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Facing a federal court order to turn over all his copies of a rare Wu-Tang Clan album, Martin Shkreli is warning a judge that he can’t remember all the people with whom he shared the album – and that it’s “highly likely” that other people still have copies.
In August, Judge Pamela K. Chen ordered Shkreli to hand over any copies of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, an ultra-rare Wu-Tang album that he once owned but was forced to forfeit to federal prosecutors to help pay restitution after he was convicted of securities fraud.
In a sworn statement on Monday, Shkreli promised the judge that he had turned over all copies that he could find in his possession. But he also said he didn’t know exactly who he had shared it with, and that some of them probably still have copies.
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“Because I shared the musical work several times several years ago, I cannot recall each and every time that I have shared the musical work,” he told the judge. “It is possible, and indeed I find it highly likely, that one of the many people who viewed, heard, or otherwise accessed the musical work via my social media recorded the musical work and retains a copy of the same.”
Wu-Tang’s fabled album was recorded in secret and published just once, on a CD secured in an engraved nickel and silver box. In addition to the bizarre trappings, Once Upon came with strict legal stipulations — namely, that the one-of-a-kind album could not be released to the general public until 2103.
In 2015, Shkreli — soon to become infamous as the man who intentionally spiked the price of crucial AIDS medications — bought Once Upon at auction for $2 million. But after he was convicted of securities fraud in 2017, he forfeited it to federal prosecutors to help pay his multi-million dollar restitution sentence. PleasrDAO, a collective of early NFT collectors and digital artists, then bought the album from the government in 2021 for $4 million, and in 2024 acquired the copyrights and other rights for another $750,000.
Amid recent efforts to monetize Once Upon, Pleasr sued Shkreli in June after he made threats to release the album publicly and destroy the exclusivity that the company had purchased. The lawsuit accused him of both breaching the federal forfeiture order and violating federal trade secrets law, which protects valuable proprietary information from misappropriation.
In August, Judge Chen granted Pleasr a preliminary injunction requiring Shkreli to hand over any copies of Once Upon that were still in his possession. His attorneys had argued Shkreli had the right to create private copies when he owned the album and could retain them even after he forfeited the original copy, but the judge rejected that argument.
Responding to the injunction order on Monday, Shkreli told the judge he had “searched my devices, electronic accounts, and other personal effects” and handed over any copies he owned. He swore that he had done so “under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America.”
But Judge Chen’s injunction also included another requirement: That he divulge the “names and contact information of the individuals to whom he distributed the data and files.” On that front, Shkreli offered less info on Monday.
“Between 2015 and 2021, I recall occasionally sharing the musical work, primarily by sending digital files of the musical work to others via email, [and] also saved copies of the musical work on USB or other drives and gave those drives to others,” Shkreli said, before saying that he “cannot recall” each of those occasions.
He also told the judge that he had “shared the musical work on my social media pages or livestreams” on at least three occasions, including once in 2023 and again in 2024. It was during these public postings, Shkreli said, that someone likely created copies of the album.
Both sides did not immediately return requests for comment on Monday’s filing.
Universal Music Group Nashville and Timbaland‘s Mosley Music have signed singer-songwriter Colt Graves as the first signee to the previously-announced partnership. Graves’s first major label debut release under UMGN and Mosley Music, the song “Burning House,” will release Oct. 18.
Kentucky native Graves was influenced by his grandfather, Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame member Josh Graves. Graves’ own music melds country, folk and influences from pop and hip-hop. Last year, he teamed with Timbaland on the song “Cowboy Capone,” and last year released the song “Dirt on Me,” which rose up the iTunes Country chart.
“Colt Graves is the perfect artist for our first collaboration with Timbaland’s Mosley Music,” UMGN chair and CEO Cindy Mabe said in a statement. “He’s simply electric and speaks from a unique and overlooked musical fusion growing up in the bluegrass heartland and taught by his legendary bluegrass hall of fame grandfather Josh Graves. Colt is a gifted storyteller who mixes the backdrop and musical influences of his Owensboro, Kentucky lifestyle with a gritty fusion of country, hip-hop, rock and folk. His edgy vocals and musical fusion is magnetic and I’m so excited to share his musical vision with the world. He’s really a special artist.”
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Timbaland added, “From the moment I heard Colt, I knew he was special. He crosses the boundaries of a specific format of music which I believe is what makes him stand out as an artist.”
“It’s been a hell of a journey to get to this point and I’m so grateful to Timbaland, my team, and the UMG Nashville team for believing in me and being part of this journey. Thank you, Cindy, Chelsea, and team,” Graves said.
UMGN’s artist roster includes Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Mickey Guyton, Alan Jackson, Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood and more. The UMGN label group includes imprints Capitol Records Nashville, EMI Records Nashville, MCA Nashville and Mercury Nashville, as well as the comedy label Capitol Comedy Nashville, the distribution arm Silver Wings Records and the film/tv production unit Sing Me Back Home Productions.
Alicia Arauzo and Luis Fernández have been appointed co-managing directors of Universal Music Spain, the label announced on Tuesday (Oct. 1).
According to a press release, Arauzo and Fernández will “work closely” in shaping and implementing the company’s business strategy and creative direction, “focusing on the nurturing of the division’s solid artist roster,” as well as the development of new talent. Both executives will be based in Madrid, reporting directly to Jesús López, chairman/CEO of Universal Music Latin America & Iberian Peninsula.
“It is an honor for me to take on this new role, alongside such a great team of professionals,” Arauzo said in a statement. “Luis and I have many challenges ahead of us and I am sure that as a team we will work tirelessly to achieve new milestones for Universal Music Spain, especially in artistic development, which is the DNA of UMG globally. I would like to thank Jesús López for his trust, leadership, and constant encouragement to pursue new goals.”
Arauzo began her career in 1982 working at Spanish record label Hispavox and joined Universal Music Spain in 1996, where she started as manager of international marketing. Her most recent role was general manager. Meanwhile, Fernández joined Universal Music Spain in 2023 as head of A&R. Prior to joining UMG, he was CEO & founder of Sonido Muchacho, the independent record and music publishing company he launched in 2014.
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“It is a great opportunity to assume this new position at UMS, where I have grown professionally, and where I have felt so supported since my arrival,” added Fernández. “It is a wonderful challenge to take on this responsibility alongside people I have known since I started in the industry, as we all grow towards a promising future. I would like to thank Jesús, Narcís, and, above all, Alicia, for the trust they have placed in me, as well as the entire A&R team, with whom I have shared the last year of learning and professional growth.”
About the new appointments, López expressed: “Alicia possesses extensive experience, knowledge, immense work capacity and an unquestionable love for Universal Music, among many other qualities, while Luis brings innovation, entrepreneurship, and a deep artistic knowledge. Together, they are the perfect team to lead the continued development of our artists and take Universal Music Spain to the next level of success, that the music market demands of us. I wish them both huge success in this new stage of their careers, and I am certain that the entire team will join me in these wishes.”
In recent weeks, Sugarland‘s Kristian Bush went on a nostalgia trip, attending concerts that featured U2, The Dead, The English Beat and Adam Ant.
But that run of shows was more than just a personal stroll down memory lane. Bush engaged in some professional research, too, anticipating Sugarland’s 18-date concert run on Little Big Town‘sTake Me Home Tour, beginning Oct. 24 in Greenville, S.C.
“I’m trying to educate myself in nostalgia and what it makes me feel like as a fan,” Bush says. “I’m starting to get my feet in the actual mud and dirt of what it’s like as the artist.”
Transitioning from hit-maker to nostalgia act is likely the hardest segue most artists make during their careers. It’s a difficult rite of passage akin to losing a parent — few want to experience it, but almost every performer does.
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Complicating the process, the beginning of that change in career path isn’t clear at the outset. Terri Clark remembers a five-year period when she struggled to understand what was happening, unintentionally quoting from her own “Poor Poor Pitiful Me.”
“There’s a lot of ‘woe is me,’ I think, for a while,” she says. “You feel like you’re getting forgotten, like what you did didn’t matter.”
Of course, it did matter. But once the transition to legacy act starts, the way in which it matters shifts. Instead of having current songs played in hot rotations, the artist’s new material sags in consumption while the old music remains as gold material or in nostalgic playlists. Fans still come to the concerts, but they’re there primarily to hear what Garth Brooks calls “the old stuff.” The new stuff tends to generate the weakest response.
“People want old clothes from a new shop,” Bush suggests metaphorically. “They don’t want new music from their old band, but they want a new show from them.”
Navigating that shift challenges an artist’s self-confidence and sense of purpose. The longer they were on top and the more successful they were during that window, the harder it’s likely to be for them to make the transition. Some eventually learn to appreciate the time they spent in the top 10 as an uncommon privilege and see their past hits as an asset they can use going forward. Others never fully accept the change in stature.
“I remember working shows with [Merle] Haggard and Waylon [Jennings], and those guys,” Tracy Lawrence says. “They were pissed at us, you know. They blamed us because they had been dominant on the radio for years. And then all of a sudden, this young country wave comes along and they’re not getting airplay anymore. They were not happy about it, and they kind of blamed us a little bit for it. The only one that I remember not doing that was [George] Jones. You know, George embraced it. He did ‘[I Don’t Need Your] Rockin’ Chair’ and had all of us go out and tour with him and all these things. It was just a completely different experience. And that really stuck with me because I realized that we’re all going to go through this cycle.”
The phenomenon was lampooned in John Anderson‘s 1982 single “Would You Catch a Falling Star,” in which an artist’s crowds and transportation have all been downsized. “Nobody loves you when you’re down,” the Bobby Braddock-penned classic suggests as the legacy-act character struggles to revive a moment that’s no longer accessible. The audience in that song has determined the performer’s peak commercial period has passed, even if the artist hasn’t yet recognized it.
“At what point do you decide you’re nostalgia and what point did the outside world decide you’re nostalgia?” Bush asks. “There’s an internal meter and there’s an external meter, and pain [is] involved in the distance between when the two hit.”
The system sets artists up for that kind of downfall. The music industry succeeds by making stars, and it pampers and appeases them while they’re hot. It’s good for the executives’ short-term access to power, but it’s bad for the artists’ long-term mental health. In the most glaring example, Elvis Presley was famously buffered from the public by management and by his entourage, known as the Memphis Mafia, but was ultimately destroyed by his own success.
“When you’re in the middle of it, the ego gets in the way, and there’s all these people around you that are in that inner circle that protect you from the world and let you get away with stuff that normal people don’t get away with,” Lawrence says. “It’s really hard to have a good, honest perspective when you get wrapped up in it because you just get kind of carried away with yourself. Coming out on the other side, everybody doesn’t make it back out.”
Lawrence, Clark and Bush have all turned the corner. If they were uncomfortable being classified as legacy acts, they would not have consented to interviews on the subject.
Bush has made a point of asking nostalgia acts he knows in pop and rock about their experiences with the change. One of them told him that after accepting the transition, his professional life was awesome: He has a loyal core audience, knows what his fans will accept and regularly sees happy faces in the crowd. The legacy acts who deny their position, he added, are simply miserable.
Lawrence and Clark, after adjusting to the shift in their careers, were able to parlay their expertise into hosting roles with network gold shows. Both are currently nominated in the Country Music Association’s Broadcast Awards for weekly national personality of the year, for Silverfish Media’s Honky Tonkin’ With Tracy Lawrence and Westwood One’s Country Gold With Terri Clark. She ended her tenure with the show in early September; Lawrence told Billboard exclusively that he intends to wrap his Honky Tonkin’ affiliation in the next year.
Lawrence and Clark both addressed the transition musically. He tackled it in “Price of Fame,” a 2020 collaboration with Eddie Montgomery that Lawrence wrote with 3 Doors Down lead vocalist Brad Arnold. Clark embraced it through this year’s Take Two, a project that reframes her past hits as duets with the likes of Cody Johnson, Lainey Wilson and Ashley McBryde, whose appreciation for Clark underscored the significance of becoming a legacy act. Trisha Yearwood had told Clark that when artists realize it’s time to stop competing with younger acts and begin to serve as mentors, life becomes easier. McBryde, in the early stages of her national career, was possibly the first artist to tell Clark that her music had been an influence. Take Two strengthened that message.
“Not only do you embrace where you’re at, you get all that affirmation and form new friendships with some of the younger artists that you influenced when they were growing up,” Clark says. “That, to me, is a full-circle recognition of it’s about a body of work, and your lifetime of your work is not just about five or 10 years. It’s about the whole journey.”
As it turns out, the journey can actually be more satisfying after the hits stop coming.
“I’m much calmer than I used to be,” Lawrence says. “I don’t need as much validation as I used to.”
As a legacy act, the former stress of trying to find and continuously market new hits gives way to feeding the existing fan base, which can become more of a community. Whether those fans are coming to relive past glories or to simply revel in music they appreciate, they’re typically a supportive audience. Entertaining them becomes a different experience once the artist accepts that their legacy is enough.
“They relate to certain events and milestones in their own life with one of your songs, and you really have to stay in that place with it and not make it about you,” Clark says. “Make it about them. That’s when it’s not hard for me to sing these songs, when I see how excited people get.”
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Music streaming company LiveOne will continue to have a relationship with auto manufacturer Tesla but with less advantageous terms. Starting in December, Tesla will no longer subsidize LiveOne products for some of its customers.
For years, LiveOne’s relationship with Tesla has been a cornerstone of its music streaming business; Tesla vehicles sold in the U.S. with Tesla’s Premium Connectivity package included a membership to LiveOne’s Slacker Radio that was paid by the car maker. The “streaming” button on the Tesla console led drivers to the subsidized, LiveOne-powered streaming platform without needing to connect to the app through their smartphones.
Over the years, LiveOne remained a key streaming partner as the automaker added other streaming apps to its console. Now, LiveOne is losing its preferred status. Starting Tuesday (Oct. 1), Tesla replaced the “streaming” button with a LiveOne-branded app. Come December, LiveOne will no longer be free, although Tesla will continue to pay grandfathered LiveOne accounts in perpetuity.
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While Tesla will no longer subsidize the streaming radio subscriptions, LiveOne will offer Tesla owners discounted LiveOne packages. “The conversion opportunity has enormous upside by offering Tesla owners an opportunity to upgrade and have access on all devices at discounted priority pricing,” LiveOne CEO Robert Ellin said in a statement. “We’ll drive growth, unlock new revenue streams, own our data, and increase ARPU.”
In the near term, however, the amended partnership will hurt LiveOne’s financials. In Tuesday’s announcement, LiveOne reduced its guidance for consolidated fiscal 2025 revenue to $120 million to $135 million from $140 million to $155 million. At the midpoints, the change represents a 13.6% decline. Also, LiveOne lowered guidance for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to $8 million to $15 million from a range of $16 million to $20 million — a 36% decline at the midpoints.
The news sent LiveOne shares down as much as 32.6% to $0.64 before closing at $0.73, marking a 23.1% decline from the prior day’s closing price. Combined with LiveOne’s 23.2% drop in share price last week and Monday’s 10.5% decline, the stock has lost 47% in just the last seven trading days.
Tesla’s paid members increased 15 times since LiveOne acquired Slacker in 2017, according to a LiveOne investor presentation from March. LiveOne’s management is focused on establishing new business-to-business and has been in discussions with 50 potential partners, according to the document.
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: A civil war within the Fugees as Pras sues Lauryn Hill for fraud; the latest on Diddy’s legal drama, including an appeal and two new lawsuits; New York mayor Eric Adams hires Jay-Z’s lawyer to defend him against federal criminal charges; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Fugee Feud
The Fugees — a hip hop trio made up of Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel — rose to fame in the mid-1990s with hits like “Killing Me Softly,” “Ready or Not” and “Fu-Gee-La,” launching solo careers for all three. But 25 years later, it appears something is rotten in the state of Fugee.
In a scathing lawsuit Tuesday (Oct. 1) that took personal shots at Hill, Pras accused his bandmate of fraud and breach of contract. He claimed that she had exploited his need for cash amid mounting legal problems to get him to sign onto a plan for a 2023 tour in which she enriched herself at his expense.
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“It did not matter to Hill if she took full advantage of Michel’s vulnerability — her friend and creative partner of over 30 years,” his lawyers wrote. “In fact, she counted on exploiting that vulnerability to carry out her scheme.”
Michel also pinned the blame on Hill for the group’s recently canceled 2024 tour, which had been set to kick off in early August but was quietly called off just days before it was set to start. He cited her “gross mismanagement” as a key factor behind poor ticket sales.
Hill quickly responded with a detailed rebuttal, calling it “a baseless lawsuit” that was full of “false claims and unwarranted attacks.” She said Pras had omitted key details — like that she had expanded the tours specifically to help him pay his legal bills and had secured him advances that had not yet been paid back.
For more details on the lawsuit and Hill’s response, go read our entire story here.
Other top stories this week…
DIDDY, DIDDY & MORE DIDDY – It was a busy week for the indicted hip hop mogul, who stands accused of federal charges of sex trafficking and racketeering. Most notably, his lawyers formally launched an appeal of a judge’s ruling denying him bail, marking their latest effort to get him released ahead of his trial. He was also hit with two new civil lawsuits, one from a woman who claims he raped her in 2001 at his New York City studio, and another from a Florida model who alleges he repeatedly drugged and sexually assaulted her over a four-year period. Oh, and 120 more victims might be suing him soon, if you believe press statements by a Houston plaintiff’s lawyer.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR DIDDY CASE? – If you want a quick primer on the immediate next steps in the case — how soon might the trial be? where is he being jailed? — go read my explainer on the situation.
HIZZONER HIRES JAY-Z’S LAWYER – Facing a federal indictment of his own, New York City Mayor Eric Adams hired Alex Spiro of the law firm Quinn Emanuel, a prominent litigator with extensive music industry experience and a client list including Jay-Z, Megan Thee Stallion and 21 Savage. For a detailed breakdown of Spiro’s music litigation history, go read our full story here.
BRITNEY PERFUME BATTLE – A cosmetics company called Give Back Beauty hit back hard at a recent lawsuit filed by Revlon, which accused the smaller company of working with four ex-Revlon execs to “sabotage” the company’s decades-old fragrance partnership with Britney Spears. In the response, Give Back argued that Revlon only filed the “baseless” lawsuit because it was upset that Britney made the choice to “reject” the industry titan and sign with a competitor.
SUCKER PUNCH SETTLEMENT – DaBaby settled a civil lawsuit over a 2020 incident in which he allegedly sucker punched a property manager named Gary Pagar during a music video shoot at the man’s Los Angeles mansion. The settlement, reached two months after he took a plea deal to avoid jail time over the same episode, will avoid the need for a trial that had been set to kick off in November.
YSL JUDGE HAS HAD IT – Nearly two years after the trial kicked off, the judge overseeing Young Thug’s sprawling Atlanta gang trial reached her boiling point with the prosecutors trying the case. At a hearing in which she appeared visibly frustrated, Judge Paige Reese Whitaker complained of “poor lawyering, “baffling” decisions and steps to repeatedly “hide the ball.”
AI LAW VETOED – California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a landmark bill aimed at establishing first-in-the-nation safety measures for large artificial intelligence models, a major blow to efforts attempting to rein in the homegrown industry that is rapidly evolving with little oversight. The bill would have established some of the first regulations on large-scale AI models, but Newsom and other critics said it would have had “a chilling effect on the industry.”
Four years before her fourth album, 2006’s Begin to Hope, made Regina Spektor one of the brightest stars of the ‘00s indie boom, the Russia-born American singer-songwriter was just another starving artist traipsing around New York City, playing free gigs and selling CD-Rs out of her backpack. Flashy newcomers such as The Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs were bringing national attention to the exploding downtown Manhattan scene in the early ’00s, but Spektor’s syllable-stuffed piano songs were a far cry from the sneering rock that major labels were looking to sign as they scoured the streets for new talent.
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Spektor’s 2002 set Songs, her second self-released effort, was culled from 40-some songs she recorded at a friend’s studio on Christmas, simply so she wouldn’t forget them. Twelve of those (including “Samson” and “Ne Me Quitte Pas,” which she later re-recorded for Begin to Hope and 2011’s What We Saw From the Cheap Seats, respectively) became Songs, which she sold for $10 after each gig – sometimes netting enough profit to splurge on something crazy, like a modest dinner.
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When her 2003 major-label debut Soviet Kitsch — and, more importantly, Begin to Hope’s breakout hit “Fidelity” (a Billboard Hot 100 entry that appeared in a laundry list of TV shows and movies) — made Regina Spektor a national name, Songs faded into the background. It’s a shame, since Songs is something of a lost masterpiece: the work of an idiosyncratic talent bursting with ideas, pithy observations, humor and pathos about the overwhelming yet inspiring minutiae of life. (If Spektor were a character in The Great Gatsby, she would probably agree with Nick Carraway when he said, “I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”)
But fortunately for fans, that’s about to change. On Nov. 29, Songs will be officially released on Warner Music – newly mastered by the legendary Bob Ludwig, no less, who came out of retirement to help Songs sing. In honor of its first commercial release and 22nd anniversary, Spektor will perform the album in full (plus more) at Brooklyn’s Warsaw on Dec. 9-10.
Here, Spektor talks to Billboard about those lean but creatively fruitful days selling CD-Rs out of a backpack, getting Ludwig to briefly come out of retirement to do her a solid, and how a few generous concertgoers helped her stay motivated to keep making music,
Songs is finally officially coming out 22 years after you first self-released it – and I’m thrilled you’re playing Warsaw, which is one of my favorite venues, to celebrate it.
It’s going to be fun to visit these songs as myself now and see what it feels like. Also, it’s fun to play songs people want to hear – songs they have a connection with — so I’m excited to play the shows. Obviously, people are coming to hear that record, and the record is not long enough to be a full show.
What’s it gonna feel like to play Songs in its entirety? I don’t even know, because the songs on the record were picked from whatever 40 songs I recorded that year at my friend’s studio. And the studio was not even a real studio, it was his little post-production studio — it was just his little upright piano in the corner. Nobody works on Christmas, so that’s when we would record these sessions. I think the first title of the record — we were joking around — I was like, “We should just call it Two Jews on Christmas.” [Laughs.]
It’s going to be so interesting to even see what it feels like to play the songs in that order, because I’ve never started a show with “Samson.” For many years now, I finished shows with “Samson” — that’s going to be so weird. The version of “Samson” that’s on Songs is so much slower than the one that I recorded properly for Begin to Hope –– or whatever “properly” is, you know — and so I’m going to have to tune to that version and play it how it is on the record. I’m going to stay as true to the record as I can, because I think that’s gonna be fun for me and the audience.
Also, I was joking around with somebody on my team when we were mastering it, I was like, “Why did I write so many words? Why did I write so many chords? Why did I write so many notes?” There’s just so much work in there. I’m like, “Damn it, girl, you could have been a little bit lazier! Give Future Regina a break!”
So you recorded these songs on Christmas – was the intention to have some demos to shop around?
We did we did two of these. We did it one year, and then we did it the next year. [This is me and] my friend Joe Mendelson, who was part owner of the old Living Room on Stanton and Allen. I had two homes: one was SideWalk Cafe and one was the Living Room. They had totally different vibes and I would play both of them and I loved both of them for different reasons. But both of them shared this thing where you could go and hear somebody for free. It was really a mystery, you were sort of rolling the dice.
And in that time, I was passionate about a bunch of things, but some of my passion was coming out of certain fears. I had this terrible fear of how boring it is to just have one instrument and listen to a person sing over just one instrument: “Who could ever deal with an hour of music on one instrument?” So I tried really hard to be as diverse with my accompaniment as I possibly could. If I had a really arpeggiated song that I wrote, or it was really watery with pedal, then the next one had to be really staccato. I was just trying to create this world where I wouldn’t have to play a song next to another song that sounded the same or similar. So that was kind of an obsession.
And then I also had this other misunderstanding, I guess, that if you were playing a show again in a venue, you had to have new songs. You couldn’t just play the same songs that you had played. And because my parents were kind enough to say, “You could live at home, and you can stop pretending that you’ll ever earn enough money from your stupid day job to pay rent. Let’s just all stop pretending,” I all of a sudden had this free time, and I was just obsessed with writing songs. I was writing so, so much.
And Joe mentioned something about some song from three shows ago, and I couldn’t understand what he was talking about. I said to him, “Oh, my God, I think I remember vaguely, but I don’t remember the song, and I don’t know it anymore.” And this thing started happening where I started forgetting songs. And it was a terrible, terrible feeling to be forgetting things that you care about. So he said, “Let’s just make a standing date, and that you will write down the names of all your songs and try and practice them throughout the year — and on Christmas of every year, you’ll just come in and we’ll record all of it.”
So it didn’t come through this need of trying to shop anything or demo anything. I didn’t even think of these things as anything that you could do that with. I was under the impression that other than downtown people, who would want this anyway?
When you were selling these at your live shows back then, how much would they go for? And who was buying them?
First of all, I ended up giving a lot away. You just trade with fellow musicians out of your respective backpacks. But if I was lucky, I could sell a few of them, anywhere from one or two to three at a certain point, and I would sell them for 10 bucks. And it really made a huge difference in my life. I played this show in Hoboken, it’ll forever stay with me. My mom drove me and there was this young guy there. I guess he had seen me before and he wanted to buy a CD. I said it was $10 and then he gave me $20 and he wouldn’t take the money back. He wouldn’t take change back, and he said, “No, I want you to have this.”
And — I’m like, gonna start crying — but this thing would happen sometimes where you’d go to collect your tips, and then there would be a really large [one], somebody would have put in like 20 bucks or 40 bucks. It was like this encouragement or vote of confidence or support. It would be so much more than even just the financial. It would be like, “I went through something with you, and I want you to have this money so that you can make more of what you’re doing.”
Obviously, my parents supported me more than anybody, because there was shelter and food and laundry. But if I sold three CDs, now I could look at the menu and order something for dinner at this cafe that I played. Now I can afford to go into the city for another three nights in a row to play open mics, and take my backpack and hope that maybe I’ll sell another two. You’re going from tiny payday to tiny payday.
How were you thinking about your future at the time? Were you hoping to make it to a major label, or were you just feeling, “Well, this is my life, playing music at these downtown venues and selling CDs out of a backpack”?
Well, it’s a really good question, because I think actually at that time — I very much feared all big labels. Even when I started talking to them all, I was still very much terrified. One of the people who signed me [to Sire], Goldie, Michael Goldstone, he basically, at a certain point was like, “Why are you talking me out of signing you?” [laughs] And I was like, “Because I won’t do this, and I’m not going to do that.” I just had heard all of the horror stories, and I was very fiercely protective. I knew in my mind that the most important things were the songs to have that chance and time to develop without being under scrutiny and without everybody’s opinion in there.
When I think about musicians and artists that are starting now — forget about labels, everybody’s opinions are there all the time because of social media. You can’t get away from people’s opinions and thoughts and ideas for you and about you. That’s a hard path, because there’s something so wonderful about just being so underground and free and making your own decisions based on a feeling rather than a comment. But that being said, I think that we have to be careful. Much like when you read A Moveable Feast, all of a sudden you want to move to Paris and starve with everybody. There is definitely a magic and a nostalgia that I have — I loved that time, I was very lit up, and it was really, really creative.
And then there was another part of it that was really, really hard; it oftentimes felt endless and exhausting and confusing. Growing up is not easy for anybody, and it was part of growing up and figuring out how to be your own person in the world. And when your world is New York City, it’s pretty full-on — it doesn’t take it easy on you. I mean, just living in the Bronx and playing downtown. I lived on the subway. I could easily spend four to five hours a day on the subway, traveling to and from places, because if I couldn’t afford to eat in Manhattan, I would come back to the Bronx and then come back to Manhattan [to play again]. The reality of trying to be an artist in the world that doesn’t really support art. But the people who bought those records allowed me to live.
When you started revisiting this project, what was it like? Did it feel familiar, or like the work of a totally different person?
There was the very first re-finding of it, which was the CD-Rs that I sold at shows. They had so much interference and little things on them. I hadn’t listened to it in, whatever, 20 years and I was like, “Oh no, I can’t just put this out like this.” My friend’s studio actually was right near Times Square, so there’s a lot of interference. It wasn’t meant for live recording, really. But we were able to find an old hard drive that had original files on it. And through that, Bob Ludwig — who is mastering extraordinaire, and I’ve had the pleasure of being friends with him, and he’s mastered everything from Begin to Hope and on, and then he retired — I reached out to him. And he basically came out of retirement to help me.
[After that] I could listen to these songs instead of just obsessing with every little interference. Once that layer was gone, it’s kind of like when you look at baby pictures of yourself, or have memories of yourself at six or eight or 12. You’re not exactly that person, but in a way, you could be right there. That person is still inside you. That person is just there, but another layer grew over it, like the center of the onion.
I completely understand her [when I listen to Songs]. Some things, you’re like, “Wow, I’m really proud of you for that” or “I’m really amazed at you for that.” Versus sometimes it’s with an eye roll of like, “Oh my God, now I have to say this thing? Why did you write that?” It’s mixed. Same as Future Regina is going to be doing an eye roll about something I’m doing now, and then she’s gonna hug me into the past for something I’m doing now. We don’t know what those things are. But I absolutely recognize the person that wrote [Songs].
The judge overseeing Young Thug’s sprawling Atlanta gang trial appears to have reached her wits’ end with the prosecutors trying the case — complaining of “poor lawyering, “baffling” decisions and steps to repeatedly “hide the ball.”
At a hearing on Monday (Sept. 30), Judge Paige Reese Whitaker sharply questioned Chief Deputy DA Adriane Love over her handling of the trial, which has already been going for nearly two years and is expected to run well into next year.
“It is baffling to me that somebody with the number of years of experience that you have, time after time after time, continues to seemingly and purposefully hide the ball to the extent you possibly can, for as long as you possibly can,” Whitaker said to Love, appearing visibly frustrated.
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“I really don’t want to believe that it is purposeful but honestly, after a certain number of times, you start to wonder how can it be anything but that, unless it is just that you are so unorganized that you are throwing this case together as you try it,” she added, saying that the “haphazard” approach was making the trial more difficult for everyone involved.
The reprimand for Love, over an issue with evidence that she tried to introduce without a witness, prompted Young Thug’s defense attorneys to move to a mistrial. Though the judge ultimately denied that request, she warned prosecutors that she was nearing her breaking point.
“I truly am struggling with whether all of this is purposeful, or this is just really poor lawyering on the part of members of the state’s team. Either way, it’s really unfortunate. If it’s something other than poor lawyering, it’s more than unfortunate,” the judge wrote. “I don’t know if I can stress any more than I already have how much the state’s lawyers need to make an effort to be upfront and forthright in the trial of this case.”
Thug (Jeffery Williams) and dozens of others were indicted in May 2022 over allegations that their YSL was not really a record label called Young Stoner Life but rather a violent Atlanta gang called Young Slime Life. Citing Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, prosecutors claim the group operated a criminal enterprise that committed murders, carjackings, armed robberies, drug dealing and other crimes over the course of a decade.
The trial kicked off in January 2023 but has faced repeated delays and disruptions, including an unprecedented 10-month jury selection, the stabbing of another defendant and a bizarre episode in which the presiding judge was removed from the case over a secret meeting with prosecutors. Whitaker took over the case in July.
While the slow-moving trial has dragged on, Thug has been sitting in jail for more than two years, repeatedly denied bond by both judges to handle the case over fears that he might intimidate witnesses. Prosecutors have only presented part of their vast list of potential witnesses, and the trial is expected to run well into 2025.
Range Media Partners signed Rita Ora and will represent the multi-hyphenate in all areas, including music, film/TV and endorsements. According to a press release, Ora has racked up more than 10 billion streams globally and scored four U.K. No. 1 singles. In the U.S., she reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 with a featured spot on Iggy Azalea’s 2014 hit “Black Widow.” Her most recent single is “Ask & You Shall Receive.” She also recently began her second season as a panelist on The Masked Singer and co-starred in the Disney+ original movie Descendants: Rise of Red. Ora is currently working on new music which is set for release early next year. She continues to be represented by CAA for film/TV, Wasserman for touring and Peter Paterno and Joe Carlone at KHPS Law.
BLACKPINK member Rosé signed a global deal with Atlantic Records, in management partnership with THEBLACKLABEL. As announced Tuesday (Oct. 1), Rosé will release her debut solo album, rosie, on Dec. 6. The singer first rose to worldwide fame as a member of the best-selling K-pop girl group. In 2021, her solo single “On the Ground” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts.
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Sony Music Latin signed emerging regional Mexican artist Oscar Ortiz, who has already penned songs for major acts in the genre, including his brothers Gerardo Ortiz and Kevin Ortiz. “At only 22 years old, Oscar has repeatedly demonstrated his extraordinary talent as a performer and composer, which positions him as one of the most promising voices in contemporary Mexican Music,” Alex Gallardo, president of Sony Music Latin, said in a statement. Earlier this year, Ortiz scored his first No. 1 on any Billboard chart thanks to “First Love,” his collaboration with Edgardo Nuñez, which landed atop the Regional Mexican Airplay ranking. “Reaching this point in my career was a very long process, but it was totally worth it,” Oscar added about his deal with Sony Music Latin. – Griselda Flores
Electronic artist Boris Brejcha signed with WME for global representation outside North America. In April, Brejcha released his ninth studio album, Level One, and in September dropped the single “Save My Soul” with Diplo. In 2015, he founded the music label Fckng Serious, which boasts Ann Clue, Deniz Bul, Frieder & Jakob, Julian Wasserman and Moritz Hofbauer on its roster. In 2022, he started a second label, Yellow Kitchen, that has put out music from artists including Prevision, shot by stanley, Visual Impact, concious, and Fifty Five.
Frontiers Label Group launched a new rock and alternative imprint called FLG and signed British rock band Skunk Anansie to its roster. Formed in 1994, the band scored two top 10 albums in the U.K. — 1995’s Paranoid & Sunburnt and 1996’s Stoosh, according to a press release. After releasing its third album, 1998’s Post Orgasmic Chill, the band went on hiatus in 2001 before reuniting in 2008 and releasing several more albums. Skunk Anansie has sold more than 5 million records globally, the release adds.
Nashville rock/blues artist Liam St. John signed with Group Projects, in partnership with Red Light, for management and with WME for booking. Group Projects partners Cooper Anstett and Anthony Manker will oversee St. John’s career for the firm, while Carrie Creasey will serve as his agent at WME. St. John released the EP Believer this summer.
BMG and Lucky Kid Syndrome partnered to sign emerging Shanghai-based singer, DJ, producer and songwriter Chace to a global record deal. The artist, who was the first Chinese DJ to perform at Tomorrowland, according to a press release, is slated to release a new single next month. “With the strong support from Chace’s established base in China, we are poised to successfully introduce Chace not only to the US but to audiences worldwide,” said BMG’s Dan Gill, executive vp of recorded music, Los Angeles, in a statement.
Country/rock singer-songwriter Kasey Tyndal signed with MNRK Music and released “Not As I’ve Done,” the first single off her upcoming self-titled album expected to drop early next year. She’s scheduled to open for Ian Munsick and Ella Langley at several U.S. shows through November. “Bringing Kasey to MNRK is one of the highest points of my 17 years here,” said MNRK senior vp of rock Scott Givens in a statement. “She is a world class talent who masterfully pushes the boundaries of country and rock. All of us at MNRK are excited to put the full weight of the company behind her as she moves into the next stage of her career.” Tyndal is managed by Lindsey Ray at The Steadfast Company.
Sub Pop signed Seattle-based rock band Deep Sea Diver, led by guitarist and vocalist Jessica Dobson. The group’s latest release, “Billboard Heart,” is the first song to be released off its upcoming album due early next year. It will be the band’s first album since 2020’s Impossible Weight. Deep Sea Diver notably supported Pearl Jam on several dates in 2023 and 2024.
Mom+Pop Music signed indie rock band The Kilans and released its new single “Colonel.” The group, which hails from Salt Lake City, is composed of Jack Ongman, Jacob Shultz, Cooper Brezoff and David Wiseman. The Kilans previously released the singles “Curly” and “Why is it Light Out?” and will be announcing tour dates soon.
Madison Bailey, known for her starring role on the Netflix series Outer Banks, signed with Republic Records and released her debut single, “The Grey.” Bailey is slated to release more new music soon.
Lauryn Hill is facing a lawsuit from her Fugees bandmate Pras Michel, claiming she defrauded him over the group’s shortened 2023 tour — and that her “gross mismanagement” also led to the abrupt recent cancellation of the 2024 tour.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, lawyers for Pras allege that Hill exploited his mounting legal bills to get him to sign onto a plan for the 2023 tour with false promises – a deal they say enriched Hill at the expense of her bandmate.
“Hill’s ploy to appear to be Michel’s supposed savior was actually a devious attempt to make a big score for herself by generating millions of dollars from a Fugees tour,” his lawyers write. In the process, it did not matter to Hill if she took full advantage of Michel’s vulnerability – her friend and creative partner of over 30 years. In fact, she counted on exploiting that vulnerability to carry out her scheme.”
The lawsuit also sheds light on the aborted 2024 tour – which had been set to kick off in early August but was quietly cancelled just days before it was set to begin, with no immediate reason given. In his court papers, Michel pins the blame squarely on Hill.
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“Because of the gross mismanagement by Hill and [her company], who had taken far too long to close the deal with Live Nation, the 2024 U.S. tour tickets sales were dismal,” his attorneys say. “There was little or no marketing for the tour, and not enough time between the announcement and the first concert date to do sufficient advance sales to justify the tour.”
Comprised of Hill, Michel, and Wyclef Jean, the Fugees rose to fame in the 1990s with hits like “Killing Me Softly,” “Ready or Not,” and “Fu-Gee-La.” After splitting up in 1998, the three each had successful solo careers and mostly stayed separate until recent years, when they have attempted multiple reunion tours.
In 2019, Michel was hit with sweeping federal criminal charges, including funneling money from a Malaysian financier to Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign and then later trying to influence an extradition case on behalf of China. In April 2023, he was convicted on 10 counts including conspiracy, witness tampering and failing to register as a foreign agent.
In his lawsuit on Tuesday, Michel’s lawyers said Hill took advantage of a “desperate man” who needed to pay expensive criminal lawyers, using an advance of cash to get him to sign a deal with “onerous terms” that he would have “easily rejected in the years before his criminal conviction.”
“While the contractual advance paid to Pras enabled him to retain his new criminal lawyers, the 2023 tour agreement was a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” his lawyers say.
The touring agreement was “based on a lie” about how much Hill was being paid, Michel’s lawyers say, and it “ceded all financial and creative control” to her and her company – which gave her the “total lack of transparency she needed in order to secretly siphon off money.”
The lawsuit claims that Hill secretly took 40 percent “off the top” from the tour revenue before accounting for the one-third split that was owed to each of the three members. And he says the tour made much less money than it should have, thanks to a “bloated” budget and an abrupt cancellation of the second half of the tour.
As for the 2024 tour, Michel claims that Hill misled Live Nation that Michel was “on board” with the plan for another run of concerts when no such deal had been inked – and did so in order to receive a $1.1 million advance.
“That was another lie by Hill and [her company] since Michel was not ‘on board,’” say Miche’s lawyers, adding that her company “never signed the fully-negotiated agreement, never paid Michel anything, and never intended to do either.”
In technical terms, the lawsuit accuses Hill of fraud, fraudulently inducing Michel to sign the 2023 deal and breaching both her contract and her fiduciary duty. It also demands a ruling that the 2023 deal is voided and a court-ordered accounting of the books from the tour.
A spokesman for Hill did not immediately return a request for comment.