist and I got Reform Alliance. Super tied with them and many other investments with jigga.”

In another tweet, Meek continues: “And Roc Nation is my family don’t mix my post aimed at Atlantic mixed up with Roc or MMG. They ain’t stop nothing I’m doing we made about a 100m together.”

Meek Mill also blames Atlantic Records for splitting him and Roddy Ricch up. “Roddy my yougin still, but that label separated us instantly when the millions came in from him, same thing they tried to do with me and Rozay. It takes a long time to catch up too because most of em tied in for the love of some money, artists scared to speak up.”

Photo Credit: Flickred! / CC by 2.0

Singer and songwriter John Mayer has signed with CAA for representation in all areas.

Mayer has ping-ponged between CAA and WME for representation. He left CAA in 2018 in favor of WME, but now the guitar prodigy is back to CAA. Mayer has sold more than 20 million albums worldwide and has racked up billions of streams on services like Spotify and Apple Music.

His most recent album was Sob Rock (2021), which debuted at #1 on the Billboard album sales chart. The album also earned the Best Rock Video Award at the MTV Music Video Awards for “Last Train Home.” John Mayer is managed by Irving Azoff and Steve Moir. His attorney is Reid Hunter.

He’s currently on the road touring with Dead & Company. The group was founded in 2015 with Mayer on lead guitar and vocals, joining former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann, along with Oteil Burbridge, and Jeff Chimenti. The group has completed six tours together and sold more than three million tickets. Overall grosses from those tours is just under $300, according to Pollstar. Dead & Company launched their latest tour in Los Angeles on June 11.

Mayer makes the move to return to CAA for representation following his departure in 2018. Mayer left CAA for WME when his agent Scott Clayton resigned as the Co-Head of CAA Nashville to Co-Head WME Nashville and led its rock division. Dead & Company also transferred all of its business from CAA to WME in 2018, so it will be interesting to see if that goes the other way.

In a recent interview with People magazine, Mayer admits he’s gotten comfortable as a side gig in Dead & Company. “It was awfully cozy to play in Dead & Company, because I’m not in the center of the stage,” Mayer says of his performance in the group. “I have really grown to love that vantage point to musically make those contributions from that place. I wasn’t sure about whether I was going to find that love for it again but then by song three I was like ‘ok this is not ever going away.'”

Photo Credit: Henry J. Kamara

WME has signed British rapper and songwriter Stormzy in all areas.

Stormzy has released two studio albums to date, including Gang Signs & Prayer (2017) and Heavy is the Head (2019). Both albums topped the UK album chart at #1. He was the first solo Black British artist to headline the Glastonbury Festival in 2019. A BBC One documentary called ‘Stormzy: Road to the Pyramid Stage‘ premiered last week to reflect on that journey.

Stormzy continues to be represented by Tobe Onwuka, the Co-Founder of #Merky Foundation. It’s a charity foundation started by Stormzy to help organizations and charities that are committed to fighting racial inequality, helping justice reform, and black empowerment.

Stormzy has also launched #Merky Books, an imprint with Penguin Random House UK, for publishing new fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Stormzy also founded ‘The Stormzy Scholarship,’ an annual studentship to fund black British students to go to the University of Cambridge.

The British rapper was most recently featured in the BBC six-part series by Louis Theroux. The series promises an in-depth and personally revealing encounter with one of the biggest stars in the UK today.” Speaking during a recent Glastonbury documentary for BBC Two, organizer Emily Eavis shares she believes Stormzy should have headlined the iconic UK festival much sooner.

“He was representing the Black community in a very predominately white festival and obviously that’s a really important moment for us, but it’s also a little bit late maybe. We probably should have done it before,” Eavis shares in a new BBC Two documentary about Stormzy’s 2019 performance at Glastonbury Festival.

“There was a lot of pressure and there was a lot riding on it,” Stormzy shares about his performance in the documentary. “It’s gonna be a lot of people’s first time watching an hour and a half of a young Black man with something to say.”

“I think Emily has got a really tough job, doesn’t she, because she’s got a dad who’s called Eavis, who’s a strong, strong character. So Emily’s got a tough act to follow, but she does it incredibly well,” the documentary’s director and producer Francis Whately shares.

Photo Credit: CAA & ICM Partners

CAA closes a deal to acquire ICM Partners for $750 million as sources say the Department of Justice finally approved the proposal. Unfortunately, the acquisition will eliminate around 105 positions, all from ICM.

The most significant link-up in the industry since the WMA-Endeavor merger in 2009, Deadline sources predicted the deal back in September. With ICM’s value of around $750 million, the acquisition pushes the combined enterprise value to about $5 billion. 

Leadership for the merged company is expected to address staff at Thursday’s town hall, with rumors that departments will begin integration processes on July 11. However, much of the integration involves CAA agents outright replacing ICM positions.

CAA will eliminate about 105 positions from ICM in all departments, retaining about 80% of the existing agents and staffers. According to sources at Deadline, the “bloodletting will be expedited,” with everyone knowing where they stand very quickly if they don’t already. About two dozen agents and staffers have already left over the past few months, with the regulatory process dragging on and delaying the deal by about six months.

Much of the value to incoming star agents will be in stock, as the bulk of the cash that CAA and its investors put in to close the deal will go to ICM investor Crestview. The company’s stock should see an increase in value if CAA and its majority owner TPG (Texas Pacific Group), decide to take the company public. The ICM agents the merged company intends to keep recently received formal invitations in addition to (non-negotiable) offers of cash and stock, which were not well-received.

Chris Silbermann, CEO of ICM, is expected to join CAA co-chairmen Kevin Huvane, Bryan Lourd, and Richard Lovett, along with reps from TPG, on the CAA ownership board. It’s unknown who from ICM would be on the operational board, but rumored possibilities include talent head Lorrie Bartlett.

“Today marks a new chapter in the history of our company, positioning us better than ever to deliver extraordinary opportunities for many of the world’s preeminent artists, athletes, thought leaders, brands and organizations in entertainment, sports and culture,” Huvane, Lourd, and Lovett say in a joint statement. 

“We are thrilled to welcome our new ICM colleagues to CAA, and look forward to combining their expertise, relationships and resources with those of our agents and executives around the world. Our diverse range of clients who entertain and inspire large global audiences have never been in more demand, nor have their opportunities been greater. With today’s addition of our new colleagues, the scope of possibilities for helping clients achieve their goals is limitless.”

ICM’s most significant assets (from an acquisition standpoint) are its books, sports divisions, and showrunners such as Vince Gilligan, Bill Lawrence, and Shonda Rhimes.

Photo Credit: BeatPortal

Beatport has acquired LabelRadar, bringing its streamlined music demo submission platform to its Music Services division.

LabelRadar helps artists by introducing their demos to labels and notifies them immediately when its heard. For record labels, LabelRadar offers streamlined access to a steady flow of unsigned demos from a wide variety of genres.

When an A&R team finds a track they love, they can view data on the artist, initiate a conversation, and work towards signing the track. The Beatport acquisition of LabelRadar brings it under its Music Services division alongside ampsuite, Hype, and LabelBase.

“LabelRadar streamlines the whole demo submission process,” says Alex Branson, SVP of Music Services. “LabelRadar has built an accessible product that makes it easier for labels and publishers to review incoming demos, while ensuring artists get their demos heard by the right prospective partners who can immediately jump on the opportunity to sign new music.”

How LabelRadar Works for Artists

Artists upload their demos and select a 20-second section of the demo they think best represents the track. Once the demo is clipped, it is submitted to the Public Pool or privately to a single label or promoter of the artists’ choice.

Meanwhile, labels and promoters can unlock the full demo if they shortlist the track when listening to the clipped section. If the artist has submitted the track publicly on LabelRadar, the label can see fan engagement statistics with the clip. From there, labels can open a discussion with the artist about the track.

No more hunting down inactive emails or dead social media accounts. Artists submit their demo and instantly have a pool of labels and promoters who are looking for new music. LabelRadar offers artists real-time notifications when their demo is heard or not. If the label shows interest, the artist is the first to know.

Photo Credit: Brian Doherty (Pictured: Sherry Saeedi, Mark Hoppus, Nick Lippman)

A group of industry veterans has announced the launch of Verswire, a VC-styled music startup.

Veeps founder & COO Sherry Saeedi, blink-182 lead vocalist Mark Hoppus, and music manager Nick Lippman have come together to create Verswire. Fall Out Boy founding member & bassist Pete Wentz is also on board as a strategic advisor. Verswire has ambitions to become a ‘Shark Tank’ style investment vehicle for emerging and established artists, while also serving as a development incubator and offering various label services.

The company is coming out swinging against the industry’s favorite boogeyman — the major label. “The countless tech solutions that allow artists to make extra money have merely been a band-aid, while no one has fixed the root of the problem: that unfavorable deals do not allow artists to make money or their own music,” Saeedi declared. “In witnessing my closest friends put on the back-burner or trapped within the deals they signed while going bankrupt, I didn’t feel like anyone out there was providing the right solution to artists.”

Saeedi slammed “the same archaic business model we’ve seen fail artists time and time again,” while promising a more artist-friendly option “that’s truly created with their well-being and careers as the priority.”

Verswire will translate the Shark Tank ideology into a venture capital fund that views artists as entrepreneurs. The firm plans to tailor its investment in each artist with funding, resources, tools, mentoring, and support from prominent music executives. Verswire says it will provide an ecosystem for artists to own and operate their businesses, while allowing them to keep majority ownership of their masters.

Veep’s model seems to combine a number of long-running solution categories for artists.

Currently, the music industry features a number of successful and mature companies within categories like artist financing, label services, distribution, licensing, publishing administration, and data — all established and fast-growing sub-sectors. Major labels now play in a very competitive terrain, all of which spells innumerable new options for artists.

Already, the maiden voyage has set sail. Verswire’s debut signing, Beauty School Dropout, has released their new single, “Assassin.” The group has been championed by both Mark Hoppus and Pete Wentz. “I am very excited to help build a new way for bands and artists to create music for communities, while retaining ownership of their work,” adds Hoppus.

The founding team also includes a number of music industry advisors and investors, including Kevin Lyman (Warped Tour Founder) and Gus Brandt (Mark Hoppus, Foo Fighters).

The Alan Parsons Live Project performing in 2017. Photo Credit: RocknRollLove

Back in January of 2020, Alan Parsons sued his former live-performance manager for breach of contract, trademark infringement, and more. Now, a jury has awarded The Alan Parsons Project co-founder nearly $5 million in damages.

U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton Jr. just recently entered the $4.95 million final judgement against the case’s defendants, manager John Regna and his World Entertainment Associates of America (WEAA) business.

In brief, regarding the action’s details, the 13-time Grammy nominee (and one-time winner) Alan Parsons stated in the original complaint that he, via his “loan-out company,” had entered into a “partly written, partly oral, and partly implied” contract with Regna in 2009.

Regna had “aggressively sought to persuade” Parsons to approve “a broad and all-encompassing contractual relationship,” per the suit, under which he and his company “would control virtually every aspect of Parsons’ professional and musical endeavors.” But the filing individual “resisted these entreaties” and limited the pact’s scope “to live performances and appearances.”

The agreement was terminable (by Parsons’ company) “at will” and covered “the booking of live performances and appearances, the receipt, handling, safekeeping, and proper accounting of monies earned,” and more, the veteran producer and engineer said.

“Regna and WEAA specifically promised that their loyalty to the brand they were helping to grow and maintain would survive the termination of their business relationship,” 73-year-old Parsons communicated. “These promises necessarily contemplated that, even after the relationship terminated, Regna and WEAA would not do anything to diminish or damage the brand that they were generously compensated for helping to grow, maintain, and protect.”

And the particular company policy of WEAA purportedly relayed: “‘Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson were the sole members of the Alan Parsons Project. By virtue of that, there cannot be any ex-members of the Alan Parsons Project other than Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson… [A]ll work-for-hire musicians and singers are prohibited from saying that they are an ex-member of the Alan Parsons Project (a recording franchise), or the Alan Parsons Live Project (a touring and recording franchise).’”

Driving the point home, the “Games People Play” artist Parsons indicated that Regna had told third parties during their partnership: “‘There were two, and only two, members of the Alan Parsons Project.’”

But after Parsons in early April of 2018 terminated the arrangement with Regna and WEAA following “long and careful deliberation and for many good reasons,” these defendants “promptly commenced a scheme to destroy the value of the” trademarks in question, according to the action.

On this front, Regna and WEAA were said to have “solicited various session musicians…who had performed as workers for hire decades ago on recordings by The Alan Parsons Project to embark on a worldwide live concert tour under the false and misleading name ‘The Original Alan Parsons Project Band.’”

Needless to say, the “unlawful scheme” didn’t sit well with Parsons, who, owing to post-termination venue “holds” for unauthorized shows, was allegedly forced to choose between playing gigs that he hadn’t arranged, harming his reputation by declining to do so, or allowing the bogus band to perform.

Additionally, it was alleged that Regna had failed to take down a much-viewed video of a Parsons performance from his YouTube channel, turn over several contested domain names, and pay $35,000 for a concert delivered to On The Blue Cruise passengers.

At the time of writing, Parsons – who’s preparing to kick off a European concert series next month – didn’t appear to have publicly addressed the $4.95 million judgement in his favor. Last year, multiple courtroom confrontations between artists and their (former) managers entered the media spotlight.

Photo: PopArabia and Reservoir

Reservoir Media and PopArabia have announced two new deals. They include the signing of Egyptian rapper Mohamed Ramadan and the acquisition of Egyptian label 100COPIES.

The two new deals mark Reservoir’s continued strategy of growing its presence in emerging markets. Mohamed Ramadan is considered a household name in the MENA region as both a film actor and musical star. In 2019 he was crowned the Most Popular Artist in AFrica by the All Africa Music Awards.

To date, Ramadan has amassed over 4.65 billion views on YouTube. He has over one million monthly listeners on Spotify and has cultivated a strong fanbase in Africa. He is currently working on new material which features collaborations with international artists and producers.

“I’m very happy to be entering this new deal with Reservoir and PopArabia. I look forward to reaching next levels together,” Mohamed Ramadan says about the deal.

Meanwhile, 100COPIES was founded in 2006 by Cairo-based producer Mahmoud Refaat (pictured, right). The label is an early champion of the Egyptian musical genre Mahraganat, which emerged in 2011. The label made early investments in the genre, which mixes Arabic rap with electronic music and traditional Egyptian elements. Breakout duo El Sawareekh’s track “Laa” has generated over 100 million views on YouTube.

Reservoir and PopArabia’s other recent signings include Lebanese music icon Zeid Hamdan, Moroccan superstar 7liwa, and artist collective ARXP Cartel. “MENA was the world’s fastest growing region in 2021, with revenue growth of 35% according to a recent IFPI report,” says Reservoir Founder and CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi.

“We look forward to further solidifying Reservoir as an influential player in these markets and simultaneously fulfilling our commitment to facilitate the movement and cultural impact of Eastern talent in the West,” Khosrowshahi adds.

“It’s really gratifying to see the goals of our Reservoir and PopArabia partnership continuing to come to fruition through these new deals across regional talent,” adds Spek, PopArabia Founder and Reservoir EVP of International and Emerging Markets (pictured, left).

“In particular, Egyptian artists have long been a driving force in Arabic popular music; the deals with Mohamed and 100COPIES offer important opportunities for PopArabia. We will continue executing its regional strategy by establishing our footprint as a major player in Arabic music, investing in catalogs and talent, and taking this music to all corners of the globe,” adds Spek.

Photo Credit: Lukuiddi / CC by 4.0

Ghanaian Afropop artist Stonebwoy has signed with Universal Music Group (UMG) and the global Def Jam labels family. 

The CEO of Burniton Music Group, Stonebwoy will be represented across Africa by Def Jam Africa, while Def Jam Recordings will represent him across the US. 0207 Def Jam will become his main label in the UK. All three labels are divisions of UMG.

“Stonebwoy is a true African talent,” said Sipho Dlamini, CEO of Universal Music South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. “He works to lift the heart and spirit of those around him, whilst producing fresh sounds that keep blowing the world away. We look forward to what 2022 has in store for him.”

“I’m excited to welcome Stonebwoy to the Def Jam Family in partnership with Sipho and 0207,” Def Jam chairman and CEO Tunji Balogun added. “The Def Jam brand is recognized all over the world as a stamp of excellence in black music, and as we continue to strengthen our musical bond in important markets like Africa and the UK, it’s dynamic, talented artists like Stonewoy that will lead the way. This is great music from a special artist who needs to be heard everywhere.”

0207 Def Jam co-Presidents Alec and Alex Boateng said, “Stonebwoy is one of the great Ghanaian based modern music artists and ambassadors. The opportunity to amplify his outstanding talent alongside Sipho, Def Jam Africa and Tunji with Def Jam Recordings is very exciting, especially him becoming a part of our world class Def Jam artist family. Hopefully this is the first of many more collaborative projects to come.”

Born Livingstone Satekla, Stonebwoy has brought global attention to Ghana’s music scene since 2012. He has received several awards in his ten-year career, including two Billboard plaques, Artist of the Year at the Ghana Music Awards, and Best International Act: Africa at the BET Awards.

His new single, Therapy, was released on May 3. An accompanying music video, shot in Ghana, is due on May 13. The single is the first to come from his newly signed Def Jam deal, with the album expected to drop in mid-2022.

Stonebwoy has worked with international artists Trey Songz, Sean Paul, Keri Wilson, Alpha Blondie, Burna Boy, and others. He is one of Africa’s most followed performers on social media, with over 7 million followers across Instagram and Facebook.

Photo Credit: Raph_PH / CC by 2.0

Yeah Yeah Yeahs have signed to indie label Secretly Canadian, with a promise for new music arriving this fall. 

The New York trio has also announced a list of tour dates, including shows in New York and Los Angeles. Their October 1 show at New York’s Forest Hills Stadium will feature the Linda Lindas, who will also be joining them at the October 6 Hollywood Bowl show. Japanese Breakfast will be joining them on October 6 as well.

“It is with true life affirming pleasure to announce our two headline shows in our two hometowns NYC AND LA supported by two wildly gifted bands Japanese Breakfast and the Linda Lindas at the Hollywood Bowl, with the Linda Lindas supporting in Forest Hills and our other support TBA soon!” Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O said. “Representin’ a few generations yo! Cannot wait to see you there! New music! New Era! And New Home with Secretly Canadian! Much to celebrate!”

While they haven’t released new music since Mosquito in 2013, the group promises to play new material at the shows. 

Yeah Yeah Yeahs will also be accompanied by English Teacher at their Manchester show, Dry Cleaning and Anika at the first of the two London shows, and Anika again along with Porridge Radio at the second London performance. Wet Leg will join Yeah Yeah Yeahs for the Australian leg of the tour. The Linda Lindas will join in for both US dates, while Japanese Breakfast will play at the Hollywood Bowl show.

June

• 6 | O2 Apollo in Manchester, United Kingdom
• 7 | O2 Academy Brixton in London, United Kingdom
• 8 | O2 Academy Brixton in London, United Kingdom
• 11 | Primavera Sound 2022 in Barcelona, Spain

July

•  20 | Margaret Court Arena in Melbourne, Australia
•  24 | Hordern Pavilion in Sydney, Australia
•  29 | Osheaga Music and Arts Festival 2022 in Montreal, Quebec

October

• 1 | Forest Hills Stadium in Forest Hills, New York
• 6 | Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California

To date, Yeah Yeah Yeahs have released four studio albums. Their first, Fever to Tell, was released in 2003. Their sound has been called a post-punk Siouxsie and the Banshees mashup. Secretly Canadian was founded in 1996 in Bloomington, Indiana, and is part of Secretly Group.

Casey Wasserman. Photo Credit: Rainer Hosch

Wasserman Music has officially acquired the live music representation business of Paradigm UK, higher-ups have announced.

The buyout of Paradigm UK’s music touring operations arrives a little over one year after two-decade-old talent agency Wasserman rebranded the troubled music division of Paradigm proper as Wasserman Music.

Wasserman had only finalized the underlying purchase agreement in March of 2021, after Paradigm had laid off a substantial number of its music agents, several of whom went on to establish competing agencies. And needless to say, the Wasserman-Paradigm transaction didn’t encompass the music-representation offerings of Paradigm UK.

Paradigm UK, it bears highlighting, encompasses the team of the agency formerly known as Coda. Paradigm initially invested in the latter eight years ago and bought the company outright in July of 2019.

Today’s deal “reunites the British team” – including 24 agents and 72 total employees –“with their longtime colleagues in North America,” Wasserman Music said, and will grow “the agency’s global reach as it continues to build and develop its roster of world-renowned artists.”

On this front, Wasserman’s music unit currently handles global representation for the likes of Drake, Frank Ocean, Billie Eilish, SZA, and Sia, besides representation outside of North America for My Chemical Romance, Bon Iver, PinkPantheress, and FKA Twigs, to name some.

Regarding the post-acquisition executive roster of Wasserman Music, Paradigm UK partners (and former Coda partners) Dave Hallybone, Alex Hardee, Tom Schroeder, and James Whitting have now “joined the Wasserman Music Managing Executive team,” the company disclosed.

Addressing the purchase in a statement, Wasserman chairman and CEO Casey Wasserman said: “I am incredibly proud to reunite Alex, Dave, James, Tom and their team with the full force of our Wasserman Music group.

“They not only persevered through a once in a lifetime pandemic, but prioritized their clients and partnerships in a way that is consistent with our values and commitment to talent. With this group now under one banner, we now have a truly scalable and serviceable global music practice and look forward to strengthening our platform together,” concluded the LA28 chairman, who previously sold his mansion to David Geffen for well over $60 million.

Wasserman Music’s buyout of Paradigm UK’s touring operations is the latest in a line of representation developments and shakeups that have come to fruition since 2020’s start.

In addition to the aforementioned debut of agencies founded by laid-off employees, September of 2021 brought with it CAA’s acquisition of ICM Partners, after UTA earlier that year became the owner of London’s Echo Location Talent Agency. More recently, UTA closed out 2021 by dropping a reported $125 million on strategic-advisory firm MediaLink.

Photo Credit: Lester Cohen

Capitol Records has announced a partnership with Top Dawg Entertainment to present rapper Doechii.

The Tampa-based rapper has dominated the internet with her original EPs including Oh the Places You’ll Go (2020) and BRA-LESS (2021), as well as the single “Yucky Blucky Fruitcake.” She’s racked up over 32 million streams on Spotify alone.

“The legacy of Capitol and TDE continues with me and my fans, and the legacy of my music starts right here, right now,” says Doechii.

“Top Dawg Entertainment is excited to partner with Capitol Records to provide a platform for Doechii to fulfill her artistic ambitions,” adds Anthony Tiffith, Founder of Top Dawg Entertainment. “Doechii’s energy is contagious and, together with Capitol, we’re committed to helping her share her gifts with the world.”

The partnership between Capitol Records and Top Dawg Entertainment follows the release of Doechii’s debut TDE track, “Persuasive.”

“The first time I heard Doechii’s music, I experienced that incredible chill-inducing feeling that I live for, as both a music executive and music fan,” says Michelle Jubelirer, Chair & CEO of Capitol Music Group. “That feeling has only grown deeper as I’ve gotten to know this amazing young artist and heard more of what she’s been creating in the studio. It’s a real honor to be partnering with Top Dawg and TDE as we work to introduce Doechii to audiences around the world and help her develop into the global superstar we know that she’ll become.”

Doechii was named one of Spotify’s ‘Most Necessary Artists to Watch in 2022.’ Her latest track was produced by Kal Banks (Isaiah Rashad, J. Cole, SiR) and executive produced by Anthony Tiffith. Prior to dropping “Persuasive,” Doechii appeared on Isaiah Rashad’s single “Wat U Sed” and on his Lil’ Sunny’s Awesome Vacation tour. Fans of Doechii will be excited to see what the rapper does next.

Photo Credit: Reservoir

Reservoir has announced a new deal for the catalog of lyricist Larry Kusik.

Kusik is best known for his collaborations on theme songs from blockbuster films like The Godfather and Romeo and Juliet. He was a prolific lyricist whose works can be heard in some of the most iconic films ever released in the ’60s and ’70s.

Kusik notably penned the lyrics for “Speak Softly Love,” the lyricized theme for The Godfather. The film is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month. His work on “Speak Softly Love” won Kusik an ASCAP award and was recorded by several artists. Andy Williams’ version of the song reached #34 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Larry Kusik also co-wrote the lyrics for “A Time For Us,” which appears in the 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet. The track was nominated for a Grammy Award and has been recorded by many artists over the years – Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis, and Stevie Wonder. Kusik also wrote the lyrics for “Once Is Not Enough,” by Henry Mancini from the 1975 romance film of the same name.

Larry Kusik contributed lyrics to themes from countless other films, including Palm Springs Weekend, Rosemary’s Baby, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Murder on the Orient Express, Mommie Dearest, and many others. The Reservoir deal includes a mix of both publisher’s and writer’s shares for Kusik, who worked with some of the most celebrated composers and lyricists of his day.

Born in New York City in 1919, Larry Kusik came from a family of professional musicians. He was deeply influenced by his time serving in North Africa and on the Burma Road during World War II and was awarded the American Defense Service Medal and several ribbons for his distinguished service to his country.

“Larry penned lyrics to widely popular, moving music that has captured hearts for generations, particularly through film,” says Reservoir Founder and CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi. “We are proud to continue his legacy and introduce these evergreen songs to new listeners.”

“I’m so glad my father’s catalog has found a new home with the passionate team at Reservoir,” adds Thomas Glass, Kusik’s son. “He always had a real reverence for the Great American Songbook and would be proud to know his catalog sits alongside the likes of Hoagy Carmichael’s and Dorothy Fields’, as well as the many young, talented writers on the Reservoir roster, especially those from his hometown of New York. I know Reservoir will support his legacy, so his music can continue to inspire.”

Photo Credit: Bobby Shmurda

Bobby Shmurda claims he has been released from his contract with Epic Records. However, the rapper still appears on the Epic Records website.

The rapper took to his social media account to drop the news. Bobby says he signed release papers with the label and can now release new music whenever he wants. “Attention to all Shmurda fans aka The Smurdas,” the rapper’s post begins.

“I Just signed my release papers also jus made ah milly today. I can’t wait to drop s/o my n*gga @trulife. I’m shooting my 1st independent video today called getting em back we celebrating all week in KODS pop out nd Monday Starlets.”

Bobby Shmurda took to social media in December 2021 to outline his issues with Epic Records in public.

He’s since deleted the post, but Digital Music News covered the story. He explained that he has zero control over his music since he was a teen. “I ain’t been in charge of my music since I was 19 years old and I just turned 27, and honestly idk when shit dropping,” Shmurda wrote. “So don’t ask me shit go ask them mf’s since they wanna control everything!”

In another post on Instagram just two months later, Bobby Shmurda called out Epic Records and its CEO, Sylvia Rhone. He said he had a great relationship with Rhone but couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t release him from his contract.

“I got a 70-year-old lady running my label, and I love her dearly but she doesn’t want to let me go at all, no matter what I do,” Shmurda wrote. “I’ve been signed to them since I was 19, and I did six years in jail trying to get off this label before I came home,” the now-deleted post continues.

“You name one person in the industry a label keeps signed in jail for six years! I made them more millions than they ever gave me; just let me go.” Shmurda then addressed his fans, saying his post was not a cry for help.

“This is a message and understanding for my fans that they are stopping my music and prolonging my career. I been holding shit down doing everything on my own since I been home. It’s been a year now and I still feel like I’m in prison.”

Photo Credit: Mushroom Group

Mushroom Label Group has announced a global partnership with UMG’s Virgin Music Label & Artist Services.

Mushroom is Australia’s largest independent label group, and the global deal encompasses artist support and distribution outside of Australia and New Zealand. Under the terms of the agreement, VLMAS will provide bespoke global promotion, marketing, and audience label services to Mushroom’s existing US and UK infrastructure.

Select Mushroom artists’ releases will be issued through UMG’s major label network – when agreed by both parties.

“Mushroom has been a market leader for decades in Australia, and today, we take another huge step in building Mushroom into a truly global brand. Our A&R staff is world-class, and we together with Virgin/UMG are going to break artists from any part of the globe to every part of the globe,” says Mushroom CEO Matt Gudinski.

“Lucian, David, and the Virgin team are better placed than any other music company to help us deliver on our ambition, and we are ecstatic to form this partnership,” Gudinksi adds.

“This global alliance between Mushroom and Virgin Music marks the beginning of a new collaboration between two historically entrepreneurial companies that have both introduced countless superstar artists and helped shape and influence independent music for decades,” says Sir Lucian Grainge, Chairman & CEO, Universal Music Group.

“We’re thrilled to be working with Matt Gudinksi, who is honoring his father’s great legacy by bringing Mushroom to new heights, and with Korda, who has been a force in the UK creative community for decades.”

Mushroom has announced the appointment of Korda Marshall as International Director to co-lead the Mushroom Label divisions’ global operations. “I’m so happy to be returning to the Mushroom Group; it feels like coming home after a long and winding road trip around the music business,” says Korda Marshall.

“I look forward to working with all the labels and their amazing artists. Our new deal with Universal provides a fantastic opportunity to work closely with one of the finest music companies in the world. Lucian, David, and the Virgin teams led by Vanessa, Jim, Jacqueline, and Matt have all been very impressive, and together we can become a real alternative home for great talent and creative ideas.”

Photo Credit: Warner Music Group

Diljit Dosanjh has inked a partnership with Warner Music, the first time the Indian superstar has signed with a major record company.

Dosanjh will be working with Warner Music to help amplify his global music career. He has two upcoming singles, one with Canadian rapper Tory Lanez and another with Tanzanian star Diamond Platnumz. Dosanjh has recorded 13 studio albums and has established himself as one of Punjabi music’s biggest stars.

“I’m delighted to be collaborating with Warner Music,” says Diljit Dosanjh. “Together, we’ll take Indian music way beyond the usual diaspora audiences to the top of the global charts. I’ve already started working with some of Warner Music’s artists from other countries, and it’s proving an exhilarating creative process. I’m just so proud to be playing my part in putting Indian music firmly on the global map.”

Dosanjh’s manager Sonali Singh adds, “Diljit Dosanjh is a cultural phenomenon. He has sold-out venues in the UK such as the SSE Arena, Wembley, the First Direct Arena in Leeds and the Birmingham Arena. Diljit’s growth as a global artist has been unprecedented and we’re hopeful that this partnership with Warner Music India will take us one step closer to making Diljit a global music star.”

The partnership between Diljit Dosanjh and Warner Music India is a landmark one. Warner Music India launched just two years ago in March 2020.

Since its launch, the company has signed a licensing deal with Tips Music, which owns the rights to some of the most popular Bollywood movies ever produced. Warner Music India has also founded the Maati label, which is dedicated to Indian folk music. In the Punjabi music scene, Warner Music has also signed partnerships with Ziiki Media and Sky Digital.

“Punjabi music has long been popular in India, and it’s now igniting international interest,” says Max Lousada, CEO, Warner Recorded Music. “You don’t get many bigger names in the genre than Diljit Dosanjh, and with our creative expertise and global marketing network, we can help him reach new audiences worldwide and become a truly global name. We’re really honored to have Diljit sign to Warner Recorded Music.”

Lil Baby performing live. Photo Credit: Frank Schwichtenberg

SoundCloud has unveiled a “joint venture” with QC Media Holdings’ Solid Foundation Management, under which the involved parties will work “to discover new talent and revolutionize artist partnerships.”

SoundCloud, which says that its library contains north of 275 million tracks from some 30 million creators, announced the pact with Solid Foundation today. Both Solid Foundation and QC Media are owned and operated by Kevin Lee and Pierre Thomas.

Within QC Media, nine-year-old Quality Control Music is headquartered in Atlanta, and the hip-hop label’s roster includes Lil Yachty, Lil Baby, Migos, City Girls, and 20-year-old Lakeyah. Solid Foundation also debuted in 2013 and manages many Quality Control acts.

Bearing these details in mind, QC Media invested in SoundCloud – the stake’s value hasn’t been publicly revealed – and Solid Foundation “will work collaboratively with the company to identify, invest in, and foster the careers of artists featured on the platform,” according to the entities’ announcement message.

“Collectively, this ground-breaking deal will apply a combination of deep industry experience, proprietary data & insights and resources to create custom A&R programs for selected artists inclusive of development, distribution and marketing and artist services,” SoundCloud’s formal release elaborates.

And in a statement, Lee emphasized the large number of emerging artists whose music is available on Berlin-based SoundCloud, which adopted a “fan-powered” royalty model in 2021 and released a music-heavy feature film in January.

“There is nothing more important to our process than discovering new artists, so partnering with SoundCloud, one of the most important hotbeds of talent, is incredibly exciting to us,” said Lee. “Their data merging with our time-tested way of cultivating and building artists will be a blend to be reckoned with!”

In a testament to younger acts’ prominence on SoundCloud, the service previously revealed that NBA YoungBoy (age 22) was the “top artist” of 2021, with “Rapstar” by Polo G (age 23) garnering the most on-platform plays of any track last year.

Meanwhile, “Antisocial 2” by BabySantana (age 15) was dubbed the “hardest independent hit” because it boasted “the most fan engagement of all independent drops in its first 24 hours.” Plus, SoFaygo (age 20) was SoundCloud’s “top independent artist” of 2021.

Of course, the likes of Billie Eilish, Bryson Tiller, and Post Malone also started their careers on SoundCloud, and it’ll be interesting to see which artists Solid Foundation signs from the platform moving forward. In a broader sense, it’s worth reiterating that catalog releases, referring to tracks that debuted at least 18 months back, now account for almost 75 percent of U.S. music consumption.

Photo Credit: Harald Krichel / CC by 3.0

Just days following Olivia Rodrigo’s much-publicized management shakeup, Dua Lipa has reportedly exited TaP Management.

The London-born singer-songwriter’s split from TaP Management (part of the overarching TaP Music) came to light today, in reports from outlets including Hits Daily Double. But at the time of this piece’s writing, neither Dua Lipa (who began a world tour nine days back) nor TaP Management had commented publicly on the matter.

Aside from 26-year-old Dua Lipa – whose profile is still live on the TaP website, suggesting that the professional relationship’s dissolution could have been abrupt – the London- and Los Angeles-headquartered company lists as clients Lana Del Rey, Ellie Goulding, and Hailee Steinfeld.

It goes without saying that the timing of the development might also point to a potentially sudden turn of events. Dua Lipa kicked off the Future Nostalgia Tour in Miami last Wednesday, as alluded to, and TaP Music’s newest tweet is a February 3rd repost of a message penned by Lipa, who is reportedly in talks with other management firms.

These discussions will have to take place remotely or while the “New Rules” artist is on the road, though, as she’s scheduled only a handful of two-day tour breaks through the remainder of February and the entirety of March. After an April 1st show in Vancouver, however, Lipa is set to take two weeks off before performing in her native England.

Worth noting is that Olivia Rodrigo’s initially highlighted departure from Camp Far West Management, which she reportedly ditched for Lighthouse Management, arrived about 10 weeks out from the start of her Sour Tour.

In a broader sense, the music-industry management switches delivered by 2022’s first seven or so weeks follow a number of high-profile changes from 2021.

Chance the Rapper countersued his former manager, Pat Corcoran, in an ugly legal battle last February, around the same time that Tony Ciulla, the longtime manager of Marilyn Manson, dropped the shock rocker as a client.

Meanwhile, Nicki Minaj and Irving Azoff’s Full Stop Management reportedly parted ways, at which point Minaj reportedly sat down for preliminary discussions with Wassim Slaiby’s SALXCO. The latter’s roster includes The Weeknd and Doja Cat, but Nicki Minaj isn’t currently featured as a client on the company’s website.

Finally, November of 2021 saw Kendrick Lamar hire Anthony Saleh as his manager. Saleh, Nas, and Lamar’s cousin Baby Keem backed metaverse virtual-land investment startup Everyrealm about one week ago.

Photo Credit: Rapetón Approved

Artist development venture Rapetón Approved has announces a partnership with Warner Music.

The strategic alliance will see Warner Music offering support to new urban talent and becoming a powerful promoter of artists from the genre. Rapetón Approved launched in 2020 to sign new artists through Yandel’s label Y Entertainment Records and to promote them through Rapetón’s platforms – including its website and YouTube channel.

The selection of songs and artists for Rapetón Approved is in the hands of Yandel and Guru. Rapetón Approved will provide professional support to new artists, songwriters, and producers to give them exposure and structure needed to make their musical dreams a reality.

Warner Music Latina will release the first track produced under the new deal on February 25. It will be a representation of the beginnings of the urban genre in the back streets of Puerto Rico, kicking off a series of weekly releases to showcase new talent and different musical sounds.

“Y Entertainment’s mission has always been developing new talent; singers, producers, and songwriters,’ says Yandel. “I am grateful to God for allowing me to make a living from what I love the most: music, and to be able to contribute, together with Guru and Alejandro, to developing new talent fills me with joy.”

Alejandro Duque, President, Warner Music Latin America adds, “Yandel and Guru have a very clear vision for the future of Rapetón Approved, and I’m proud that Warner Music is now part of that vision. Together, our priority is to find and support the best emerging artists and aid their development. The combination of Yandel, Guru, and Warner Music provides an unparalleled platform for that purpose.”

Angel ‘El Guru’ Vera concludes, “I am super grateful to Warner Music Latin for supporting and betting on this vision of Rapetón Approved that I have been working on since 2016. It gives me great joy because now I can see that all sacrifices were worth it.”

Photo Credit: Geffen Records

Last month, reports indicated that Olivia Rodrigo was searching for a new manager after splitting with Camp Far West Management founder Kristen Smith. Now, ahead of her world tour, the 18-year-old has reportedly signed with Lighthouse Management.

Multiple outlets have detailed the management shakeup of Olivia Rodrigo, who rose to commercial prominence with last summer’s much-streamed Sour. Notwithstanding her breakout success while a client of Smith, however, Murrieta, California-born Rodrigo evidently parted ways with Camp Far West, as the initially mentioned January reports relayed.

And it came to light this afternoon that the “Drivers License” singer and songwriter – who’s up for seven Grammys – had reached a deal with Lighthouse Management & Media, which bills itself as “a Los Angeles based full service talent management, production & media company.”

Six-year-old Lighthouse Management hadn’t commented publicly on the matter at the time of this piece’s writing – nor had Rodrigo herself. But the firm, which maintains a website consisting solely of a non-interactive logo, reportedly represents the likes of Selena Gomez, Paul Rudd, and Jason Bateman.

Additionally, Rodrigo will reportedly be co-managed by Lighthouse founder and CEO Aleen Keshishian and partner Zack Morgenroth. The latter individual previously served as a talent manager for Brillstein Entertainment Partners, and Keshishian’s longtime assistant formerly worked at Brillstein and ICM Partners.

Needless to say, the precise reason(s) for Olivia Rodrigo’s management-team switch remain unclear. But it’s worth noting that the High School Musical: The Musical: The Series actress’s rapid career ascent hasn’t been without controversy – both publicly and behind the scenes.

On the former front, some accused Rodrigo of plagiarizing Elvis Costello’s 1978 hit “Pump It Up” on “Brutal,” and Costello himself eventually weighed in on the subject. “This is fine by me, Billy,” he responded to one Twitter user who pointed out the perceived similarities between the songs. “It’s how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That’s what I did. #subterreaneanhomesickblues #toomuchmonkeybusiness.”

But evidence suggests that other artists haven’t been as accepting of the technical characteristics that Rodrigo’s work purportedly shares with their own music; Rodrigo quietly added Taylor Swift as a songwriter on “Déjà Vu” last July.

Then, August of 2021 saw the Sony Music Publishing-signed creator add Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams and former bandmember Josh Farro as songwriters on “Good 4 U,” presumably because of the track’s purported overlap with 2007’s “Misery Business.” Williams took to social media to acknowledge her credit on the song, which boasts a staggering 1.26 billion Spotify plays, compared to 1.30 billion streams for “Drivers License.”

Photo Credit: Walt Disney Television / CC by 2.0

Olivia Rodrigo is reportedly seeking a new manager after splitting with Kristen Smith.

According to a report, the 18-year-old star parted ways with Camp Far West Management founder Kristen Smith. Rodrigo’s publicist has not responded to comment about the rumor. Hits Daily Double reports that Rodrigo is in early discussions with a few top-tier managers.

Olivia Rodrigo was the breakout success of 2021, scoring the year’s #2 album with SOUR. She also enjoyed the #2 and #3 songs of 2021 with “drivers license” and “good 4 u.” Only Dua Lipa’s “Levitating” edged out the Disney star from the top spot. Rodrigo has also earned nominations in all four of the top Grammy categories for a total of seven noms in 2021.

Rodrigo says everything about her life changed the week “drivers license” dropped.

“It’s quite strange because my entire life has changed in a week, and also nothing has changed at all,” Rodrigo told Vogue. “Every day I’m in my house, doing my homework, but people who I’ve looked up to since I was ten are reaching out and saying they love my music. It’s a strange sort of paradox.”

Rodrigo says she had no expectations for “drivers license” to chart, or break records.

“I’ve always felt great about it, but I definitely didn’t expect it to chart like it has and break all of these records. It’s surreal,” Rodrigo says in an interview. “It feels like a glitch in the simulation that is life. I see all these numbers and records [being broken], but I’m stuck in my house.

“I haven’t seen anyone or even played a show and I haven’t been able to see my producer, so it feels like it’s happening in an insulated time, which is making it feel even crazier.” When asked who she most wants to work with, Rodrigo says she’d love to collab with Lorde. “I love Lorde. She’s the greatest lyricist of our generation, she’s incredible. I love Gwen Stefani too, I’ve been listening to tons of her stuff.”