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Spotify launched its first Artist Party in Sydney on Monday night (Nov. 17) featuring The Kid LAROI, marking the start of ARIA Week with a tightly programmed event centered on Australian talent ahead of the 2025 ARIA Awards.
Held at the Cell Block Theatre in Darlinghurst, the event functioned as Spotify’s primary on-the-ground activation during ARIA Week and drew a cross-section of nominated artists, emerging acts and industry figures. The Kid LAROI headlined the night with a short set that included a surprise appearance by Western Sydney drill group ONEFOUR for “Distant Strangers.” The performance marked a rare public pairing for the two acts in the lead-up to this year’s ceremony.
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LAROI, who has been home in Australia ahead of his next release cycle, addressed the crowd briefly, noting the significance of performing in Sydney during ARIA Week. The Kid LAROI said: “I grew up dreaming about nights like this, so to be back in Sydney, performing this party with Spotify and surrounded by so many Aussie artists I respect, is special.”
He added, “Australian music is having a massive global moment right now, it’s so cool to be part of that!”
Several 2025 ARIA nominees also appeared on the bill. Sons of the East (Best Blues & Roots Album) and Taylor Moss (Best Country Album) delivered unannounced acoustic performances, while Young Franco — nominated for Best Solo Artist and Michael Gudinski Breakthrough Artist — closed the night with a DJ set.
The event drew notable nominees, including Ninajirachi, this year’s most-nominated artist, as well as RedHook and Larissa Lambert. Members of The Wiggles were also seen in attendance, reflecting the wide footprint of ARIA Week programming across genres and generations.
This year’s ARIA Awards arrive with higher-than-usual audience participation following the introduction of Spotify’s in-app voting tool, which the ARIAs say has driven more than 250,000 public votes across the ceremony’s open categories. That figure surpasses combined tallies from the previous two years and indicates elevated visibility for this year’s broadcast and livestream.
The 2025 ARIA Awards will be held Nov. 19 at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion, streaming live on Paramount+ from 5 p.m. AEDT before airing later that night on Network 10.
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Europe’s largest music market will soon be announcing a ban on ticket resale for profit, elating music fans while roiling investors in secondary ticketing companies like StubHub and Vivid Seats.
Multiple outlets in the United Kingdom are reporting that the Labour Party government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer will announce a plan to crack down on ticket scalping this week. Outlets like The Guardian are reporting that Starmer’s government had considered capping resale at 30% above a ticket’s original face value, but ultimately opted to ban the resale of tickets above face value following significant pressure from artists and industry groups.
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According to The Guardian, ticket holders for popular concerts like Coldplay and Dua Lipa will be able to resell tickets on sites like StubHub and Viagogo, but not charge more than they paid for the tickets. Resale sites would be allowed to charge fees on top of that price, but the fees would be limited and set by regulators. The resale ban would also cover social media sites, which some resale site operators have claimed would serve as fraud-heavy alternatives if markets like StubHub were shut down.
The new regulations will also include purchasing limits on tickets and mandates from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that resale sites like StubHub will be responsible for policing their own platforms.
The news sent the share price for StubHub’s U.S. company, StubHub Holdings, tumbling on Monday (Nov. 17); the stock ultimately closed down 13.8 percent. StubHub has endured a brutal November, with shares down a combined 33% after the company failed to provide a financial forecast for the current quarter.
The publicly traded StubHub Holdings — which owns Viagogo — is a different company from the U.K. StubHub brand. The Competition and Markets Authority forced the firms to split into two companies following the merger of Viagogo and StubHub in 2020.
Representatives for Live Nation applauded the deal, telling Billboard in a statement that “Live Nation fully supports the UK government’s plan to ban ticket resale above face value. Ticketmaster already limits all resale in the UK to face value prices, and this is another major step forward for fans — cracking down on exploitative touting to help keep live events accessible. We encourage others around the world to adopt similar fan-first policies.”
Earlier this month, more than 40 British artists, including Sam Fender, Radiohead and The Cure, sent a public letter to Starmer urging the U.K. prime minister to “stop touts [scalpers] from fleecing fans” and cap the price of resale tickets at face value. The pressure campaign followed a recent CMA study that found U.K. tickets sold on resale sites were typically marked up 50 percent.
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Fresh off the heels of her third one-hour Netflix special, Upper Classy, actress and comedian Cristela Alonzo will embark on her multi-city Midlife Mixtape Tour beginning next January.
The North American tour showcase kicks off Thursday, Jan. 15 at Quezada’s Comedy Club in Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico, with additional stops in Chicago; San Diego; Houston; Scottsdale, Arizona; Spokane, Washington; and San Antonio, Texas before wrapping up in Las Vegas at the Westgate Resort on May 2.
Tickets will go on sale starting Friday at 10 a.m. local time. More information can be found at CristelaAlonzo.com
The tour will also land at the Moontower Comedy Festival in Austin, Texas, on April 9 and 10. Tickets for the festival, which are already on sale, can be found here.
A first-generation Mexican-American, Alonzo grew up in poverty in San Juan, Texas, learned English from watching TV, and in 2014 adapted her story into the ABC comedy Cristela, becoming the first Latina to create, produce and star in her own network sitcom.
Her latest Netflix special Upper Classy, which debuted in late September, recently landed in the streamer’s top 10 most-viewed programs, following her acclaimed hours Middle Classy and Lower Classy.
In October, Billboard contributor Joe Levy wrote of Upper Classy, “To say that Alonzo is in the tradition of observational comics who mine their life experience for comedy is to underestimate both her mastery of that tradition, as well as its impact on her.”
Alonzo also voices Cruz Ramirez in Pixar’s Cars 3 and appears in the Hulu series This Fool. In 2019, she published Music to My Years: A Mixtape Memoir of Growing Up and Standing Up.
Cristela Alonzo: Upper Classy. Cristela Alonzo at the Majestic Theatre in Dallas, Texas.
Lauren Smith/Netflix
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Spirit Music’s first catalog, which contains Pete Townshend’s publishing, T. Rex’s publishing catalog and masters, and Ingrid Michaelson’s music assets, might be coming up for sale, sources tell Billboard.
The catalog is currently owned by Northleaf Capital, which acquired it at some point since October 2021, when it provided $500 million in funding to Lyric Capital Group in a deal that was termed a “strategic alliance at the time. Lyric Capital was formed by Jon Singer and Ross Cameron, when they were still executives at Spirit Music, to buy Spirit Music and its catalog from original owner Pegasus Capital in 2018. Spirit Music is now the operational music company of Lyric Capital, and continues to serve as administrator for that catalog.
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According to some sources, Northleaf received an unsolicited bid and, as a fiduciary for the institutional investors who invest in the fund that owns the Spirit catalog, it had to present that offer to the catalog’s shareholders to see if it should explore a sale. It sounds like the shareholders decided to see what the catalog could get on the open market — specifically, whether it could fetch a higher price than the unsolicited bid — because sources say Northleaf has hired Brian Richards and his financial firm Artisan to approach potential suitors to see if they would be willing to make a bid. Sources suggest that Northleaf is seeking $500 million or more.
The catalog coming up for sale was initially assembled by Spirit Music founder Mark Fried, who founded the company in 1995 and left it in 2014. Back then, the catalog included songs by James William Guercio, Graham Nash, and Marilyn and Alan Bergman. The catalog was supplemented by David Renzer, who served as Spirit Music Group CEO from 2014 to 2018 and, during his tenure, acquired the Cal IV Entertainment company and song portfolio, which may be the reason sources say the Spirit Music catalog up for sale has a strong country music presence. Although it’s unclear if the Cal IV catalog is part of the sale, when Spirit acquired it in 2014, its catalog included numerous country hit records, including Faith Hill’s “Breathe,” Keith Urban’s “Stupid Boy,” Tim McGraw’s “Watch The Wind Blow By” and Jason Aldean’s “Big Green Tractor.”
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When Billboard reported on Lyric Capital buying and recapitalizing Spirit Music in 2019, the catalog contained songs from such artists and songwriters as Billy Squier, Charles Mingus, Doc Pomus, Henry Mancini, Lou Christie, Louden Wainwright III, Marshall Tucker Band, Phil Coulter, Boz Scaggs, T Bone Burnett, Frank Rogers, Gregg Wattenberg, David Paich, Tim Hardin, and Richie Cordell, Jonny Coffer, Zach Crowell and James Bay. Again, it’s unclear if these songwriters and their music are included in the catalog up for sale. But at the time Lyric acquired Spirit Music, Billboard reported that the catalog was generating about $21 million in gross profit, or, in music publishing parlance, net publisher’s share, and that the deal supposedly carried a $280 million valuation, which at the time implied a 13.33 times multiple.
When Lyric Capital came into the picture, sources suggested that it eventually became a significant majority owner of the first Spirit catalog, owning upwards of 95% or even more of the catalog, although sources suggest Lyric might still own a tiny sliver of it, in addition to retaining its role as the administrator following the Northleaf deal. Lyric Capital subsequently offloaded the backroom administrative functions to Downtown Music Publishing in 2024, although Lyric’s Spirit Music operation remains the official administrator and marketing force for the catalog’s music.
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Currently, sources suggest that the catalog is generating about $30 million gross profit, split between about 85% in net publisher’s share and about 15% in net label share from either owned recorded masters or recorded master royalties. If $500 million or more becomes the asking price for the catalog, at that amount of gross profit, that would imply Northleaf is seeking at least a 16.7 times multiple. However, just because Northleaf appears to be exploring a sale, that doesn’t mean it will sell. It will come down to what price the catalog can command from suitors and if the high bidder’s offer presents enough profit for the seller.
Beyond the first Spirit music catalog, Lyric Capital and its Spirit Music publishing arm remain active music investors, acquiring and managing music catalogs. In 2023, Lyric Capital raised $800 million to pursue further acquisitions. Recently, the Nashville arm of Spirit Music acquired select songs from singer-songwriter Hardy’s music publishing catalog while also signing the artist to a go-forward exclusive writing agreement with the firm.
Northleaf, Artisan and Spirit Music didn’t respond to requests for comment.
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For nearly 25 years, tech startups have tried to crack the code on a simple idea: Building a social network based on music. The timing wasn’t right for Napster, Imeem, MySpace Music, Lala, Apple’s Ping or Facebook’s Spotify integration, among others. “It’s like a math problem that goes unsolved for hundreds of years and one day a mathematician comes along and solves it,” says Matt Graves, a Marin County, Calif., communications consultant who was once an exec for music-streaming pioneer Rhapsody. “I’d like to think that brilliant young Turk exists.”
Gilles Poupardin, a San Francisco entrepreneur, believes he is that Turk (although he is French) — and believes that Airbuds, his app with 5 million monthly users and $10 million in venture capital, is that service. Airbuds allows friends to view what each other is listening to on Spotify, Apple Music and other music-streaming services in real time, and discuss the tracks or add emojis, “SLAY” stickers and cat gifs to now-playing pages. It’s all very Facebook-in-2009 or Snapchat-in-2015, only with music as the central focus and common user language.
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The timing is right, according to the Airbuds co-founder, some 15 years into the social-media and music-streaming eras. “Spotify is the access to the music. Airbuds is the social layer on top of it,” he says. “Gen Z, Gen Alpha, wants more than access. They want identity.”
The earlier music-plus-social services didn’t make it for several reasons. Some ran into technology-wary labels that, after winning battles against Napster and others over copyright infringement, were disinclined to license their content to startups. Others, like MySpace Music, lost out to more advanced tech models, like Facebook and Instagram, and wound up folding or selling out to bigger companies. Poupardin insists this won’t happen with his app. Airbuds connects to Spotify, Apple Music and others, so the company can piggyback on the music-streaming services’ content licenses and not have to worry about securing rights from labels and publishers.
Reps for all three major labels did not respond to requests for comment, but Seb Simone, Warner Music Group’s senior vp of global direct-to-fan services, is quoted in an Airbuds press release. “Airbuds isn’t just another app,” Simone said in part. “It’s a cult community of super-engaged fans expressing their love of music in a social, playful and creative way.”
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How does Airbuds make money? So far, mostly through venture capital investment — predominantly from Seven Seven Six, an investment firm run by Alexis Ohanian, a Reddit founder. In the future, Poupardin says, the app is working on a “one-stop shop for artist-superfan connection,” creating profiles for stars that will eventually enable merch and ticket sales. He adds that Airbuds is testing a subscription model that “unlocks customization features.” Also, he says, Airbuds “briefly experimented” with advertising before abandoning the plan.
After attending college in Paris, Poupardin helped create tech ventures, including DrinkEntrepeneurs and Whyd, a voice-controlled speaker that preceded Amazon’s Alexa. After building Capuccino, a social app for sharing audio clips with real-life friends, he and co-founder Gawen Arab hit on the Airbuds idea, launching in October 2022. “It took up slowly at first,” Poupardin says. “We started adding more features and it started growing way faster.”
Airbuds allows users to react to shared songs with stickers, badges and emojis — some of which are customized with artists’ images, including Pink Pantheress, Tame Impala and others. It also provides charts, Spotify Wrapped-style weekly recaps and, significantly, chat features. According to Poupardin, artists have picked up on fans sharing customized content on Airbuds and asked their managers and label reps to figure out how to work with the service.
“You could have built Airbuds a few years earlier, but it didn’t have the critical mass of folks on streaming. It didn’t have the AI-slop-infested Internet. So the culture wasn’t quite ready for it,” Ohanian says. “This is a way to share what you’re listening to with your actual friends. It’s fundamentally human.”
Trending on Billboard Lil Nas X and his legal team were in good spirits during the hip-hop artist’s first court hearing since leaving an inpatient treatment program following assault charges. The singer and rapper (Montero Hill) appeared in Los Angeles court on Monday (Nov. 17), two months after he was arrested for attacking police officers […]
Trending on Billboard After going big and weird this year, “Weird Al” Yankovic is going even Bigger & Weirder again next year. In a cinematic Instagram video (watch below), the parody song superstar announced the dates for the next chapter of his ongoing tour on Monday morning (Nov. 17), which is slated to kick off […]
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A federal judge has held Tory Lanez in contempt of court on the eve of trial in a civil lawsuit filed by Megan Thee Stallion – a move that came after the singer said: “I’m a millionaire. I don’t care.”
In a ruling Sunday evening, the judge said that Lanez (Daystar Peterson) – currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for shooting Megan in 2020 – had behaved so poorly during three different depositions that he must now pay a $20,000 fine.
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According to U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette M. Reid, that’s an outcome Tory already shrugged off during the most recent debacle: “When told his behavior could result in contempt of court and sanctions consisting of fines and additional jail time, Mr. Peterson then said, ‘whatever the fines are, I’ll pay them. I’m a millionaire. I don’t care’.”
The ruling came a day before the start of a jury trial in a civil lawsuit Megan filed last year against social media personality Milagro Gramz (Milagro Cooper). The star claims Gramz waged a “coordinated campaign” with Lanez to “defame and delegitimize” her in the wake of the shooting.
In addition to the monetary fine, the judge also said that jurors in that trial should be told about Lanez’s refusal to answer questions about whether he ever communicated with Gramz – an unwelcome development for her defense attorneys.
Lanez was convicted in December 2022 on three felony counts for shooting Megan in the foot in July 2020 during an argument following a pool party at Kylie Jenner’s house in the Hollywood Hills. In August 2023, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. His appeal of the verdict and sentence was denied last week.
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Last year, Megan filed her civil lawsuit against Gramz, calling her a “mouthpiece and puppet” for Lanez who had been “churning out falsehoods” about the criminal case on his behalf: “Enough is enough,” her lawyers wrote at the time.
Unsurprisingly, Lanez is a key witness in that lawsuit, and Megan’s lawyers have repeatedly tried to depose him from prison. But each time, the singer has disrupted the proceedings and refused to answer questions; Megan’s lawyers have said he’s “made a mockery of the proceedings.”
In her ruling on Sunday, Judge Reid echoed those claims. She said Megan’s lawyers had been “unable to ask more than two questions before Mr. Peterson stormed out of the room.” The judge said Tory later made “derogatory comments” and hurled “multiple expletives” toward Megan’s lawyers and never answered any questions.
Lanez’s attorney, Crystal Morgan, also drew the judge’s ire. Judge Reid said she had objected to questions that were “clearly relevant” during the brief deposition, and had engaged in “coaching the witness.” The judge ordered her to pay $5,000 as her fine.
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In its nascent days, Big Machine Label Group had a mantra: “Start at crazy and work backward.”
“It happened very early on in some of our marketing meetings, where, as a young label, we didn’t have a lot of marketing money, and so it was like, ‘What’s the craziest thing we could do? Let’s define the mile marker and work backward from that,’ ” BMLG founder and chairman/CEO Scott Borchetta remembers.
“It’s a very liberating concept and construct,” he continues. “I love working with artists who think big or people who see things in such bright colors. That’s when I feel I do my best work.”
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And for 20 years, Borchetta and his team have done their best work developing artists from scratch and taking established stars to new heights, including Taylor Swift, Reba McEntire, Thomas Rhett, Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, Florida Georgia Line, Rascal Flatts, Mötley Crüe, Dolly Parton, Carly Pearce and Riley Green.
Borchetta started BMLG in September 2005 as a sister label to Toby Keith’s Show Dog Nashville (while that partnership dissolved six months later, Keith held equity in BMLG until 2019). Following in his father’s record-company footsteps (Mike Borchetta worked in promotions for Capitol Records, RCA Records and Mercury Records), the junior Borchetta became highly regarded for his promotional prowess at both MCA and DreamWorks, at a time when country radio was king.
After MCA parent Universal Music Group (UMG) bought DreamWorks, Borchetta decided to leave and start Big Machine, which takes its moniker from both the Velvet Revolver song of the same name and a reference to the “big machines” he drives as a sports car driver in the Trans-Am Series. (Borchetta also owns NASCAR Xfinity Series team Big Machine Racing.)
Big Machine’s initial roster included Jack Ingram, DreamWorks artist Danielle Peck and, thanks to his early discussions with her while at DreamWorks, a teenage Swift. Borchetta promised her that if she was interested, he would sign her as soon as he got Big Machine off the ground, and he made good on his word in 2005.
Borchetta and Swift at the 44th annual Academy of Country Music Awards in 2009.
Ethan Miller/Getty Image
Nearly a decade-and-a-half later, Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings bought the UMG-distributed label in 2019 for a reported $300 million. Then in 2021, HYBE bought Ithaca for $1.05 billion. Despite no longer owning Big Machine, Borchetta says he retains creative control.
BMLG operates four imprints: Big Machine Records, The Valory Music Co., Nashville Harbor Records & Entertainment and Big Machine Rock (which HYBE sold to Gebbia Media in May, but the imprint remains under Borchetta’s remit). In 2012, the label group launched publishing company Big Machine Music, which includes such powerhouse writers as Jessie Jo Dillon (George Strait, Maren Morris) and Laura Veltz (McEntire, Kane Brown).
Helping guide BMLG from day one are Borchetta’s wife, executive vp of creative Sandi Borchetta, and president Andrew Kautz. Other key team members are COO Mike Rittberg and executive vp of A&R Allison Jones, as well as Nashville Harbor Records & Entertainment president/CEO Jimmy Harnen, The Valory Music Co. president George Briner and Big Machine Records executive vp/GM Kris Lamb.
Twenty years in and with 185 No. 1 songs, 76 Grammy Award nominations and more than 225 million albums sold, according to the label, the mission remains largely the same, Borchetta says: “It’s all about cutting through the noise.”
What made you start your own label?
There was one really polar moment. Sandi and I were on vacation with Reba [McEntire] and [then-husband/manager] Narvel [Blackstock] in Cancún [Mexico], and he goes, “When are you going to run one of these things?” I thought, “Wow, if Narvel thinks I could do it…” That was really a boost to my thought process. There were certain mile markers on how I was thinking about the business, and one of the big things was Napster. When that came out, it scared everybody. It was a terrible time for the record industry. We’re suing college students and grandmas, right? “Is it a weed or a flower? Let’s just kill it.” That was a dead reckoning of [the conventional record industry not] seeing what the future is. Realizing that physical distribution at scale was a dead man walking over the next several years, it’s like, “I don’t see anybody getting ahead of this.” And that was the moment. It’s like, “There’s a lot of land out there that nobody’s claiming. Let’s go claim it.”
McEntire and Borchetta at the Music Biz 2017 Awards Luncheon in Nashville.
Rick Diamond/Getty Images
Your first release was Danielle Peck’s “I Don’t,” which reached No. 28 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. Then, the label’s second single, Jack Ingram’s “Wherever You Are,” went to No. 1. Were you thinking, “Man, this is easy”?
If you look back to 2005 [and] that era, radio was still king, and I was the best in the business in promotion. I knew that I had a honeymoon period [and] that my first three or four records would get a chance. We really expected the label to be successful. I wanted to get our systems working before we got to Taylor [Swift] because I felt like that was going to be very special.
Taylor Swift launched as MySpace was taking off and you really harnessed the early power of social media. You also helped create the Great American Country TV series Short Cuts, which went behind the scenes. Tell us about launching her.
Out of nowhere, on May 1, 2006, Taylor starts showing up once an hour [on GAC] with these one-minute shorts to show her songwriting, her in the studio, her performing, etc. We intentionally didn’t release the first single, “Tim McGraw,” until the beginning of June because I wanted to see how hot we could make it. By the time we shipped that single, we were watching her MySpace increase [by] double-digit percentages week over week. When we shipped the record, I would call radio stations and say, “We have you surrounded and you don’t even know it.” It was just the beginning of a forest fire. We went everywhere because I knew she could back it up.
Did having a big star that early change the label?
A big lesson I learned at DreamWorks is Toby [Keith] got so big that we didn’t have anything else to balance it out and it became really challenging. As Taylor started to become the superstar that she became, I wanted to make sure that the label couldn’t be completely defined by one artist. Before you know it, we’ve got Rascal Flatts, Tim McGraw, The Band Perry, Florida Georgia Line. Reba McEntire comes over. We built out a superstar label because that was the only way I felt we would be taken seriously. We couldn’t be a one-trick pony.
In 2012, you became the first American label to receive performance royalty rights at terrestrial radio, starting with iHeartMedia. How important was that to you?
In that moment, it was extraordinarily important, and we came so close to getting a blanket license, so to speak, for the industry. It’s a shame that it didn’t happen because we would be sharing in global terrestrial performance rights around the world. It was something that I realized really early on that we were going to have to do in the private sector. We were not going to get this done through a political pathway. This all started with a conversation that I had with [iHeartMedia chairman/CEO] Bob Pittman… [We were] able to go to all [our] artists and say, “We just got you another income source.”
You and your team seem much less risk-averse than a typical label. You launched Nash Icon with Cumulus in conjunction with the company’s country radio format of the same name, a rock label in partnership with fashion designer John Varvatos and a label with Blac Noize!, all of which are gone now. How do you decide what to take the risk on, and how upset are you if it doesn’t work?
Hey, everything has seasons. Nash Icon was incredibly successful not only with Reba, but Hank [Williams] Jr. and Ronnie Dunn. With John Varvatos, it just got to the point where rock is so hard to do, but we had a nice season with that. Everything doesn’t last forever. Sometimes they’re just moments, sometimes they become a movement. Even though the Blac Noize! imprint didn’t last that long, out of the box, you had a huge hit with GloRilla and a Grammy nomination. We have this new joint venture [Ascend Music] with [industry executive] Joel Klaiman, who brought a killer act, Marfa. This is really the key for these other joint ventures. It’s A&R opportunities. It’s like, “What do you see out there that we don’t see?”
Spotify started in 2006 and now streaming is the dominant means for people to listen to music. How has it changed how you do business?
It changed everything. We’ve gone from selling a CD to Walmart and Target for $12.02 to [song streams generating] 0.004 [cents] around the globe. It’s how you get [artists] to scale because now we have things that are doing real business that aren’t at radio. At the end of the day, we want it everywhere, but I don’t know that you have to have it everywhere. Does it change how we sign artists? It does. Is this going to stream or not? You’ve got to have a social story. You’ve got to have a streaming story. You’ve got to continually remain interesting. And it’s probably harder than ever for these new artists.
Scott and Sandi Borchetta at Big Machine Label Group’s celebration of the 58th Annual CMA Awards last year in Nashville.
Brett Carlsen/Getty Images
How do you look at terrestrial radio now?
It’s still very important. If you look at our more mature artists, it’s super important to reach their fan base, and not as important to the younger artists.
Swift’s deal with Big Machine ended in 2018. How much pressure did you feel to try to make up that market share?
Business as usual. “Let’s go to work.” You can’t just say, “Oh, let’s go get the next one.” There isn’t another one, right? There’s her. To this day, we still do great business. It wasn’t like, “How do you make that up?” Because if you got so focused on that, [other] parts of the business would fail. The best thing we could do is get up and go to work every day and do our best work.
When you sold Big Machine in 2019, you’d had a ton of suitors before. Why was it the right time to sell?
I felt like it was the right time to sell with where the market was at that point, with Taylor leaving and the writing was on the wall for Florida Georgia Line [the duo went on indefinite hiatus in 2022]. I’m thinking to myself, “I built this to win Super Bowls, and we won Super Bowls. And so now it feels like it was the right time to do it.”
You took some pretty nasty slings and arrows from Swift and her fans, as did Scooter Braun. How did you personally navigate that?
I know that I’m true to myself. I never did anything to intentionally hurt any artist. I never expected that kind of response, but it happened. It’s unfortunate, but again, I have to live with the decisions that I make and I know I’m a good person. The people around me are good. We didn’t die that day. It’s perseverance… You’ve got to be resilient in this business. You get knocked down and get back up. It’s not the first time you’ve been knocked down. Probably won’t be the last.
In 2021, HYBE bought Braun’s Ithaca Holdings. How did that change how you operate your company?
For Big Machine Label Group, I am the sole decision-maker. They’re not involved in our A&R. Obviously, we have to be fiscally responsible to them and we work on very specific projections. But that’s just the business side. From a creative [standpoint] and all that, that lives in Nashville.
You were in a near-lethal car racing accident in 2023 and had to learn to walk again. Did you think about leaving the label, or did it help you to have a goal to get back to?
I was very aware that I was pretty much dying in the ambulance. At that point in the ambulance, I couldn’t breathe and then I split up blood. I said, “Just give up.” I don’t mean give up living, just go to the pain and let it go. If you’re dying, then you’re dying and just accept it. And my mantra became “Get to the next minute,” because I knew as soon as I got to the hospital — whether I was dying or not — I’d be out of pain. So I went into this meditation. When I woke up and saw how busted I was head to toe, I’m like, “Well, I survived this and there’s no way in hell I’m going to let this define the rest of my life. I’ve been so blessed. There are so many people I’m responsible for, so how quickly can we start the healing process?” From that day to today, it’s “I will not lie down, I will not go quietly.”
So you did not think about leaving the label?
I didn’t think about not being me. And this is me.
As you look ahead to the next 20 years, how much longer will you stay?
I’m going to stay until I don’t want to stay anymore. I’m still really excited about being a student of this game. I’m learning stuff every day. I equate [artificial intelligence] somewhat to how Napster was. Nobody knew what it was. They were predominantly just afraid of it. [I’m like], “Well, let’s jump in there.” I look at the opportunities that we have to use [AI] as a marketing tool and in a creative way and to encourage our artists and our creators to get their arms around it. That’s exciting to me.
The Band Perry performs during the Big Machine 20th Anniversary concert this August in Nashville.
Catherine Powell/Getty Images
In August, Middle Tennessee State University named its College of Media and Entertainment after you even though you went to school in California. Why was that important to you?
That’s how I started my speech. I said, “You need to know that I dropped out of college after two semesters. And here’s the reason why: This didn’t exist.” There wasn’t a path to learn the record business 40 years ago. Now there is.
Also in August, to celebrate its 20th anniversary, Big Machine held a concert in Nashville that included Rascal Flatts, Riley Green, Sheryl Crow, Brett Young and The Band Perry. Why did you decide to make it free, and how did you decide on the performers?
I wanted everybody invited. I wanted the biggest party possible. I didn’t want any restrictions. Danielle Peck came back and opened the show with our very first single. Jack Ingram came back and did our first No. 1. I was filled with pride the whole day, and then the night was just magical. I’ll never forget it. It didn’t rain. It was a perfect day.
This story appears in the Nov. 15, 2025, issue of Billboard.
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Music executive Ángel Del Villar will remain a free man while he appeals his convictions for doing business with Mexican drug cartels, a federal judge said.
Del Villar was scheduled to report to prison on Dec. 1 to begin serving his four-year prison sentence on the cartel-ties convictions, but Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong granted his request to stay out on bond during the appellate process. Such appeals can take a year or more to resolve.
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Siding with arguments last month by Del Villar’s attorneys, the judge said the convicted executive had cleared the low bar for remaining free: that his appeal raised sufficiently arguable points about her jury instructions that an appellate court might be persuaded.
“Del Villar need only show that his appeal raises a fairly debatable question,” Judge Frimpong wrote. “The Court finds that—although the Court does not see any error in its trial rulings or in its jury instructions—that at least the question of the deliberate ignorance instruction is a ‘fairly debatable’ one.”
Del Villar, who founded his Del Records in 2008, built the label into a powerhouse for regional Mexican music, home to supergroup Eslabon Armado, Lenin Ramirez and other chart-topping artists.
But in June 2022, federal prosecutors unveiled charges against Del Villar, 41, CFO Luca Scalisi, 56, and Del Records under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act – a statute that allows the U.S. to impose targeted sanctions on foreign individuals involved in the illegal drug trade and ban U.S. residents from doing business with them.
The feds claimed that Del Villar had repeatedly arranged concerts with Jesus Pérez Alvear, a Guadalajara-based promoter with cartel ties. And at a March trial, superstar Gerardo Ortiz took the stand to testify against Del Villar, saying he had seen Pérez Alvear at the Del Records offices and had himself performed at one of the promoter’s concerts.
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Del Villar’s defense attorneys argued back that he had been “manipulated” into working with Pérez Alvear by a “trusted” former employee. But the jury didn’t buy it, finding him guilty on 10 counts of violating the Kingpin law, as well as one conspiracy charge. In August, Judge Frimpong sentenced him to 48 months in prison on those convictions.
With that sentence looming and his appeal still in the earliest stages, Del Villar’s attorneys urged the judge to postpone his December prison report date. In the process, they also previewed how they will likely challenge the verdict on appeal.
They say they have a particularly strong argument on how the judge instructed jurors that they could convict Del Villar by finding that he willfully blinded himself to Pérez’s shady connections. They say prosecutors couldn’t prove he took concrete actions to avoid such knowledge, but that Judge Frimpong gave the jurors that option anyway.
“The government pointed to no evidence — and the record contains none — from which a jury could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Del Villar took ‘deliberate actions’ or made ‘active efforts,’ his lawyers wrote, later adding that the judge’s instruction “went to the heart and most hotly contested aspect of the case.”
