Business News
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Artist management company In De Goot Entertainment and independent record label So Recordings (part of the U.K.-based Silva Screen Music Group) have partnered to form the label imprint SO In De Goot, Billboard can reveal.
The first U.S. signing to the imprint is Princess Goes, the band fronted by actor and musician Michael C. Hall alongside keyboardist Matt Katz-Bohen and drummer Peter Yanowitz; the group will release its sophomore album later this year.
Bill McGathy
Jennie McGathy
“We have developed a great relationship with Adam Greenup and So Recordings and have major respect for the work they do and their meaningful roster,” said In De Goot Entertainment president/owner Bill McGathy in a statement. “Thanks to So Recordings’ success in the UK and Europe, this new partnership allows In De Goot to strengthen our global footprint and offer new opportunities to our roster and So’s roster in the U.S.”
Adam Greenup
Courtesy of Adam Greenup
So Recordings MD Adam Greenup added, “Bill and his whole team at In De Goot have been our close friends and allies for nearly a decade. We have seen how the team commits and delivers in all areas of North American promotion and beyond. Bill and I had a joint lightbulb moment one morning in his New York office — our roster (old and new) aligned with In De Goot’s weight and influence in the U.S. rock and indie lanes — the fit was just obvious. We would sign, record and promote artists together.”
In De Goot’s current roster includes Biffy Clyro, GWAR, Halestorm and Shinedown, while the So Recordings roster boasts Placebo, Enter Shikari, Band of Skulls and Dinosaur Pile-Up.
Ariana Grande‘s r.e.m. beauty drew a strategic investment led by private investment firm Sandbridge Capital with participation from Strand Equity, HYBE America, Live Nation Entertainment and Universal Music Group. The funds will be used for product innovation, talent acquisition and geographic expansion.
Sony Music Masterworks made a majority investment in Barcelona-based live music and experiential events producer Proactiv Entertainment. Under the deal, Proactiv managing director Nicolas Renna will continue leading the company’s day-to-day operations while working closely with Sony Masterworks president Mark Cavell and Sony Music Spain & Portugal president Jose-Maria Barbat to grow the business.
Music collaboration platform boombox.io, a new company from entrepreneur Tom Chavez, closed $7 million in seed capital. The round was led by Forerunner with participation from Chavez’s super{set} startup studio as well as Ulu Ventures. The funds will allow the generative AI-assisted platform to build out its team, accelerate product development and strike new partnerships. Launched in November, boombox.io allows music producers to store, version and track their music files; collect time-stamped feedback on audio files; communicate via iOS and Android apps; manage splits; and create legally-binding contracts.
Glendale, Ariz.-based VAI Resort announced the VAI Amphitheater, a new 8,000-capacity venue slated to open in 2024. Set against the backdrop of the resort, the venue will offer multiple viewing options, including hotel room balconies, as well as a $40 million stage and state-of-the-art technology. To bring the amphitheater to life, the resort has partnered with live event solutions company TAIT Group and audiovisual company Solotech.
88rising has partnered with Steve Aoki on FLUXGEN, a new creative hub for Asian talent globally. The first release under the new venture is “The Show,” a collaboration between Aoki and Mandopop star JJ Lin.
Music composition system DAACI, which is driven by a suite of AI tools, acquired fellow AI music technology companies MXX and WiSL. Founded by Dr. Joe Lyske, DAACI uses dynamic music AI that allows artists and composers to tailor compositions for specific uses in gaming, digital worlds, XR or VR experiences.
Amplifyd, an auction platform and marketplace for the music industry, launched out of beta and announced a partnership with Insomniac Events, with which it hosted a series of charity auctions at Insomniac’s 2023 EDC festival in Las Vegas that featured participating artists Marshmello, Armin Van Buuren, Yellow Claw and Deorro.
Tokyo-based virtual live music event platform Vark raised 1 billion yen ($7.2 million) in Series C funding through a third-party allotment of new shares to SBI Investments and NetEase Games, in addition to existing investors JAFCO Group, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and ANRI. The funds will be used to strengthen the company’s product development system, develop new businesses and more.
Myxt, a collaborative workspace for audio creators, partnered with AI stem separation platform AudioShake under a deal that will allow Myxt users to utilize AudioShake’s source separation tool, create stems, and export them for opportunities in content creation, synch licensing, mixing and more.
AI music analysis and recommendation platform Cyanite acquired aptone, an AI-based service that allows music producers to classify and search samples. Aptone founder Johannes Giani will join the Cyanite board as director of information technology, helping Cyanite develop its technology and continue enhancing and expanding the offering for Cyanite’s international customers including BMG, Pond5, APM Music and RTL. The acquisition allows Cyanite to increase the accuracy with which it analyzes and tags samples. Both Cyanite and aptone are based in Germany.
Some of Adidas’ remaining Yeezy shoes are back on sale — months after the German sportswear company cut ties with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West.
Adidas ended its yearslong partnership with Ye in late October, in light of his antisemitic remarks and other harmful behavior. In the months that followed, the fate of 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) worth of unsold Yeezys remained unknown — until earlier this month, when Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden announced the company would be selling a portion of the remaining inventory and donating some of the proceeds to social justice organizations.
The first batch of Adidas’ remaining Yeezys went on sale Wednesday. At this time, the sneakers appear to be available through Adidas’ app “Confirmed,” according to the retailer’s website. Part of the profits will be donated to organizations including the Anti-Defamation League and the Philonise & Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change, Adidas says.
Wednesday’s release marks the first time that Adidas has sold Yeezys since the partnership termination in October. The Yeezy products up for sale will include already-existing designs as well as those that were initiated in 2022 and set to be released in 2023, Adidas previously noted.
“We believe (selling and donating these Yeezys) is the best solution as it respects the created designs and produced shoes, it works for our people, resolves an inventory problem, and will have a positive impact in our communities,” Gulden said in an May 19 statement.
At a May 11 annual shareholder meeting, Gulden explained the company made the decision to sell and donate Yeezys after speaking with nongovernmental organizations and groups that were harmed by Ye’s comments and actions.
Some details of Adidas’ plans are still unclear — including how many Yeezys will eventually go on sale and what portion of sales will be donated. The Associated Press reached out to Adidas for further information on Wednesday.
Cutting ties with Ye cost Adidas hundreds of millions of dollars — contributing to a loss of 600 million euros ($655 million) in sales for the last three months of 2022, which helped drive the company to a quarterly net loss of 513 million euros.
Adidas reported 400 million euros ($441 million) in lost sales at the start of 2023, the company announced earlier this month.
Net sales declined 1% in the first quarter, to 5.27 billion euros, the company said. It reported a net loss of 24 million euros, a plunge from a profit of 310 million euros in the same period a year ago.
Operating profit, which excludes some items like taxes, was down to 60 million euros from 437 million euros a year earlier.
Meanwhile, investors also filed a class-action lawsuit against Adidas in late April, alleging the company knew about offensive remarks and harmful behavior from Ye years before terminating its pact with him. Adidas has pushed back on the allegations.
A group of corporate Amazon workers upset about the company’s environmental impact, recent layoffs and a return-to-office mandate is planning a walkout at the company’s Seattle headquarters Wednesday.
The lunchtime protest comes a week after Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting and a month after a policy took effect requiring workers to return to the office three days per week.
“We respect our employees’ rights to express their opinions,” the company said in a statement.
As of Wednesday morning, more than 1,900 employees had pledged to walk out around the world, with about 900 in Seattle, according to Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, a climate change advocacy group founded by Amazon workers. While some plan to gather at the Amazon Spheres — a four-story structure in downtown Seattle that from the outside looks like three connected glass orbs — others will participate remotely.
Some employees have complained that Amazon has been slow to address its impact on climate change. Amazon, which relies on fossil fuels to power the planes, trucks and vans that ship packages all over the world, has an enormous carbon footprint. Amazon workers have been vocal in criticizing some of the company’s practices.
In an annual statement to investors, Amazon said it aims to deploy 100,000 electric delivery vehicles by 2030 and reach net-zero carbon by 2040. But walkout organizers contend the company must do more and commit to zero emissions by 2030.
“While we all would like to get there tomorrow, for companies like ours who consume a lot of power, and have very substantial transportation, packaging, and physical building assets, it’ll take time to accomplish,” Brad Glasser, an Amazon spokesperson, said in a statement.
Glasser said there has also been a good energy on the company’s South Lake Union campus and at its other urban centers since more employees returned to the office. More than 20,000 workers, however, signed a petition urging Amazon to reconsider the return-to-office mandate.
“As it pertains to the specific topics this group of employees is raising,” Glasser said, “we’ve explained our thinking in different forums over the past few months and will continue to do so.”
In a February memo, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the company made its decision to return corporate employees to the office at least three days a week after observing what worked during the pandemic. Among other things, he said senior leadership watched how staff performed and talked to leaders at other companies. He said they concluded employees tended to be more engaged in person and collaborate more easily.
In a note asking Amazon employees to pledge their participation in the walkout, organizers said Amazon “must return autonomy to its teams, who know their employees and customers best, to make the best decision on remote, in-person, or hybrid work, and to its employees to choose a team which enables them to work the way they work best.”
The walkout follows widespread cost-cutting at Amazon, where layoffs have affected workers in advertising, human resources, gaming, stores, devices and Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud computing division. The company has cut 27,000 jobs since November.
Like other tech companies, including Facebook parent Meta and Google parent Alphabet, Amazon ramped up hiring during the pandemic to meet the demand from homebound Americans who were increasingly shopping online to keep themselves safe from the virus.
Amazon’s workforce, in warehouses and offices, doubled to more than 1.6 million people in about two years. But demand slowed as the worst of the pandemic eased. The company began pausing or canceling its warehouse expansion plans last year.
Amid growing anxiety over the potential for a recession, Amazon in the past few months shut down a subsidiary that’s been selling fabrics for nearly 30 years, shuttered Amazon Care, its hybrid virtual, in-home care service, and closed Amazon Smile, a philanthropic program.
Reservoir Media on Wednesday reported that revenues grew by 13% during its most recent fiscal year, as investments in record labels and artists rights in the Middle East added to its growth from acquiring works by North American artists like Louis Prima and Dion.
Reservoir reported $122.3 million in revenue for their fiscal year 2023 ending March 31, driven by a 9% increase in music publishing revenue and an 18% increase in recorded music revenue, both helped by the digital release of De La Soul‘s first six studio albums in early March. The legendary rap trio’s catalog netted 12.5 million U.S. song streams and sold 28,000 albums in its first week streaming, according to Luminate.
Founded in 2007, Reservoir said it grew by 8% organically and finished at the top-end of its financial targets in fiscal 2023 despite a 1%-decline in fourth quarter revenue driven by lower performance, sync and other revenues in its music publishing division, which suffered from a tough comparison to a strong year-ago quarter.
Fourth quarter music publishing revenue of $23.2 million was off 8% from the year-ago quarter when Reservoir benefitted from a one-off event in Dubai. Recorded music revenue in the quarter rose 10% to $10.8 million, in part due to the outsized performance of De la Soul’s catalog.
Reservoir has made investing in emerging markets a key prong of its growth and diversification strategy, and on a call with analysts, Reservoir CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi referred to it as “highly important to our overall strategy … as we work to become the largest holder of Arabic music copyrights.”
With its partner PopArabia, an independent music company headquartered in the United Arab Emirates, Reservoir has acquired stakes in the Egyptian label 100COPIES, the Lebanese label and music publisher Voice of Beirut and signed publishing deals with Egypt’s Mohamed Ramadan, Lebanon’s Zeid Hamdan and Moroccan hip-hop star 7liwa. In January, Reservoir announced signed publishing deals for the catalogs and future works of Indian rappers MC Altaf and D’Evil and the producer Stunnah Beatz.
Funds like Reservoir also grow inorganically through acquisitions of song catalogs, and over its past fiscal year it acquired rights by “the Saxophone Colossus” Sonny Rollins and Dion, best known for “Runaround Sue” and “The Wanderer.”
Reservoir’s chief financial officer Jim Heindlmeyer told analysts that the company expects 6% revenue growth f 9% growth for adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization for this fiscal year, compared to midpoint of its 2023 guidance ranges.
“Our outlook includes strong top-line growth expectations and margin expansion across our business segments as we continue to see a positive impact on profitability from our strategic acquisitions and benefit from secular tailwinds across the music industry,” Heindlemeyer said.
Stock markets ended the week on a positive note as investors showed optimism believing that Congress can negotiate a deal to increase the nation’s debt limit and avoid a historic default. The S&P 500 increased 1.3% to $4,205.45, up 0.3% on the week, while the Nasdaq composite climbed 2.2% on Friday (May 26) to finish […]
LJ Stoll was named GM/vp of A&R at The Hard Working Record Company, a new Nashville-based record label from Big Machine Label Group (BMLG) and management company Hard 8 Working Group. The venture was struck between BMLG president/CEO/founder Scott Borchetta and Hard 8 co-founders Dirk Hemsath and Rich Egan, along with partners David Conway and Mike Bachta. “Rich and I had been toying with the idea of starting a label again, since that’s the world we both came from,” said Hemsath in a statement. “We had been working closely with Scott and Big Machine on the artist Kidd G and Scott mentioned he wanted to start a more pop-leaning imprint and that’s the world we’ve been in heavily for the last few years, most recently building pop star Tate McRae.”
Hipgnosis Songs Fund global head of song management Nick Jarjour exited his role at the company “as I embark on an exciting new chapter in my journey,” the executive wrote on LinkedIn. “During my tenure at Hipgnosis, I had the honor of working alongside a visionary leader and mentor, Merck Mercuriadis who has achieved remarkable feats for songwriters and revolutionized the music industry for future generations,” he continued. Jarjour will continue serving as CEO of his label, publishing and creative agency JarjourCo.
Andrew Spence was promoted to general counsel at Sony Music Publishing UK, where he will oversee business and legal affairs strategies and initiatives on behalf of the company and its roster while also offering guidance and counsel on its legal and operational matters. The London-based executive will continue reporting to Sony Music Publishing UK president/co-managing director, UK/senior vp of international David Ventura and UK co-managing director Tim Major. He was previously head of legal and business affairs.
Edith Bo was named head of A&R at Rostrum Records, where she will oversee the overall direction of A&R strategy and develop strategic branding partnerships, working closely with Rostrum’s marketing team. Bo joins the company from SoundCloud, where she served as senior manager of publishing. She can be reached at edith@rostrumrecords.com.
Rob Segal joined The Feldman Agency (TFA) as partner/president of TFA Inc. Segal previously founded his own agency, Segal Communications, which became one of Canada’s largest promotional and licensing agencies, with clients including Sony, Ford, Marvel, HP and Dreamworks. In his new role, he will lead the agency in fostering new business, driving marketing campaigns and elevating its brand presence. Based at the company’s Toronto office, he can be reached at rob@feldman-agency.com.
Frederik Boutahar was named vp of A&R at Columbia Records Germany, Switzerland & Austria (GSA), which he will lead alongside vp Alexandra Falken. Boutahar will report to Sony Music Entertainment GSA CEO Patrick Mushatsi-Kareba. He joins the company from TwoSides, where he served as MD. He can be reached at frederik.boutahar@sonymusic.com.
Sebastian Mair joined digital rights management company Muserk as head of business development APAC. He will oversee the company’s business throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Based in Tokyo, Mair developed a relationship with Muserk via his company Music Solutions, which develops brand partnerships and VIP packages for artists touring Asia. He can be reached at sebastian.mair@muserk.com.
Metal label Nuclear Blast Records restructured its A&R department, promoting Nathan Barley Phillips and Shawn Keith to head of A&R, Europe and head of A&R, North America, respectively. Elsewhere, Tommy Jones was promoted to label manager, North America, which includes A&R responsibilities for Nuclear Blast’s existing roster in the region. A&R Jens Prueter was also named to the newly created role of head of catalogue/senior A&R. The label was acquired by Believe in 2018. Keith can be reached at Shawn@nuclearblastusa.com.
Jen Hubbard was appointed to the newly created role of director of sync A&R at Concord Music Publishing, where she will develop and manage Concord’s U.S. songwriter roster for the purpose of synch activity. She will serve as the bridge between the company’s A&R and synch teams. Based in Nashville, Hubbard reports to senior vp of A&R Brad Kennard with support from vp of publishing sync Kourtney Kirkpatrick and executive vp of global sync Brooke Primont. Hubbard previously served as director of A&R.
Avery King, formerly director of publicity at Elicity PR, formed her own public relations firm, King Publicity. She brings her longtime clients Carter Faith, Aaron Watson, Austin Burke and Anna Rose to the new operation. King can be reached at avery@kingpublicity.com.
Steve Eckerson was named GM at ASM Global’s San Diego-based venue Pechanga Arena. He joins from Mechanics Bank Arena, Theater and Convention Center, where he’s served as GM since 2016. Eckerson succeeds Steve Tadlock in the role. He can be reached at SEckerson@pechangaarenasd.com.
UTA announced the promotions of several staffers in its music division. Sean Hendrie was elevated to agent while Jack Benson, Eli Hanavan, Maria Kanatous, Elie Low, Cassie Trimble and Sydney Wilke were upped to coordinators.
As Blake Shelton winds down his 23-season role as a coach on The Voice, he’s far from finished with TV and other content initiatives. Shelton has teamed with showrunner Lee Metzger to form the new production company Lucky Horseshoe Productions, following the success of their collaboration on the TV series Barmageddon. With the production company, […]
Now that the pandemic is over, “it is anything but ‘business as usual’” at CISAC, the international trade organization for copyright collecting societies, according to director general Gadi Oron in its 2023 annual report.
In a time of change for collecting societies, which bring in a combined 9.6 billion euros a year, CISAC’s priorities include lobbying governments in support of member societies, continuing its campaign to support the ISWC code system to identify works, and navigating the challenges of AI, which Oron calls “our biggest priority now in terms of policy.”
The biggest news in the report about a particular market is the success of Autodia, the Greek collecting society that has become prominent since the 2018 dissolution of AEPI. “In 2018, I gave a presentation to the board [of CISAC and said we must do something,” Oron remembers. AEPI’s collapse was epic, complete with a 2017 police raid and a failure to pay out 42.5 million euros (more than the total amount it distributed some years), according to an audit ordered by the Greek Ministry of Culture. Oron feared the potential collapse of a market that had been worth about 50 million euros a year in the late 1990s, so he asked the CISAC’s board to support a plan to fund and help Autodia, which was then a small nonprofit society that in 2018 collected less than a million euros.
In 2022, Autodia collected 16.2 million euros, and it now collects for all three major publishers, BMG, and many of its sister societies, according to CEO Margarita Panagiotopoulou. “We are growing fast and gaining market share,” Panagiotopoulou says, “and that is on track to continue.”
Autodia now faces competition from EDEM, which mostly represents Greek repertoire and took in about 8 million euros last year.
The first phase of CISAC’s plan was to get Autodia loans from its member societies and send to Athens consultant Declan Rudden, who became interim CEO of Autodia to get the society running. He helped make reciprocal agreements with international societies and court publishers, as well as compete with EYED, a government-controlled entity that was designated as the temporary successor to AEPI. (Some major publishers originally signed with EYED but most of them are now with Autodia.) One day, as Rudden and team were putting together desks in the Autodia office, it was raided by the Greek department of labor and fined for keeping employees after 5pm without notifying them in advance. (This is illegal in Greece, but raids are uncommon.) “They did everything to make our life difficult,” remembers Rudden, who runs the consultancy SaorServices.
Gradually, the local team took over, and Autodia took in more than 4 million euros by 2019, then more than 12 million euros by 2022, as the pandemic subsided. “The contribution of CISAC was very important,” Panagiotopoulou says, in terms of funding, legitimacy and lobbying both the Greek government and songwriters themselves.
Greece is still a contested market. “Market share is a matter of disagreement,” says EDEM COO George Myzalis. (Panagiotopoulou says Autodia has more than 85% market share, but the respective royalty collection numbers imply a lower number.) Along the way, the technology company Orfium, which has some operations based in Athens, almost entered the market as well, but it ultimately withdrew. (The company operates in other sectors and did not respond to a request for comment.) Right now, venues and broadcasters in Greece need licenses from both Autodia and EDEM, especially if they want to play both the international repertoire that Autodia dominates as well as the Greek compositions that EDEM tends to have.
Some big publishers believe that the growing success of Autodia limits the possibilities for the kind of direct licensing model that they see as more efficient. One idea that at least some of them favored was to establsh EDEM as an organization that would offer more optionality by requiring less exclusive grants of rights – and a model for what they believe could be a more efficient future for the publishing business. As Autodia grows, that is becoming less likely – which some publishers see as a wasted opoortunity and other societies and some other publishers and songwriters see as a win for the current structure, which for all of its complexity offers more of a balance of power between big players and small ones.
The only things most executives seem to agree on is that the situation in Greece is far better than it was under AEPI and that it is getting better, even if it’s not where it should be. “AEPI was a disaster,” says Peermusic European president Nigel Elderton. “Autodia have their act together and they’re paying royalties through and they’re starting to grow.”
At a time when the traditional collecting society model is being challenged by direct licensing and a growing number of for-profit royalty organizations, both the other societies that supported Autodia and the publishers that favored another model agree that the implications of the society’s success go beyond Greece. Now that CISAC has showed it can help turn around a society in a market that’s perceived to be dysfunctional, it could potentially do so again.
“This was 10 times harder than I could have imagined,” Oron says. “But we’ve proven to ourselves that we can do it. Whether we can do it in other countries depends, but we have proof that we can do it.”
Indie music company Reservoir Media has acquired the rights to the full catalog of drummer and songwriter Enrique “Kiki” García. García, who was part of Miami Sound Machine, penned many of the group’s biggest hits in its heyday with Gloria Estefan as its lead singer, including the much synchronized “Conga.”
García also wrote Miami Sound Machine’s 1984 breakout “Dr. Beat” and co-wrote several tracks along Estefan, including “1-2-3,” “Give It Up,” and “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You” for the group’s final album, Let it Loose.
But García is best known for “Conga,” which he famously penned on a flight from Utrecht, in the Netherlands, after playing a successful club show the night before.
“The performance stayed on my mind all night,” García recounted in the book Decoding Despacito: An Oral History of Latin Music. “The next day, as we got on the plane and I sat down, this song comes flying out of my mind. I start tapping on the seat table in front of me and I’m singing, “Come on, shake your body, baby, do the song. The rest was sketchy, but by the time we landed I had it all put together. I got up and sang my idea to Emilio and he loved it from the start.”
“Conga” would go on to became an international hit, peaking at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 on Feb. 8, 1986.
After leaving Miami Sound Machine, García continued working with top Latin musicians like Chayanne and Julio Iglesias, while “Conga” and his other hits remain widely and constantly licensed.
“Kiki has contributed so much to the face of modern music as we know it. His collaborations with the Miami Sound Machine brought Latin music to mainstream audiences,” said Golnar Khosrowshahi, Reservoir’s founder & CEO, in a statement. “Embarking on this deal with Kiki marks a notable expansion of our rights in Latin American music and is an exciting opportunity to further diversify our catalog while maintaining our focus on acquiring the rights to evergreen hits.”
Lizzy McAlpine, whose TikTok-driven hit “Ceilings” topped Billboard‘s Alternative Streaming Songs chart in March while also marking her first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100, has signed with artist development company Godmode for management, Billboard can reveal.
McAlpine, who recently completed her North American tour, signed with RCA Records in April and is represented by Ben Buchanan, Marlene Tsuchii and Brian Greenbaum at CAA for booking.
Led by co-founder/CEO Talya Elitzer, Godmode’s roster also includes Channel Tres, SG Lewis and JPEGMAFIA. The company additionally encompasses a record label and publishing arm.
Poolside, the artist project of producer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Jeffrey Paradise, signed with Ninja Tune imprint Counter Records after self-releasing his three previous albums via his Pacific Standard Records imprint. Poolside’s first release under the label, the single “Each Night” featuring Australian indie-pop band Mazy, dropped Wednesday (May 17). He’s represented by managers Bryan Duquette and Michael Bigham at Another Planet Management and booking agents Avery McTaggart at TBA and Latane Hughes at Wasserman.
Australian electronic rock band Pendulum signed with Mushroom Group and Universal Music Group’s global independent music division Virgin Music Group, which will release the group’s new single, “Halo” featuring Matt Tuck of Bullet For My Valentine, on June 2.
Country singer/songwriter Matt Schuster (“Vienna”) signed with WME for booking and Extended Play for management; he previously signed a publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group.
Rock band Krooked Kings and its label home, Nobody Gets It, signed a deal with Matt Geffen‘s Coup D’Etat Music for distribution (in partnership with ADA Worldwide) and publishing (in partnership with AVEX USA). This is the first signing for Coup D’Etat’s newly-launched distribution division. The band, which just released the album All Out of Good Days, is represented by manager Wade Davis of Nobody Gets It and Alex Douma of CAA for booking.
Country singer/songwriter Tyler Halverson signed to The Erv Woolsey Company for management. Halverson recently released his major label debut single, “Her,” on Atlantic Records.
Lebanese singer Maya Diab (“Sawa,” “Habibi”) signed to Warner Music Middle East, which will release her EP, #MyMayaV, later this year. In addition to her music career, Diab is known across the Arab world as a music producer, TV personality and fashion influencer.
Los Angeles-based indie-electronic duo The Hellp (comprised of vocalist Noah Dillon and producer Chandler Ransom Lucy) signed with Atlantic Records, which released its new single, “California Dream Girl,” on March 16.
Ambient artist/mastering engineer Taylor Deupree signed to Nettwerk, which released his latest song, “Eev,” on May 12. Deupree previously released music via his own label, 12k.
Country, bluegrass and gospel duo Dailey & Vincent signed to Morris Higham Management. Made up of Jamie Dailey and Darrin Vincent, the duo is signed to BMG Nashville and represented by booking agents Tony Conway, Brandon Mauldin and Cody Payne at Conway Entertainment Group.
Grammy-nominated production and songwriting team Futuristiks: Mike & Keys signed a two-album partnership with Lowly/Create Music Group, kicked off by the release of their new EP, 10 Toes Down featuring Casey Veggies. The duo served as executive producers on Nipsey Hussle‘s Crenshaw mixtape and have also worked with Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Lupe Fiasco, 50 Cent and more.
Los Angeles-based, Toledo, Ohio-bred rapper CNN Mikey signed to Polo G‘s label ODA (Only Dreams Achieve), which will drop the video for his ODA debut single, “FOR MY PEOPLE,” on Wednesday (May 24). CNN Mikey is managed by Mike Maloian and Patrick MacDonald of 25/7 Management.
Sony Classical signed Frankfurt, Germany-based cellist Anastasia Kobekina and will release her debut major label album early next year. Kobekina is managed by Gregor Kotow and Shannen Liu at Liu Kotow International Management & Promotion.
Lauren Records signed Talking Kind, the solo project of Big Nothing member and former Spraynard frontman Pat Graham. The label released his first song, “Damn Shame,” on Thursday (May 18).