Author: djfrosty

In a stylish, cozy office in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, a dozen or so Ninja Tune employees sit around a conference table, everyone locked in on their laptops.
There’s a quiet hum of productivity as staffers work on the daily tasks that add up to the label’s prolific output — work that has helped define and expand electronic and indie music culture since Ninja Tune’s creation 35 years ago.

Founded in London by Matt Black and Jonathan More, who together made music as Coldcut, Ninja Tune now employs a staff of roughly 100 that primarily works in London and L.A. Given that geographic reach, Marie Clausen, Ninja Tune’s managing director of North America since 2022, calls 7:30 a.m. PT — which is 3:30 p.m. in London — the hallowed “golden hour” of each day.

“That’s the time for us to connect,” Clausen says while sitting in the office’s upstairs lounge area, where the walls are hung with album covers from Bonobo, Thundercat, Bicep, ODESZA and many of the other acts who’ve helped define the label’s roster and creative ethos since 1990.

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Originally from northern Germany, Clausen cut her teeth in the Berlin rave scene before eventually relocating to L.A. She now oversees an operation that includes the label, publishing company Just Isn’t Music and Ninja Tune Production Music, a library of stock music whose year-over-year revenue recently rose by 20%.

These latter two entities help subsidize the still fully independent Ninja Tune label. Recent synchs include music by the rising Brooklyn electronic outfit Fcukers featured in an Apple Keynote presentation; label artists TSHA, Logic1000, Machinedrum and many more having their music placed in projects spanning video games, film and TV; and a recent contract that secured the largest individual synch deal in the company’s history. While the track and brand are confidential, the campaign generated over $1 million — highlighting, Clausen says, “the scale and potential of our synch business.”

Ninja Tune also encompasses a collection of sublabels and partners including Flying Lotus’ influential Brainfeeder imprint, ODESZA’s Foreign Family Collective, Counter Records and Big Dada, with the team thus altogether touching a wide swath of artists and genres.

“Music and culture are the fires that keep us all going,” Clausen says. “That’s the real essence; that’s the texture; that’s what sticks, and then you build the business around it to amplify it.”

As Ninja Tune marks its 35th anniversary, Clausen reflects on the label’s recent successes, competing with the majors and more.

What are some of Ninja Tune’s biggest successes from the last few years?

One of the biggest milestones is continuing to work with team ODESZA on everything we’ve achieved over the years. I started working with them about 10 years ago, and obviously, we landed a No. 3 Billboard 200 album [with A Moment Apart in 2017]. Last year, they sold out three Madison Square Garden shows, which was an amazing milestone for them. Then we had several Grammy Award [nominations] and several gold and platinum records. [In 2021], we also brought their label, Foreign Family Collective, into Ninja Tune. That whole relationship just continues to be really strong, and it’s an amazing team. They’re very ambitious, very forward-thinking and very fan-first.

Then during COVID, we released Thundercat’s It Is What It Is album on Brainfeeder. That was another massive milestone. The record came out in April 2020 during the height of COVID, and we had to pivot many, many times throughout the campaign. He’s an incredible artist to work with — very, very talented. Ultimately, it also led to a lot of great chart success and a [best progressive R&B album] Grammy win for Thundercat.

What about on the broader business side?

Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen continued growth across the business, specifically in streaming. We went from the streaming revolution to the social media revolution, and now we head on into AI [artificial intelligence]. With Ninja Tune, we’re always trying to face this with a really open mind and keep an eye on where consumption is going and lead the business into that.

How does this approach extend the ethos of the label’s earlier days?

Back in the day, Matt Black and Jonathan More already had a very innovative, forward-thinking approach. They played with CD-ROMs, they had video mashups. They did something called Pirate TV, which is like what Instagram Live is now. It’s ingrained in the DNA of the company to really lean into new technologies and innovation.

Marie Clausen

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Tell me about the current state of your roster.

We have a very stylistic, diverse roster. We already talked about ODESZA and Thundercat, who are incredible and who we continue to work with. Black Country, New Road just released a new album called Forever Howlong that reached top three in the U.K. and sold [11,000] physical copies in the U.S. in its first week alone, after we set up over 150 listening parties and had a very bespoke campaign and an artist who really leaned in.

Then there’s Barry Can’t Swim. He’s amazing. He’s releasing his sophomore album, Loner, this summer, and his career has exploded since he launched his artist career three years ago. He had record attendance at Glastonbury last year and already received a Mercury Prize and a BRIT Award nomination. Here in Los Angeles, in April of last year, he played the El Rey, which is just under 1,000 capacity. Then last weekend, he sold out two shows at the Shrine with a combined 10,000 capacity.

It’s a wonderful team to work with, really forward-thinking, and the sound is incredibly warm and also very clubby and really sticks. There’s also amazing art that goes with it, and he’s an artist that has a fantastic sense of humor and keeps it fresh.

An artist like Barry Can’t Swim could presumably sign with a lot of different labels. What brings him to Ninja Tune?

We have a very ambitious team that, if they get a no, [they] turn it into a yes. We’re really dedicatedto building artist careers. We also handle every campaign and every artist we work with [gets] a very bespoke, white-glove treatment.

Someone like Barry is receiving full attention from the team. We have several offices across the world. There are just under 100 worldwide Ninja Tune employees. We are experts in physical and digital marketing. We know how to run e-commerce. We are really good at [customer relationship management] strategies.

We also know how to market toward different niches and then bring [those niches] into the mainstream. That’s one of the areas we’ve been successful in over the last couple of years.

Whether you look at Maribou State or some of the other artists we work with, it’s not necessarily music you would say is made for the mainstream, but [we can help guide] its way into the mainstream. Having that sort of superpower to know how to drive that forward and drive artist careers is one of our strongest selling points.

Your artist nimino had a big moment last year when his track “I Only Smoke When I Drink” went viral. As a label, how do you capitalize on that virality and harness it into something long-lasting?

We were really able to break him in the sense that when his single started going viral on TikTok, nobody really knew of him yet. We worked very closely with his management team and really leaned in on all the different aspects of the marketing campaign and were very ambitious in all areas.

[The result] has been just incredible to see. He played Coachella this year. His profile on Spotify went from roughly 500,000 monthly plays to 5 million within something like 50 days. It was really fun to work with a moment like that and then lean in and drive it forward.

What competitive advantage does being independent give you?

We’re quick to adapt. In some ways, we’re like the mailman; we are delivering one record after the next, but technology is changing so fast that we need to continue to rethink all the time. We have this very fresh, innovative mindset, and that allows us to pivot really quickly.

Do you feel you’re competing with the majors?

One hundred percent we are competing with the majors. It’s not our goal to compete with the majors. Our goal is to just be the best service to our artists and drive the company forward, but obviously, if you’re working at the forefront of the market, then you are competing. There are always majors around that are equally trying to sign our records, but that’s great. It keeps us on our toes, and it means we can deliver really good results. We’re challenged by that and that’s wonderful.

What are the keys to building a strong team?

It sounds cheesy, but I feel very blessed to work with the team that I do. I find that I’m learning a lot from everyone all the time, especially the younger generations, because they have such different views. The key is nurturing really talented people. We have some [employees] that were coming out of college that now have thriving careers. We’re empowering them, and there’s so much we can learn from them.

It’s also about being fluid while also offering structure. To increase our productivity, we set a rule that meetings are ideally not longer than 15 minutes. We call those micro meetings, and it really has changed the way we work. It helps everyone to really stay on track while we are also supporting hybrid work and all the different things it takes to work together in 2025.

In 2025, is there one thing that’s moving the needle for artists more than any other?

Obviously, we are working in an environment that’s very oversaturated. We see a massive amount of content. One challenge we have is the stickiness of content because there’s so much that’s competing.

One of the main things we see that works really well is to have a proper superfan strategy and to make sure that every time a music lover comes across your music one way or the other, whether it’s via TikTok or a streaming platform, Bandcamp, whatever it is, there is a strategy to get that fan or potential fan into your funnel.

Then it’s being very original with your art and your creativity and being easily identifiable for what you stand for and giving the fan a reason to fall in love with you and put your poster up on the wall. From that superfan strategy, the key points are to then look at [having] great social media, great live shows and great art that ideally is non AI-able.

This story originally appeared in the June 7 issue of Billboard magazine.