Business News
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Each week we’ll be sharing the most important news from the north with Canada’s top music industry stories, supplied by our colleagues at Billboard Canada.
For more Canadian music coverage visit ca.billboard.com.
Online Streaming Act hearings
For the last few weeks, a who’s who of stakeholders in Canadian music and media have been appearing before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) — from rights manager SOCAN to Spotify, Sirius XM and even UFC. The occasion is Bill C-11, a.k.a. the Online Streaming Act, which will update Canada’s Broadcasting Act for the first time in decades. The hearings will continue until Friday (Dec. 8).
It’s a major deal for the Canadian music business, whose system of CanCon requirements and public funds have built an industry that can compete — or at least not crumble — in a market dominated by American media to the south. This first round of hearings are focused on major streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube and potential regulations and monetary contributions they may have to make in order to continue operating in Canada.
“We hope that the CRTC will lean into this idea that it’s a once-in-a-generation regulatory process,” says Patrick Rogers, CEO of Music Canada, which represents the major label. “There are a lot of big questions: Who gets regulated? Who pays? How much? Who has access to the money? Now is when we’re going to figure it out.”
A worry among many is that too much financial regulation of big American tech companies could cause them to scale back their investment in Canada. Something similar recently happened with Bill C-18, in which Meta chose to block all Canadian news rather than pay for it. In Spotify’s hearing, company executives — who have an office in Toronto — said that compelled spending could affect their existing Canadian investments.
“The objective here should be: how do we build a stable, viable, resilient, equitable, middle class of artists and thriving Canadian-owned businesses and the music space that can compete globally?” says Andrew Cash, president and CEO of the Canadian Independent Music Association. READ MORE
How Quebec markets its music to the world
M for Montreal festival took place from Nov. 15-18, bringing Canadian and international visibility to Quebec music and artists. That’s an important objective in Quebec, where francophone music is marketed as much to France and globally as to the rest of Canada, which is divided by language.
According to the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles québécoises (SODEC), one of the festival’s main financial partners, M for Montreal is a significant market. “It’s an extraordinary opportunity to check the interest of foreign professionals in very particular artistic proposals whose potential is not yet known internationally,” says Élaine Dumont, general director of international affairs, exportation and marketing of Cinema at SODEC.
For her, events like M for Montreal are a fantastic way to gauge interest in Quebec musicians. “They are at home with their audience, so they can give the best of themselves, and that is precious,” says Élaine Dumont.
Similarly, SODEC supports collective presence, which means making sure Quebec artists and music industry professionals are represented at festivals worldwide. “We collaborate with M for Montreal, Mundial Montreal, FME, POP Montreal, for example, so that they send professionals internationally,” she adds. Thus, M for Montreal participates in events such as South by Southwest in Texas, Reeperbahn Festival in Germany, The New Colossus in New York and The Great Escape Festival in England.
“The festival has a good network in France, Germany, the UK, the US, and the rest of Canada,” notes programmer Mathieu Aubre. And because the French market is not approached like that of Francophone Africa, for example, SODEC, with an annual budget of over $4 million for the export of Quebec music, also offers specific support to territories. “We distribute various aids that allow us to take risks, support artists’ careers and develop audiences outside Quebec and internationally,” says Dumont. READ MORE
Diljit Dosanjh to play the biggest Punjabi concert outside of India
Diljit Dosanjh is set to make history next year with a just-announced performance at Vancouver’s BC Place on April 27, 2024 — the country’s first-ever Punjabi stadium show. With a capacity of 54,500, it’s expected to be the largest ever Punjabi music performance outside of India.
The BC Place announcement caps off a banner year for Dosanjh. This summer, he became the first artist to perform a fully Punjabi set at Coachella and in September, he released his latest album, Ghost, blends smooth R&B, moody trap and laid-back pop. The album spent seven weeks on Billboard’s Canadian Albums chart, peaking at No. 5. His collaboration with Sia, “Hass Hass,” also went to No. 37 on the Canadian Hot 100.
Speaking to Billboard Canada for a cover story about the popularity of Punjabi music in Canada, talent buyer Baldeep Randhawa recalled taking a job at Live Nation with a goal of supporting South Asian music. At the time, he hinted at big things to come with Dosanjh and said he had already shown there’s a major market for Punjabi music in Canada.
“I told them I was gonna prove the concept, book a 500 cap[acity] room and eventually go bigger,” Randhawa said.
When only a couple of months later, Live Nation booked Dosanjh, Randhawa learned he could skip right over the 500 capacity rooms and book arenas. Dosanjh performed at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, then a sold-out show at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena — which has a capacity of 18,000 — in June 2022.
Dosanjh is a superstar, but he’s not the only Punjabi artist making waves in Canada. Dosanjh collaborator Ikky recently announced a headline tour visiting five Canadian provinces in February 2024. READ MORE
If it’s Friday, you know it’s time for another spin around the Executive Turntable, Billboard’s comprehensive(ish) compendium of promotions, hirings, exits and firings — and all things in between — across the global music industry.
Tom Connaughton is out as Spotify’s managing director in the UK and Ireland, he announced this week on social media. The British-born executive joined the streaming giant in March of 2018 as head of artist and label marketing before getting a quick promotion three months later to his most recent role, which centered on driving content strategy and artist partnerships in the two powerful markets. He came to Spotify after seven years at Vevo, including two as senior vp of creative content & programming. In that role, he had responsibility for artist and label relationships across the U.S., U.K. and eleven different international markets and was based in New York at the time.
Earlier this week, Spotify chief Daniel Ek outlined an aggressive round of job cuts at the company, however a spokesperson for the company declined to comment when asked if Connaughton’s exit was related in any way. He has spent a good chunk of the last year on paternity leave, a perk that was the subject of a recent Fortune profile, and in his LinkedIn announcement, which was gracious and positive in tone, said he’s looking forward to “taking some time out to spend with my young family.” He added in his note: “The UK and Ireland is a massive market for Spotify, and the business today is unrecognisable to what it was when I first joined. That’s all been made possible by the incredible people that I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside. They all care so deeply about giving a platform to artists and creators, and to providing an amazing user experience for all of us to enjoy.”
As Music Business Worldwide noted in their coverage, Connaughton is the second market honcho to exit following last week’s departure of Jenny Hermanson as MD of the Nordics.
Warner Chappell Music tapped Jessica Entner to be its first vice president of creative sync strategy, a multi-faceted role focused on business development, partnerships and working directly with agencies and brands to realize WCM writers’ creative goals. Based in Los Angeles, she reports to Keith D’Arcy, WCM’s senior vp of sync and creative services. Entner arrives with roughly 24 years of industry experience under her belt, dating back to stints at Maverick Publishing, FM Rocks, Elias Arts and Massive Music, among others. Since 2016, she has helmed JEM, a music company focused on guiding creative strategy and production for advertising agencies and brands. “The media landscape is changing, and the creative needs of our clients in advertising, branding, and promotion are changing with it,” notes evp of global synchronization Rich Robinson. “Jessica is the perfect person to work with both our music partners and our songwriters to navigate these shifts and deepen the strategic relationship between music creators and brands.”
Elliot Grainge’s 10K Projects, which recently became a standalone label under Warner Music, named Max Gore to chief financial officer and promoted Blake Brown-Grakal to general counsel and Samuel Cohen to general manager. All three execs are LA-based. Gore swivels over from WMG, where he most recently served as vp of finance and operations at WMX. Brown-Grakal, a former drum tech for Ringo Starr’s band, joined 10K in 2020 as an associate director of business and legal affairs. Cohen has been with the label since 2017 and has worked across A&R, marketing and biz dev. “As we look forward to a new phase of growth at 10K, reinforcing our core executive team is crucial,” said Grainge. “Max brings with him well over a decade of finance experience, the majority within the Warner system. Blake’s facility in communicating with artists and their teams on business matters has been a game-changer for us over these past three years. And Sam has been at 10K since the very beginning, helping to guide every chapter of our development at the label.”
300 Entertainment promoted Lallie Jones to vp of marketing and Josh D’Amore to senior vp of digital and streaming. Jones — who was 300 Entertainment’s first employee, starting in 2015 as co-founder Lyor Cohen’s executive assistant — has overseen marketing campaigns for artists like PinkPantheress, $NOT and Phony Ppl, while D’Amore manages the commerce, digital strategy and streaming operation for the label. “Lallie and Josh are both incredibly valuable members of the 300 Entertainment team,” 300 co-presidents Selim Bouab and Rayna Bass said. “They have been a vital part of some of our biggest success stories, and will undoubtedly play crucial roles in many more to come.” –Dan Rys
Indie distributor TuneCore appointed Brian Miller as the company’s new chief revenue officer — a role last filled by the company’s now-CEO Andreea Gleeson. As CRO, Miller’s M.O. will be to spearhead revenue growth strategies, securing strategic partnerships and developing innovative ways to expand-and-retain TuneCore’s roster of artists and labels. Miller arrives from Angi (formerly Angie’s List), where for nearly three years he was chief growth officer at the popular DIY home services platform. Before that he spent six years in various executive roles at handyman-finding site Handy HQ, which was acquired by Angi in 2018. “Brian’s hands-on experience scaling SaaS businesses, forging dynamic partnerships and leading growth strategies—along with his passion for developing independent artists—make him an invaluable addition to our senior management team as we innovate to drive artist growth,” said Gleeson.
BMI promoted Tim Pattison to senior director of creative, effective immediately. In this New York City-based role, Pattison scouts and signs new songwriters and publishers, plus acts as point-person for various writer-focused showcases including the monthly Acoustic Lounge, the funnily titled Speed Dating for Songwriters, and showcases at Austin City Limits, SXSW and others. Since joining BMI in 2015, Pattison has handled writer/publisher relations for a slew of BMI stars, namely Doja Cat, Ice Spice and Yung Gravy, among others. Prior to BMI, the Ohio University and NYU alum held positions at Spirit Music Group and Fat Possum Records.
All in the Family: Penske Media’s venerable Dick Clark Productions hired veteran executive Sara Kantathavorn as senior vice president of talent strategy and promoted Jeremy Lowe to vp of talent and partnerships. Kantathavorn arrives after a five-year stretch at Apple Music, where she rose to head of global talent development and managed and developed the streaming service’s roster of hosts worldwide. Prior to Apple, she served in vp-level roles at Viacom Digital Studios and Revolt TV. Lowe’s roots run deep at DCP, where he started as an intern in 2009 and was most recently an executive director of marketing and talent partnerships. He and Kantathavorn will work closely together to help shape the DCP talent strategy across its events, which include The Billboard Music Awards, Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest and the Academy of Country Music Awards. “Sara’s experience leading talent teams and strategy coupled with Jeremy’s enthusiasm and passion for artist discovery make for a winning combination,” said Jay Penske, CEO, chairman and founder of Penske Media. “Talent will always be at the core of everything we do at DCP.”
London-based booking agency One Fiinix Live added veteran agent John Pantle to the team, effective immediately. Pantle joins after a five-year stretch at Sound Talent Group, where he was partner and handled a coming-with-him roster that includes Hatsune Miku, Julieta Venegas and Radwimps, among others. Prior to STG, he spent nine years at APA and three at UTA. “This business was built on creative ideas, entrepreneurship and personalities and John has all these attributes,” said One Fiinix Live founder and CEO Jon Ollier, who personally books the company’s biggest client (rhymes with Ned Beeran). Pantle will be based in Los Angeles but work London hours.
ICYMI:
Paul Vogel (pictured) will step down as Spotify’s chief financial officer on March 31, 2024 … Daniel McCartney and Brandon Frankel joined 33 & West, the L.A.-based booking agency … Luis Fernández is the new chairman of NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises … and Paul Hitchman was promoted to COO at AWAL.
Shane McAnally’s publishing, management and artist development company SMACK backed Molly Bouchon to be its director of marketing & artist development, effective immediately. Bouchon joined SMACK in 2019 as director of digital. In her new role, Bouchon will continue her digital work across SMACK and add SMACKRecords to her list of responsibilities. Bouchon will now oversee label marketing and social strategy, press/partner pitching and distribution for SMACKRecords artists. “Molly has made herself an integral piece of everything we do at SMACK. She has a unique role that interfaces with all the divisions here and works with them all at a high level. This promotion reflects her high quality of work within those roles and expands it with the addition of SMACKRecords,” say Robert Carlton, president of SMACK.
Musicians On Call, the non-profit bringing live music to hospitals, announced the inaugural members of its national Music Industry Advisory Board. The members of MOC’s Music Industry Advisory Board are: Jessica Abel (G7 Entertainment Marketing), Adrienne Assip (Epic Records), Erin Burr (RIAA), Alex Ciasnocha (Warner Music Nashville), Hayden Coplen (Wasserman Music Los Angeles), Stephanie DeMarco (Spotify), Laura Fuller (FlyteVu), Kristen Reed (Universal Music Group), Rachel Inglesino (Jonas Group Entertainment), Sydni Joseph (Big Plan Holdings), Derek Roberge (Sony Music Entertainment), Torianne Valdez (Musicians On Call), Liliana Villarreal (iHeartRadio).
Radio, Radio: Cumulus Media is elevating Collin Jones to president of Westwood One, starting New Year’s Day, taking over for a departing Suzanne Grimes. Jones joined Cumulus in 2011 and later helped with the acquisition of Westwood One before eventually becoming evp of corporate strategy and development. Grimes has overseen Westwood One’s vast network of radio stations since 2015 and was integral in pushing the company into podcasting. She has the dual title as evp of corporate marketing at Cumulus … iHeartMedia restructured its Markets Group to introduce five new division presidents overseeing the company’s region, metro and community divisions. At metro will be Kristin Foley, Chris Soechtig and DJ Hodge. Over in the region division, Bernie Weiss and Paul Corvino will lead … Then, iHeart announced two other division presidents would be departing: markets group president Scott Hopeck and division president Kim Guthrie … Warner Music Nashville‘s national director of radio, Chris Fabiani, is leaving the label in the new year. He joined WMG in 2020 following a decade with UMG.
Last Week’s Turntable: Former Vevo CEO Lands at Lyrics Platform
Dolly Parton has long poured her time and talents into Nashville, and now she’s doing it again. The Dollywood Company, a joint venture between Parton and Herschend Enterprises, has acquired a downtown office and retail building located at 211 Commerce Street in Nashville, the company has confirmed to Billboard. “Since the pandemic, commercial real estate […]
Music tech company Splice has partnered with Billboard to exclusively release key data about what sounds have trended among their usership over the last year. This is the first time the company has made their end-of-year data public.
Since its founding in 2013, Splice has offered music makers a constantly evolving sound library of millions of samples and loops for royalty-free use, ranging widely from kick drum to kopuz (a Turkish string lute) samples. Its sounds are widely used by producers of all sizes — from hobbyists in their bedrooms to the talents making Hot 100 hits with Justin Bieber, Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift and Travis Scott.
Splice has users in virtually every country around the world, but it is particularly popular in its top ten markets: U.S., U.K., Germany, Canada, France, Brazil, South Korea, Australia, Italy and India. 44% of its registered users identify as Gen Z.
To organize its ever-growing library, Splice uses a tagging system, adding genre and subgenre signifiers to help users find the sample they need. Some sounds have multiple genre tags. As the company’s creative director of Splice Sounds, Jay “Capsun” Pulman, explains, “when we have sample packs that are released that are tagged as K-pop, for instance, the vast majority of the time, they’ll be made by an artist, producer, or songwriter who is actively involved in K-pop in some way. They’re involved in that scene. The samples come out of the genre, as opposed to tagging every sound that could be used from Splice and made into K-pop.”
In sharing this data, Pulman, says the company can shine a light on the “very starting point of music making…It shows us the start point of where eventual trends bubble, even before getting to see [the trends] in mainstream hits.”
African Music
Most notably, downloads for sounds tagged as “amapiano,” a South African dance music genre often featuring log drums, are up 826% year-over-year. Its searches are up 309%, and it is trending in 17 cities. In Los Angeles, the highest trending city for the genre, its growth is up 1,003% year-over-year. It is also popular among Atlanta producers, surging 956% in the city this year.
According to Pulman, the discrepancy in downloads versus searches for amapiano suggests that users might not know to look up this nascent genre by name through their search bar. However, they’re still gravitating towards it when it’s featured in other ways on the site. On the Splice home page, the Splice team often creates groupings of sounds for different genres, moods and other categories to entice users to download sounds.
In the last year, African music has become popular on the Billboard charts as stars from the continent like Rema, Burna Boy, and Tems, crossed over into the American mainstream. “Calm Down” by Rema, with an assist from popstar Selena Gomez, peaked at No. 3 this year on the Hot 100 and even made the difficult move to No. 1 on the pop radio airplay chart for five straight weeks. In an acknowledgment of African music’s growth, Billboard launched a dedicated U.S. Afrobeats chart in association with Afro Nation, and Billboard reporters Heran Mamo and Dan Rys frequently cover the latest in the genre with their monthly roundup, Afrobeats Fresh Picks.
Amapiano’s growth on Splice represents the continued proliferation of African music globally. To further fuel growth in trending genres, Pulman says Splice’s Sounds team watches their data carefully and hires musicians native to those genres to amass more authentic samples for the platform to offer its users.
Meanwhile, sounds that are tagged as “afrobeats” or “afropop” have declined by 45%, particularly in African metropolises like Lagos, Nigera. Splice believes this is because “users want authentic sounds from more specific Afro genres rather than generic samples that fall under a larger umbrella.”
Hip-Hop / Rap
Hip-hop remains the most popular genre on Splice, accounting for 19% of total downloads. Still, the genre is down 11% from 2022. This may foreshadow continued difficulties for hip-hop music on the charts. This year was widely considered to be an especially stagnant year for the highly-streamed genre, and that was reflected on the Billboard charts: August 2023 marked a full year since a rap song had been No. 1 on the Hot 100 – the first time this has happened in 23 years.
Splice has found that downloads of trap sounds are down by 14% globally since last year, even in the genre’s birthplace of Atlanta, where those downloads fell by 20%. (Meanwhile, Atlanta saw a 50% growth in techno downloads, a 21% growth in dubstep, and a 20% growth in soul).
Still, 86% of Splice users downloaded a hip-hop sample in 2023, and 57% of Splice users told the company in a recent survey that hip-hop interests them most when searching for samples. Pulman adds that producers who are making hip-hop, for example, might use sounds tagged as other genres in eventually creating hip-hop songs.
Phonk
This year, Splice introduced a tag for phonk music, and so far, the genre has seen growth of 1,246% year-over-year to more than 1 million downloads since the tag first became available. (This percentage is available because Splice says it has retroactively applied the “phonk” tag to older sounds in its catalog, created prior to the tag). Phonk samples are trending primarily in cities like Los Angeles, Tokyo, Berlin, Chicago, and Seoul. The new genre, which sounds like slowed down Memphis rap samples set to lo-fi beats, is especially well-known among gamers and car enthusiasts who are passionate about “drifting.” It is often used by those communities to soundtrack their social media videos. While phonk still isn’t well-known among the general public, it’s gained a much wider reach this year, thanks in part to its inclusion on the latest Fast and Furious mixtape, which was released alongside the franchise’s 10th movie earlier this year.
Electronic / Dance
Dance music genres saw a comeback this year on Splice. The company says drum & bass was one of the fastest growing genres this year, ranking as the 10th most downloaded genre in 2023 with 85% growth year-over-year. Jersey Club, a fast-paced subgenre that fuses elements of house and rap, also saw major growth with a 178% increase in downloads year-over-year. It’s trending in Nashville and six other cities.
Sounds tagged as “U.K. garage” are trending in nine cities Pulman says that while “it’s a fairly niche genre, it has made its way into larger genres like K-pop, for instance.” It also made its mark on Western pop through the work of PinkPantheress.
Various subgenres of house are also growing in popularity on Splice. Downloads for house samples are up 27% overall, and searches for the genre are up 17%.
K-Pop
Sounds tagged as “K-pop” have declined 17.97% on Splice in 2023, but the company states that this “may not be indicative of the genre itself declining,” given that K-pop is an amalgamation of various influences spanning from U.K. garage to trap.
In Seoul, the epicenter of the K-pop industry, Splice has seen sounds from amapiano, phonk, Jersey club, Baltimore club, U.K. garage and big room house trend in the last year.
Latin
Despite breakout stars like Peso Pluma and Grupo Frontera hitting the charts this year, Splice has not seen a notable uptick in the use of regional Mexican samples, including the subgenres ranchera, norteño, banda and mariachi. Splice says this is likely because most regional Mexican music makers do not heavily rely on sampling.
Reggaeton sounds saw 23% growth in downloads year-over-year, making it the 29th most downloaded genre on the platform. Reggaeton’s top city on the platform is Los Angeles, where the genre grew 26% year-over-year.
Sounds tagged as “baile funk,” or “funk carioca,” has also grown this year by 107% globally. This is likely thanks to exposure on TikTok with viral hits like “Automotivo Bibi Fogosa” by Bibi Babydoll, Dj Brunin XM, and KZA Produções and “Tuburao Te Amo” by Dj LK da Escócia, Tchakabum and MC Ryan SP. Downloads for the genre have grown especially quickly in Sao Paulo (92%), Mumbai (179%), Tokyo (81%), and Guadalajara (888%).
Country
Country music is not considered a sample heavy genre, but it is still growing among Splice users. Over the last year, Splice saw downloads for sounds tagged as “country” grow by 67%, while searches are up 21%. This mirrors the genre’s growth on the Hot 100 this year as country hitmakers like Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, Jason Aldean and Zach Bryan became mainstream stars.
The slowdown in corporate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives inspired the theme at this year’s ADCOLOR Conference: “Double Down & Double Up,” representing a call to expand DEI efforts in the advertising industry. And the speakers, nominees, and honorees at this year’s event — held Nov. 9–11, 2023, in L.A. — provided numerous examples of how different experiences, viewpoints and backgrounds expand the reach to audiences.
Since Tiffany R. Warren founded the conference in 2005, ADCOLOR has brought LatinX, Black, Asian, LGTBQ+ and disabled creatives to the forefront of a conversation that had long excluded them. The upbeat and informative event celebrated how far the industry has come, yet reminded attendees of the importance of sharing knowledge and opportunities to ensure that progress continues.
This year’s event was the first since the United States Supreme Court further weakened affirmative action policies in a decision handed down in June. A video highlighting the decision was displayed on video screens as attendees participated in panels and workshops, serving as a constant reminder of what was at stake.
In a panel titled “Men of Color in the C Suite,” Epic Records president Zeke Lewis, Mediahub executive vp/executive director Alejandro Claiborne and Billboard president Mike Van shared insight on what it means to be part of a rare club and the unique responsibility of being a trailblazer in the top job.
“Race and gender manifest differently,” Claiborne noted in response to a question about making space for women on their team. “My job is to advocate, to create a safe space…psychological, socially, physical. When in mixed company, I try to make sure her voice is heard so others know I have her back.” Van also shared that the Billboard executive team is majority women: “The sooner I can work with women on a team, the likelihood of success is very high.”y
As Van noted, the journey to the C-suite will include failures along with successes. “Figure out and understand what you stand for,” he said. “Don’t expect success to be linear.”
ADCOLOR Nominees and Winners
The ADCOLOR 17th annual awards ceremony was held on the final night of the conference, with the black-tie event celebrating creators of inclusive advertising. Below, the winners of Ad of the Year and Most Valuable Partnership honors shared their thoughts on their respective wins.
Ad of the year
Campaign: “The Black Elevation Map”
Client: Black & Abroad
Agency: Performance Art
Honorees: Eric Martin (co-founder/chief creative officer, Black & Abroad) and Kent Johnson (co-founder/chief strategy officer, Black & Abroad)
The Black Elevation Map is a digital app that was created for Black and Abroad, a travel and lifestyle company that focuses on unique experiences for Black travelers. Inspired by the Green Book, a guide for black roadtrippers that highlighted businesses that would welcome them, the app “takes cultural data, including Black population data, historical markers, Black-owned businesses and social media activity, and visualizes it as points of interest on a dynamic, searchable elevation map of the United States.”
How does it feel to win Ad of the Year on your first try?
Eric Martin: It’s exhilarating. Mainly because when we started the work, we had no idea of where we were heading as a business. This was in the prime of the pandemic. There was literally no signals of when this thing would be over. …We just worked with what we had. We spent almost a year putting this together. When we launched it [during] Black History Month 2022, we had no idea where it would go, we just knew we were doing what we could. We were keeping it authentic, and we had an amazing pool of talent that we were able to tap into. An amazing run of businesses that were willing to participate and enlist themselves. And then we had the support of our community.
Why was the message of the ad important to you?
Ken Johnson: I think the Black community was looking for a way to share that information. There had been a consolidated moment. We were sharing lists of our favorite restaurants, etc., but it didn’t seem like it made it accessible if I’m out and about and I want to pull up a map around me that I could patronize immediately. We didn’t see that platform out there, so that was our driving force. We were tapping into the legacy of Victor Green, creator of the Green Book. How do we tap into what he’s done and bring it to our time and make it accessible and familiar for everyone? We all know how to pull up a map on our phones, but if we are able to pull up a map that already has our interests in mind, what would that do for the businesses being impacted?
How was it inspired by the Green Book?
Johnson: The Green Book was a tool for survival. The energy has shifted to how do we in the community make sure these businesses survive. We want to see these businesses around. We want entrepreneurs in our space to be able to make it past those first couple of years that are the hardest. Now we make sure that businesses are able to keep payroll up, reach new audiences. The spirit of survival is still there, [but] the direction is commerce.
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Most valuable partnership
WhatsApp and Translation
Honoree: Ghada Soufan, integrated marketing manager, WhatsApp; founder of MENA for ADCOLOR
WhatsApp teamed up with creative agency Translation for Naija Odyssey, a short film in which Greek-Nigerian Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo “tells his origin story of many origins as he reconciles his roots, birthplace and sense of belonging between cross-cultural worlds.” The film derived from an endorsement deal Antetokounmpo signed with WhatsApp last year.
What’s behind the growth of WhatsApp?
WhatsApp connects over 2 billion people around the world, which is really amazing. It has grown so much over the past two years. It really is the utility app that connects diasporas, communities, families, loved ones, friends, academic groups, elementary schools. So it’s been amazing to see the growth, but also the usage standpoint, the utility and the connections it’s provided for our users.
How do you handle that kind of rapid growth?
We handle the growth with excitement. We were excited about telling the story of WhatsApp as a brand. A lot of people use WhatsApp, [and] being able to really deliver [on] its purpose in connecting loved ones and representing marginalized communities, and really being for the people, and delivering features that can help anyone from teenager to a grandma to use it simply and reliably, has been really amazing.
A lot of people leave accessibility out of the DEI conversation.
That’s why we really refocused our audience with that partnership with Translation on people that are dual culture or multihyphenated. They work between the hyphen. For myself, it’s Arab-American, someone else it might be African-American, Nigerian-British. Wherever you are, we provide the closest thing to [a] face-to-face relationship, that intimate connection, through our app.
How does having a diverse team add to the success?
We have one of the most international teams. We truly have representation [and] truly a global diverse team. We have people from India, Brazil, Germany, U.K., U.S., Asia, Nigeria. We look for diversity not just in terms of a Western point of view, we’re a global diverse perspective. We aim to celebrate those people in our work and in how they use the app.
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Geffen Records has a new dance label, Disorder. The label is being launched Thursday (Dec. 7) by Geffen in partnership with longstanding electronic music executive David Dollimore. Based in London, Disorder will sign DJs, producers, artists, brands and labels.
Dollimore has a long history as a dance music tastemaker, working at London’s lauded Ministry of Sound (where he started as an intern) for 15 years and helping develop the careers of artists including Eric Prydz, Duke Dumont, Axwell, Benny Benassi, MK and Avicii. When Ministry of Sound was acquired by Sony Music UK in 2016, Dollimore became president of RCA Label Group, which clocked dance hits from artists including CamelPhat, London Grammar and Jade Thirlwall during his tenure.
“Disorder will be an incubator for the future of dance music and redefine the landscape as we see it,” Dollimore said in a statement. “This label will be a portal to the underground club world, distilling future trends for mass consumption. We will be leading a generation forging alternative routes to the top, outside the confines of dated traditional structures. The Disorder artist will resonate in fashion, culture, lifestyle and entertainment, across multiple platforms, forming a newgen of future visionaries within the field.”
The first project from Disorder is WHP Records, an imprint created in collaboration with The Warehouse Project, the tastemaking Manchester-based dance events brand that’s been putting on shows in and beyond the city since 2006. Founded by Richard McGinnis and Sam Kandel, The Warehouse Project sells more than 300,000 tickets every winter season. WHP Records is intended to transmit the sounds of its events to the world.
“Having spent the last two decades dedicated to finding and breaking talent, we can’t believe it has taken us this long to make this jump but David was the one person we wanted do it with,” McGinnis and Kandel said in a joint statement. “Being able to work with artists in a whole new way, providing tangible support in the live space alongside equitable partnerships, with David and Tom who share our passion for this culture is an exciting new chapter for us.”
“Together,” added Dollimore, “[Geffen Records president] Tom March, Rich, Sam and the impressive team at The Warehouse Project and I, have the network, the platform and the global infrastructure with Universal to make this one of the most successful partnerships in dance music.”
March has his own storied history with electronic music, having started his career in dance music PR and working with artists including Avicci, Alesso, The Chemical Brothers, Tiesto, Deadmau5, Jax Jones, DJ Snake, Zedd, Meduza, Swedish House Mafia and Becky Hill.
“At Geffen we are always looking to partner with our industry’s most successful and innovative entrepreneurs,” March said in a statement. “I couldn’t be more excited to partner with David as he heads back to what I consider him to be the best in the world at — signing and A&R-ing dance music. Between us, we have worked with many of the great names in the last twenty years of electronic music. I am so happy to be joining forces with him now.”
Enrique Iglesias and Influence Media Partners have struck a major partnership deal, it was announced Wednesday (Dec. 6).
According to a press release, Influence and Iglesias have partnered on the rights management of his pre-2021 recorded music rights, including his independent masters and his Universal recorded music royalties, along with name, image and likeness (NIL) rights to expand future licensing opportunities for the singer.
This marks the first NIL deal for Influence Media, which last year partnered with Black Rock and Warner Music Group for funding and infrastructure.
“My songs hold immense significance for both my fans and me,” Iglesias said in a statement. “I’m excited to be working with the Influence Media team. I feel confident we will build an enduring partnership for my music and future projects.”
“Enrique is a global icon and having him as a part of our Influence Media family is a game-changing moment for us,” added Lylette Pizarro, Influence Media founder/co-managing partner. “For a quarter of a century, he has captivated fans globally with chart-topping and record-breaking hits. From ‘Experiencia Religiosa’ to ‘Hero’ and ‘Bailando’ to ‘I Like It’ and ‘Be With You,’ there are few artists who come close to accomplishing what Enrique has achieved commercially. He has played a pivotal role in introducing bilingual music to the masses. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with one of the most recognizable figures in modern music.”
With a career that spans over three decades, Iglesias is one of the first Spanish-language acts to successfully cross over into the English-language market. He has placed five top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including “I Like It,” “Tonight (I’m Lovin’ You)” and “Hero.” He’s also placed three top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 (Escape, Euphoria and Sex And Love) and 27 No. 1 hits on the Hot Latin Songs chart.
Currently on the U.S. Trilogy Tour with Pitbull and Ricky Martin, Iglesias most recently scored his eighth No. 1 on the Tropical Airplay chart with his bachata collab “Así Es La Vida” with Maria Becerra. The 48-year-old artist is set to drop his new album, Final Vol. 2, next year.
Iglesias was represented by Mitch Tenzer and John Branca from Ziffren Brittenham LLP. Influence was represented by Lisa Alter from Alter, Kendrick and Baron.
Influence Media previously acquired the commercially-released master recording catalog of Blake Shelton for his 2001-2019 output, Future’s song publishing catalog and Puerto Rican songwriter-producer Tainy‘s song publishing catalog from 2005-2021, among other investments.
Luis Fernández has been appointed chairman of NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises. Fernández, who previously served as president of Telemundo’s news division, Noticias Telemundo, from 2015-2021, will report directly to Cesar Conde, chairman of NBCUniversal News Group. “Throughout his extraordinary career, Luis has time and again shown visionary leadership, building and growing the most successful Spanish language […]
“I’m a musician. The risk I take is in my chosen career path. I don’t want to take risk in my investments.” This was the most common remark we heard from entertainer clients for years.
And the most common advice those musicians would receive to address their concerns was, “Invest in municipal bonds. Your principal is protected, default risk is low, and you get tax-free income.” For the most part, that was true… until interest rates stayed close to 0% from 2020-2022 and then rose at their fastest pace in US history since then. During that time, municipal bonds were not what they were promised to be — down almost 10% in 2022 — especially for those who thought they couldn’t lose money owning them.
To be fair, barring defaults, and even with the recent price declines, municipal bonds bought prior to the rise in interest rates will give investors the return they signed up for when they bought them. But now we have artists coming to us excited that they are getting paid 5% pre-tax on cash in money market funds. However, those heady money market rates can be cut in half by taxes and they won’t last forever — we suspect they won’t even last much longer from here.
So, what can you do for an attractive risk-adjusted return these days while avoiding the volatility of the stock market? Let’s look at some particularly interesting options.
Intermediate Duration Municipal Bonds
While past performance doesn’t always translate into the future, over rolling two-year periods, high-quality intermediate municipal bonds have never lost money. Now, with interest rates at their highest levels in almost 20 years and municipalities’ finances healthy, these bonds look more attractive than they have in a long time.
However, balancing exposure to different sources of return in fixed income is important. We do not recommend just buying Treasuries or Treasury/municipality ladders. Consider an actively managed bond portfolio (as opposed to laddering) with the flexibility to move between municipal bonds and taxable bonds based on their relative attractiveness. This allows you to maximize after-tax returns while also managing interest rate exposure.
Hedged Exposure to Stocks
The S&P 500 is up over 18% year-to-date (as of Dec. 4), but it’s done so in a fairly volatile manner and more than half of the stocks in it are actually down for the year.
For investors concerned about volatility, they can consider reducing exposure to the market in the near-to-medium term by using a defined outcome exchange-traded fund (DOETF). Like other ETFs, these types of securities have daily liquidity and relatively low cost. But what makes DOETFs different from the index ETFs that many investors are familiar with is that they utilize options to create a specially designed payoff. For instance, recently created versions of DOETFs allow an investor to capture around 15% of any upside in stocks while not experiencing the first 15% of any market decline.
So, if the market is up 20% over the next year, investors will be up around 15%. If the market rises 8%, investors’ returns will be the same. If the market is down 10%, the investors won’t have any gains but also won’t take any loss. And if the market has an awful year and ends down 20%, investors would only be down 5%.
Private Credit
Every week brings new headlines about banks cutting back lending in different areas. It raises the question, “Who is lending money to businesses these days?” Private debt funds.
This area has grown substantially since the financial crisis as government regulations have made it harder and costlier for banks to lend. The private markets have stepped into that void. One notable aspect of these loans is that they’re made at floating rates, with financing usually made similarly. That’s protected them from the run-up in interest rates, as fixed interest investments have declined in value. That’s also allowed them to keep up better with inflation. Investors contemplating private credit should consider the fact that some of these strategies are only available to accredited investors or qualified purchasers and they’re often illiquid, with money locked up for several years at a time.
Real Estate
In addition to private credit, we’re seeing attractive opportunities to lend into the commercial real estate (CRE) market, partly for the same reasons as private credit (with banks stepping back) and partly for real estate-specific reasons, such as the pressure on office prices since the pandemic. However, with office being only one small piece of the overall market and with lenders having attractive bargaining power as assets are revalued and refinanced, that’s an area we’ve been highlighting in 2023.
Finally, and further up the risk spectrum, is real estate equity. Even inside that asset class, the risks can vary. With the turbulence in the market, we’re starting to see more attractive opportunities emerge in the “core plus” space, which are typically well-leased, income-producing properties in good locations. They’re often found in commuter suburbs in secondary or tertiary markets.
Like private credit, these real estate strategies are often illiquid, and even some of the strategies which are advertised as more liquid have gated investor redemptions recently. But for investors with enough cash flowing in to meet their outflows (even in a distressed situation) and a longer time horizon, the rewards for accepting that illiquidity can be meaningful.
What to Do
As always, investors should consult with a licensed investment advisor before making investment decisions. While each of the asset classes discussed here may be of interest, they are not suitable for all investors. At the same time, we recognize that having excess cash earning 5% in money market funds may feel nice for now, but it may not feel so nice looking back on things in a year’s time. Investors don’t need to feel tied to cash or forced to swing for the fences — there are many options worth considering in the middle ground.
Finally, while we’ve mostly focused on safer options here, which are meant to guard against the risk of market volatility, there’s another risk that investors must weigh — the risk of running out of money during retirement. Taking too little volatility risk can potentially generate excessive depletion risk. We recommend discussing this, and other considerations, with your financial advisor.
Adam Sansiveri is a senior managing director and head of the Nashville Private Client Group at Bernstein. Stacie Jacobsen is a director in Bernstein’s Wealth Strategies Group. Sansiveri and Jacobsen are co-heads of the Sports, Media and Entertainment Group at Bernstein Private Wealth Management, a division of AllianceBernstein. AllianceBernstein is a leading global research and investment management firm headquartered in Nashville with over $700 billion under management and offices in 53 cities in 26 countries.
HarborView Equity Partners, a rising player in music acquisitions that has built a hip-hop and R&B-heavy song catalog, announced Tuesday (Dec. 4) that it amended its senior secured credit facility to increase its borrowing capacity from $200 million to $300 million. The additional $100 million of funding will be used to continue to acquire music royalty catalogs as well as for general corporate purposes.
The credit facility is led by Fifth Third Bank and includes California Bank & Trust, MUFG Bank, Regions Bank and BankUnited. For the amended facility, three new lenders were added to the syndicate: Bank of America, Barclays and First Bank & Trust Company.
“HarbourView remains committed to providing the best execution for our growing LP base, against a relatively challenging market environment. We are thankful to both our new and existing financing partners for their commitment to HarbourView’s success,” said HarbourView head of capital markets Carlos Cruz in a statement.
“As capital conditions evolve, we are grateful for the continued support of our banking partners who have helped support HarbourView’s tremendous growth since inception,” added HarbourView CEO/founder Sherrese Clarke Soares.
Clarke Soares, a former managing director at Morgan Stanley who later founded Tempo Music and won the UBS & Billboard Trailblazer Award in February, has been attracted to R&B, hip-hop and Latin genres in addition to the classic pop and rock catalogs pursued by most investors.
Founded in 2021, the Newark, N.J.-based Harbourview is behind such recent acquisitions as the royalty income of select Nelly recordings, select recorded music and publishing assets of Wiz Khalifa and select publishing assets of Kane Brown. To date, HarbourView has acquired 45 music catalogs spanning about 26,000 songs. HarbourView owns the publishing catalog of “Despacito” co-writer Luis Fonsi and the publishing catalog of Dre & Vidal, the songwriting and production duo behind hits from Alicia Keys, Jill Scott and Mary J. Blige.
“We’re looking at the intersection of historical performance, growth trends, returns — and expectation in terms of price,” Clarke Soares told Billboard in 2022. “Where all that intersects is where we have found a lot of great opportunities.”