Business
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Cinq Music has acquired the music catalog of hitmaker Flow La Movie, Billboard can announce. The late producer’s robust catalog includes reggaetón megahits “Te Boté” and “La Jeepeta” — the former topped Billboard‘s Hot Latin Songs for 14 weeks in 2018. The catalog acquisition comes nearly three years since Flow La Movie (born José Angel […]
A Los Angeles judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee of sexually assaulting a woman in a helicopter in 2003, ruling that her case was filed too late.
The case against Lee, launched last year by an anonymous Jane Doe accuser, was filed under a newly enacted California law that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations for years-old sexual assaults – one of several such laws passed around the country in recent years.
But in a decision issued Monday, Judge Holly J. Fujie ruled that Lee’s accuser had failed to show that Lee’s alleged assault had been followed by any kind of “cover-up” – a key requirement under the provision she cited.
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“The court finds that plaintiff has not pled facts sufficient to support the theory of the necessary ‘cover up’ because plaintiff has not asserted facts evidencing defendants’ concerted effort to hide evidence relating to sexual assault,” the judge wrote. “Plaintiff instead makes vague allegations that the court finds insufficient to support the revival of a claim.”
Though the ruling is a setback for Lee’s accuser, the case is not yet over. The judge gave her and her attorneys 20 days to file an updated version of her complaint if she has additional information that would fix the flaws in her case. Her attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment.
In her December complaint, the Jane Doe plaintiff claimed she had been “lured under false pretenses” by Lee’s personal helicopter pilot into taking a ride from San Diego to Los Angeles in February 2003. Once onboard, she claimed that Lee and the pilot “consumed several alcoholic beverages, smoked marijuana, and snorted cocaine” before the rock star assaulted her.
“Tommy Lee then proceeded to sexually assault plaintiff by forcibly groping, kissing, penetrating her with his fingers, and attempting to force her to perform oral copulation,” her lawyers wrote. “As a result of Tommy Lee’s sexual assault, Plaintiff has suffered severe emotional, physical, and psychological distress.”
The case, over an incident that allegedly occurred more than two decades ago, was filed under the Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act – a California law that created a three-year window starting last year for alleged survivors to file sexual assault lawsuits that would normally be barred by the statute of limitations.
The case against Lee was one of many cases filed during the “look-back windows” created by similar statutes, including New York’s Adult Survivors Act. Just before that law expired in November, a flood of years-old abuse cases hit the courts, most notably against Sean “Diddy” Combs.
But such laws have strict requirements. In the case of the Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act, an alleged victim must show that the defendant “engaged in a cover up or attempted a cover up,” meaning a “concerted effort to hide evidence relating to a sexual assault or other inappropriate conduct” or conduct that “incentivizes individuals to remain silent.”
In her complaint, Lee’s accuser claimed that the drummer and other defendants “engaged in a concerted effort to prevent information or evidence of such sexual assaults from being made public or disclosed to anyone.” But in her ruling on Monday, Judge Fujie said that simply spelling out the statute’s requirement was not enough.
“These allegations are conclusory in nature and do not allege specific actions directed to plaintiff,” the judge wrote. “As such, plaintiff’s action as alleged is effectively time-barred.”
In a statement to Billboard, Lee’s attorney Sasha Frid said: “We applaud the court’s decision. The court got it right in finding that the plaintiff cannot assert a claim against Tommy Lee. From the outset, Mr. Lee has vehemently denied these false and bogus accusations.”
Live Nation Urban has announced its collaborative, renewed partnership with Polly Irungu’s Black Women Photographers Organization. For the third straight year, the leading source of live entertainment will invite a select cohort of black women photographers and videographers to shoot its much-anticipated slate of upcoming summer and fall festivals. The initiative will offer a paid opportunity for black creatives to […]
The anniversaries are piling up on Curb | Word Entertainment chairman Mike Curb.
This year is the 60th anniversary of Curb Records’ founding. April 29 marked 30 years since Belmont University announced its highest-profile program was being renamed the Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business. And the school just wrapped the 50th-anniversary campaign that celebrated the department’s founding. All those milestones come as Curb approaches his 80th birthday on Christmas Eve.
“I like everything except the last statistic,” he deadpans near the start of a three-hour interview.
The conversation acknowledges the landmarks, but it comes, more importantly, as Curb’s latest investment wraps some of his deepest passions — education, music preservation and legacy — in a structure likely to enhance the relationship between Belmont and Music Row. Belmont announced April 9 that the Curb Foundation made a $58 million donation that will seed a multipurpose Curb College building on Music Circle South, wedged between the BMG offices and the historic Columbia Studios.
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Neither Curb nor Belmont president Greg Jones could specify the breakdown of the $58 million — both called it “complicated” — but the figure encompasses the value of the land, which Curb donated; future rent; and cash. It also includes an expansion of the Buddy Lee Attractions building that’s adjacent to Columbia, while the school attempts to raise an additional $40 million for the project, which will encourage interplay between Belmont students and working music professionals. A 150-capacity performance space will provide an ideal concert-audio learning facility and offer label showcase options. Songwriting rooms will serve the college and, perhaps, some independent writers. And a coffee shop is expected to lure lunchtime visits from nearby businesses, setting up the possibility for students that a springboard for their careers could be just a handshake away.
The building is in the works at a time when large chunks of Music Row have been overtaken by non-music developers. Curb owns 12 properties on the Row — including RCA Studio B, Ocean Way and the former Masterfonics building — and he’s doggedly determined to maintain the character of the neighborhood, where he has control. That’s particularly true on Music Circle South, a block with numerous studios that have yielded hits by Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, George Strait, Tom T. Hall and Dan + Shay — just for starters — through the decades.
“We made it impossible for the developers to get to it,” Curb says. “Even the WNAH radio building is just the way it is. Even the buildings that we’re using for Curb Records or for Word Records. Those are staying exactly the way they are. So we’ve got it pretty locked.”
Curb established his label as an 18-year-old college student at Cal State Northridge who was too young to sign the startup papers without a co-signer. He made a deal with Capitol, wrote a Honda commercial and landed a bundle of songs on movie soundtracks, including the 1968 Clint Eastwood picture Kelly’s Heroes. Curb became the president of MGM in his 20s, working with The Osmonds, Lou Rawls, Sammy Davis Jr. and Hank Williams Jr., and by the end of the ’70s, he was California lieutenant governor, serving alongside Ronald Reagan.
Post-government, he extended the Curb label’s independent run by partnering with the majors in the careers of Williams, The Judds, T.G. Sheppard, Lyle Lovett and Debby Boone, among others.
“Back then, you could walk up and down Hollywood Boulevard or Sunset Boulevard, there were hundreds of independents,” he remembers. “Now they’re all owned by the three majors. That’s one of the big issues now, you know: The deep catalog of our industry is owned and controlled by three majors.”
Curb arrived in Nashville in the early 1990s, earning multiplatinum sales from Tim McGraw and LeAnn Rimes along with hits by Sawyer Brown, Hal Ketchum, Jo Dee Messina and, in the 2000s, Rodney Atkins. McGraw and Rimes had public spats involving their Curb deals, and Curb ended up in litigation with Big Machine Label Group over McGraw, who ultimately moved on. Despite that battle, Curb is on good terms with BMLG president/CEO Scott Borchetta, who has partnered with him in auto racing.
“I consider Mike a genius, I consider him a friend, I consider him misunderstood by a lot of people,” Borchetta says. “The guy’s a walking encyclopedia.”
Curb’s ability to maintain relationships, even amid sharp disagreements, is a skill he perfected during his political career. His relationship with Belmont, for example, continues despite his previous opposition to the university’s firing of a lesbian coach. (The school ultimately amended its policies.) In 1978, Curb helped defeat a California proposition that would have banned gay teachers from schools, convincing conservative icon Reagan to join the battle. Currently, he continues to speak highly of Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who agreed to a meeting with his gay employees, though they were unable to change her position on key issues. Writing people off, he reasons, is a poor long-term strategy.
“What I always tried to do was not criticize the people who disagreed with me, but tried to bring them together,” he says. “As I learned from Ronald Reagan, you just need 51%.”
Curb has certainly won over Belmont’s Jones. He suggested doing something with the Music Circle South property to benefit the music business program shortly after Jones became university president in 2021. The school already had an ideal location at the Southern edge of Music Row. With the new building, it will be in the heart of the district.
“We weren’t just thinking of the present and then making incremental changes,” says Jones. “We wanted the next 50 years of music business to be really transformational.”
It’s a goal that Curb shares. His label’s 60th anniversary will be celebrated June 6 with a CMA Fest show at Nashville’s Ascend Amphitheater featuring Atkins, Sawyer Brown, Dylan Scott, Hannah Ellis, Kelsey Hart and Lee Brice, among others. Curb is excited over the prospects of Brice’s new single — “Drinkin’ Buddies,” featuring Nate Smith and Hailey Whitters — which debuts at No. 26 on the Country Airplay chart dated May 11 (see page 4). But he’s just as enthusiastic about Brice’s collaboration with Christian band for King & Country on “Checking In,” which could — like Curb’s efforts for Belmont and for marriage equality — make a lasting mark. The anniversaries are important, but the future still beckons.
“We’re impacting the culture of Nashville, of country music — maybe pop music, the culture of the nation,” he says with youthful enthusiasm. “That’s what’s so exciting about what we do.”
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Don Passman had been teaching a course on music law at USC for several years when he realized his class notes were the outline of a book. “Because musicians are oriented to their ears,” he says, there was an opportunity to write “an easy-to-read overview of the business for people who don’t like to read.” Think “big print, lots of pictures, analogies, simple language.” When the first edition of All You Need to Know About the Music Business came out in 1991 — the 11th edition arrived this past October — “there was only one book on the music business at the time that was of any consequence,” Passman recalls. “And it was a bit difficult to read.”
Recently, however, music business education appears to be an increasingly hot topic. Thanks to technological advances, the number of aspiring artists releasing songs with little-to-no understanding of the music industry has ballooned. Many of these acts start releasing tracks in their early teens, long before they might get the chance to take a college-level course on the music business, much less master the nuances of copyright law. And they often hire a similarly-inexperienced friend to serve as a “manager,” ensuring that even their closest advisors lack experience in navigating the industry.
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As a result, there is a dire need for quality, accessible music business education. Many of the platforms that allow artists to create, listen to, or distribute music today see educational initiatives as a way to foster loyalty and community — which will in turn help them stand out in the neverending battle for users and attention — and possibly as an additional revenue stream as well.
Some of these educational efforts are in their early stages: Spotify started testing video learning courses in the U.K. in March, for example, while TIDAL has said education will be a cornerstone of its new era as it works to build financial tools for artists. (It was acquired by Block in 2021.)
The company Creative Intell is further along — it has raised money from around the music business and created an animated series to teach young artists the inner workings of the industry, from record deals to publishing. And the platform Bandlab, which allows its 100-million-plus users to create songs on their phones, has been releasing a steady stream of free tutorials and blog posts.
Helping aspiring artists grasp the intricacies of the music industry is “something that we’re investing a lot in,” says Krevin Breuner, Bandlab’s head of artist development and education. “The industry is more complex than ever, and understanding the business from day one is not just an advantage; it’s essential. Bandlab has such a young audience, it’s growing, and we want those artists to feel like they have a partner — somebody they can trust.”
Austen Smart agrees: The DJ, who co-founded the U.K. music-education company PLAYvirtuoso in 2020 with his brother, sees “huge potential in this space.” “I look at it like, there will be one in eight people, at least, learning at home,” he says, and a portion of those will be interested in the music industry.
Creative Intell co-founder Steven Ship divides the music education field into three buckets — how to create music, how to market music and the business of music. While YouTube alone is littered with free videos on the first two topics — not to mention all the Reddit threads, blog posts and TikTok tutorials — finding reliable and accessible information on the third is more challenging. “The business of music is probably the most important; it has to be the most accurate, and it’s often ignored,” Ship says.
If an aspiring artist produces a track poorly or markets it clumsily, that song probably won’t do well — a temporary setback. In contrast, if they don’t understand how the industry works, the consequences can be far more damaging: They could sign a contract with a manager, label, or publisher that cedes control of their output for decades. “Artists were horribly taken advantage of in the early days of the music business, because they just didn’t know what they were doing,” Passman says. And today, “the industry is changing so fast,” Breuner adds, making it even harder to “know what’s important and what’s not.”
When Smart signed a major label deal with his brother — just “two hungry young artists living in London” — he admits the pair “didn’t have the knowledge and the understanding of what we were ultimately signing.” An attorney would have helped, but they didn’t have the cash “to engage with lawyers who could help us interpret it.”
Contracts are often “murky and complicated,” Smart continues. “You get offered a relatively big advance; it’s quite a big number when you’re 25 and 22. What does it actually mean? What does it mean ten years later?”
If he could rewind the clock, he imagines going through the process again — but this time, “we’ve got that course on understanding label deals” available. And if necessary, he could “book a one-on-one session with someone for 30 pounds” to help provide extra context. This is part of the reason that one of PLAYvirtuoso’s “three pillars” of educational material centers on understanding the music industry.
PLAYvirtuoso is one of four companies that partnered with Spotify initially to provide courses on a variety of topics. The streaming service’s decision to test new education materials came about because it saw data indicating that some users were eager to acquire more knowledge.
“If I take you 10 years back, most of the people that came to Spotify came with a single intent: listening to music,” says Mohit Jitani, a product director at Spotify. “But in the last few years, as we brought on podcasts and audiobooks, people started to come to Spotify to listen to an interview or learn leadership and finance.”
Currently Spotify’s courses are offered via a freemium model: Users are able to access the first few lessons for free, but they must pay to complete a full course.
While Spotify’s exploratory foray into education stemmed from the fact that “people started coming to [us] for casual learning,” as Jitani puts it — and it potentially offers the platform another new revenue stream — TIDAL’s recent drive to help artists raise their business IQ is driven in part by its new owner, the payments company Block.
“Building tools and services for business owners, we saw that the moment that you get a little traction outside of your friends and family, the world becomes a lot more complicated,” says Agustina Sacerdote, the TIDAL’s global head of product. “You have to start to understand your numbers to understand where the next big opportunity is going to come from.”
The same principle applies to artists. Understandably, they tend to focus on the art. But as Ship notes, “The moment you release a song, you’re in business” — whether you like it or not. So TIDAL has started offering webinars and rolled out a new product called Circles, which Sacerdote likens to “a very curated version of Reddit, where we have the topics that we believe most artists have questions about,” including touring and merchandise.
For now, TIDAL’s products are free. “Once an artist does get a really good piece of advice that they would have never gotten [elsewhere] on Circles, then we’ll start to think about, how do we monetize?” Sacerdote says.
Creative Intell’s materials on the music business are currently far more comprehensive than TIDAL’s or Spotify’s: The company has created 18 animated courses to help aspiring artists — the vast majority of whom don’t have a manager or lawyer — “understand what they’re signing, learn how to monetize themselves better and learn how to protect themselves,” Ship says.
Creative Intell releases some materials for free and charges for access to everything ($29.99 a month). It’s also aiming to work with distributors like Vydia as marketing partners. Vydia is not the only company looking to provide this type of resource — Songtrust, for example, has built out its own materials to help songwriters understand how to collect their money from around the world.
“Other industries have all kinds of corporate resources for training and the music industry is lacking those,” Ship says. “We’re trying to fill that void.”
Shares of Live Nation jumped 7.2% to $94.66 on Friday following the company’s earnings report on Thursday (May 2), which showed the concert promotion and ticketing giant had a record first quarter. Revenue of $3.8 billion was up 21% year over year, and the company said it expects strong results in 2024 from its arena and high-margin amphitheater businesses.
Investors may have been encouraged by Live Nation’s insistence during Thursday’s earnings call that the U.S. Department of Justice does not pose a mortal threat to the company. Commenting about an April 16 Wall Street Journal article about a pending DOJ lawsuit, president and CFO Joe Berchtold dismissed the notion that regulators could force Live Nation to sever its concert promotion and ticketing businesses. “Very little of the conduct the DOJ has raised with us relates to the combination of ticketing and promotion resulting from the merger,” he said. “And most of what does was anticipated and addressed by the consent decree allowing the merger to go forward.
“Based on the issues we know about,” Berchtold added, “we don’t believe a breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster would be a legally permissible remedy.”
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Live Nation hasn’t fully recovered since news of a pending DOJ lawsuit broke. Through Wednesday (May 1), Live Nation shares had lost 11.5% since the WSJ article. Friday’s 7.2% gain helped Live Nation recover nearly half of that loss.
Numerous analysts see upside in Live Nation’s stock. On Tuesday, Deutsche Bank initiated coverage of Live Nation with a $120 price target and a “buy” rating. Following Thursday’s earnings release, Jefferies upped its price target to $115 from $114, Wolf Research raised its price target to $131 from $128, and Benchmark increased its price target to $132 from $130. CFRA downgraded Live Nation to “hold” from “strong buy,” however, and lowered its price target to $105 from $120.
Live Nation was one of the best-performing music stocks in a week the vast majority of them posted gains. Seventeen of the index’s 20 stocks gained ground this week, helping the Billboard Global Music Index improve 3.8% to 1,824.29 and nearly match the all-time high of 1,841.66 reached four weeks ago. Two stocks — Abu Dhabi-based music streamer Anghami and New York-based label and publisher Reservoir Media — posted losses and one stock, French music company Believe, was unchanged.
Universal Music Group shares climbed 4.9% to 28.92 euros ($31.16) following its first-quarter earnings release on Thursday and its announcement of a renewed licensing deal with TikTok. UMG’s earnings rose 6% (8% at constant currency) to 2.59 billion euros ($2.8 billion) and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) improved 13.2% to 591 million euros ($640 million).
K-pop company SM Entertainment was the week’s best performer after gaining 5.9% to 85,800 won ($63.27). Warner Music Group rose 5.4% to $34.14. iHeartMedia climbed 5.1% to $2.25. Cumulus Media gained 2.6% — and rose 4.2% on Friday — after its first-quarter earnings showed its 2.7% decline in revenue, to $200 million, was in line with previous guidance.
SiriusXM shares improved 3.3% to $3.12 this week despite falling 7.2% on Monday after its first-quarter earnings report showed the company’s self-pay subscribers dropped by 1.4%. Many analysts cut their price targets in the wake of the earnings. Barrington dropped SiriusXM to $4.75 from $5.75 and maintained its “outperform” rating. Deutsche Bank lowered its price target to $3.75 from $5 and kept its “hold” rating. Goldman Sachs dropped its price target to $3.25 from $3.50 and upgraded its rating to “neutral” from “sell.”
Universal Music Group’s three-month hiatus from TikTok ended this week after the companies reached a new, multi-faceted licensing agreement. On Thursday, UMG executives explained why it was worth the wait.
The bottom line: UMG believes its new licensing deal with TikTok is an improvement over the deal that expired at the end of January. UMG has “substantially improved the total value we’ll derive from this relationship,” CFO Boyd Muir said. Michael Nash, executive vp/chief digital officer, said the new TikTok deal “definitely deliver[s] a fair level of value relative to other short form social platform partners,” which includes Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and Snap.
In Thursday’s earnings call and CEO Lucian Grainge’s internal memo obtained by Billboard the same day, Grainge, Muir and Nash mentioned numerous components of the new deal that can be broken into two camps: revenue and non-revenue features and arrangements.
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As for revenue, there will be more of it under the new deal — although none of the executives shared specific deal points such as advertising revenue sharing rates. Nash said that “revenue under this new deal does markedly improve over our last deal.” The previous deal amounted to about 1% of UMG’s annual revenues, which works out to about $120 million euros based on 2023 revenue. That’s not much for a platform that commands an average of 58 minutes per day in the U.S., according to eMarketer — almost as much as Netflix and more than YouTube.
But UMG is getting more value out of TikTok in forms other than royalties. Many of those non-revenue components typically cost money to labels: e-commerce tools, marketing and promotion campaigns and ad credits. Other aspects of the deal have value that’s hard to pin down: data, artist insights, intelligence and new programs and new collaboration opportunities.
One interesting aspect of the new deal is what Nash called “content management and attribution.” When TikTok users post videos with sped-up and slowed-down recordings, attribution for the UMG recording is credited “not [to] some infringing third party, but the artists,” said Nash. “And that content is better connected with their official presence on the platform.”
As Grainge outlined in an internal memo to staff on Thursday, the deal also met the two non-revenue criteria: protection against the harmful effects of AI and prioritizing online safety for both TikTok users and UMG’s artists.
TikTok made “a number of commitments” that respect UMG artists’ works and rights of publicity and supports UMG’s principles on training AI models without consent from rights holders. UMG wants to protect its artists against deepfakes such as “Heart on My Sleeve” by Ghostwriter, which used AI-generated soundalikes of Drake and Kendrick Lamar (both UMG artists). The new deal ensures such fake content will be removed, both Grainge and Nash said.
Nash also described these efforts to combat infringing content as “elevated requirements” that detect and avoid infringing content,” including leaks, unauthorized remixes and unauthorized AI versions. The deal also contains requirements for improved filtering and stream manipulation detection.
In addition, TikTok agreed to improve online safety and attempt to mitigate the harmful effects of social media, including hate speech, bullying, responsible use of AI, and addressing infringing content and algorithmic manipulation, Grainge wrote in his memo.
Social media income might not amount to much today, but it “is increasingly important income to artists, songwriters, labels and publishers,” said Grainge during Thursday’s earnings call, “which is why we’ve pushed so hard and we will continue to push to protect and to develop it.”
A criminal case against Morgan Wallen for allegedly throwing a chair off the roof of a six-story Nashville bar is moving forward after an initial court hearing Friday (May 3).
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Wallen’s attorney Worrick Robinson appeared on behalf of the star before a Nashville judge, who set a new court date for Aug. 15. The hearing did not involve entering a plea, and Wallen had waived his right to appear in person, but Robinson said the star himself would be at the next hearing.
“This is obviously very complicated case and it’s not going to resolve itself without subpoenas and witnesses,” Robinson told the media after the hearing. “The state will subpoena witnesses and we’ll work on the case on our end. Morgan will be here on Aug. 15, and several things can happen in the case. We might have a hearing, we might settle the case or the case might continue. Those are the options.”
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Wallen, who is in the midst of three sold-out headlining shows at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium on his One Night at a Time Tour this weekend, was arrested in Nashville on April 7 in connection to the chair-throwing incident. Two Metro Nashville Police Department officers were reportedly standing on the street below Chief’s on Broadway, owned by country singer Eric Church, when the chair landed approximately three feet from the officers. Police then reportedly spoke with staff and witnesses and viewed security footage to confirm Wallen’s alleged actions.
After the arrest, the country star was charged with three felony counts of reckless endangerment and one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct.
“I’m not proud of my behavior, and I accept responsibility,” Wallen said in a statement on April 19. “I have the utmost respect for the officers working every day to keep us all safe. Regarding my tour, there will be no change.”
Speaking with the media after Friday’s hearing, Robinson confirmed that there is surveillance footage of the incident, which he has viewed. He also addressed the issue of the police report noting that Wallen was seen “laughing” after the incident. “As each of you know, you can’t always believe everything you read, and I haven’t seen anything to suggest that at all, so I don’t have any proof that that is correct.”
Asked by media if they have a preference to settle the case, Robinson said, “These cases are always complicated and you just never know what’s going to happen. As an attorney, all you can do is be prepared and that’s what the district attorney’s office will do also. Everybody will prepare as if there’s going to be a hearing, but I think everybody generally wins if you can resolve it in a manner that everybody can live with.”
Robinson also responded to media who asked if Wallen was denying throwing the chair, saying, “I think he has said he takes responsibility for what he’s done … We’re not required to enter a plea of any type. But you’ve read his words and I think you understand them clearly.”
Friday night (May 3), Wallen continues with his second of three sold-out shows at Nissan Stadium as part of his One Night at a Time tour.
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A diss-track battle between two of the world’s biggest hip-hop stars has led to cryptic allegations that Drake directed his heavyweight record label to yank a hit featuring Kendrick Lamar from the airwaves. But would such a move be possible?
Probably not, say legal experts who study broadcast rights and the music business. “As a general law, broadcast stations have a lot of discretion over what they put on the air — almost unlimited discretion,” says Charles Naftalin, a Washington, D.C., attorney for Holland & Knight who specializes in telecommunications law. “A station is virtually free to pick and choose what it wants.”
Lamar’s new song “euphoria,” which he released April 30, alleges Drake and Republic had attempted to “try cease and desist on the ‘Like That’ record” — a reference to the recent Future–Metro Boomin hit containing a Lamar verse that attacks last year’s Drake-J. Cole track “First Person Shooter,” and helped spark the recent back-and-forth between the two rappers. Then a screenshot of an alleged email appeared on social media purporting to be from a Republic business-affairs executive declaring “we are not granting radio rights” for “Like That.” (Reps for Republic and Universal Music Group, the label’s parent company, did not respond to requests for comment, and the screenshot could not be verified.)
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Hypothetically, if Lamar’s lyrical allegation were true, and the Republic exec’s email were legitimate, how could a label, even the home of Taylor Swift, Morgan Wallen, The Weeknd and Post Malone, which has the industry’s largest market share, pull off such a move? One conceivable explanation stems from the fact that “Like That” is an unusual business collaboration — it’s a joint release from competing major labels, Universal-owned Republic and Sony-owned Epic. The former is Metro Boomin’s label; the latter is Future’s label. (Adding confusion to the affair: Lamar records for Interscope, also owned by UMG, so he is, in a very broad sense, Drake’s labelmate.)
Because Republic had a hand in releasing “Like That,” it is conceivable — though extremely unlikely — that the company could demand that radio stations stop playing its own song. “I don’t readily see a legal reason to request takedown from radio solely based on certain lyrics being in the song,” says Matt Buser, an attorney who represents top artists and music companies. “However, there could be a justified legal reason for takedown based on the promotional grant of rights and understanding between the two collaborating labels.”
Like Buser, Larry Kenswil, a retired top business and legal affairs executive for UMG, has no idea what is in the contractual agreement between Republic and Epic for “Like That.” (A rep for Sony, Epic’s parent company, also did not respond to a request for comment.) But he’s certain that Republic has no right to demand a radio takedown. If Lamar’s “euphoria” lyric about a cease-and-desist is true, Kenswil says, “The artist [Drake] complained to the label [Republic] and the label felt like they had to do something to satisfy the artist. But, of course, we probably don’t have the full story.”
He adds: “That happens all the time. Artists tell their lawyers: ‘Send a cease-and-desist.’ The lawyer says, ‘Uh, I don’t think they’re doing anything wrong.’ ‘Send a cease-and-desist or I’ll fire you.’ And they send the cease-and-desist — and don’t follow up.’” Evidence on behalf of Kenswil’s theory: “Like That” not only came out, but radio played the track, it debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100 and remained there for three weeks. And as of this writing, “Like That” is No. 21 on the all-genre Radio Songs chart.
On Saturday night (April 27), Vancouver witnessed Diljit Dosanjh make history. The artist kicked off his Dil-Luminati tour with a sold-out stadium show at BC Place to a crowd of 54,000 people — making it the largest ever Punjabi music concert outside of India.
The show leaned into its historic accomplishment, with an ominous voice preceding Diljit Dosanjh’s entry, “Remember, firsts are always special and what you witness here will never be repeated.”
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In over two decades in the music and film industry, Dosanjh has solidified himself as a global star. Last year, he was the first Indian-born Punjabi singer to perform at Coachella and has recently made strides for international music amassing hundreds of millions of streams on collaborative tracks with Sia, Saweetie and Camilo respectively. More recently, Dosanjh is fresh off the critical acclaim of his performance of the titular Amar Singh Chamkila, a Bollywood biopic about the life and death of the controversial Punjabi singer who was killed at the height of his fame in 1988.
With anticipation palpable in the air, Dosanjh delivered a high-powered 27-song set with charisma and an undeniable star-power that easily captivated the record-breaking audience. It was an unabashed celebration of Punjabi music and culture.
The artist has a deep connection to Vancouver. Several of his popular Punjabi films that accelerated his career like Jatt and Juliet and Honsla Rakh were filmed across Greater Vancouver, making this moment that much more special for fans who have been longtime supporters far before his recent international successes.
“Now, Punjabis have made it to stadiums,” Dosanjh said. “The next generation won’t be able to say that this has never happened before. Now for generations to come, our kids can dream even bigger.”
During his performance of “Vibe,” the singer scooped up a young fan from the crowd who was dressed in signature Diljit Dosanjh attire, inviting him to dance with him. As the boy, understandably intimidated by the size of the crowd in front him, got more comfortable, he broke into dance himself. It was his hopes for the next generation coming to life right in front of him — a child who can now literally see himself on stage performing for a stadium of fans.
Dosanjh’s tour continues with arena dates in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Los Angeles and more, and another stadium date at Toronto’s Rogers Centre on July 13. – Jeevan Sangha
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Rising Canadian Stars Chani Nattan and Owen Riegling Make International Moves
Punjabi powerhouse lyricist Chani Nattan is the next signing to Warner Music Canada and Warner Music India’s joint venture, 91 North Records. Nattan will join fellow Punjabi-Canadian artists Karan Aujla, Jonita Gandhi and AR Paisley on the label, which was created to support South Asian artists.
Born and raised in Surrey, B.C., Nattan has already broken through to Punjabi music audiences around the world. In 2021, Nattan teamed up with Inderpal Moga and released “Daku” — a heady Punjabi hip-hop track that has garnered 247 million views on YouTube, and became one of the most streamed songs on Spotify India. With Sukha and Punjabi singer Gurlez Akhtar, Nattan’s “8 Asle” sparked a viral TikTok dance trend and charted on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100.
Nattan marks the signing with the release of his new song “Facetime,” alongside frequent collaborator Inderpal Moga and iconic Punjabi singer Miss Pooja.
Nattan uses a traditional Punjabi duet style, typically consisting of a playful back and forth between a quarreling couple. “Facetime” blends those old-school Punjabi vibes with the hip-hop elements that he is so heavily influenced by, Nattan tells Billboard Canada.
“The beats are different but the heart and soul of it maintains the sound of Punjab and its concepts,” he says. “It’s about honouring our roots while embracing the evolution of our music.”
Meanwhile, Canadian-based management and production company Workshop Music Group has announced a new partnership with talent representation company The Familie to co-manage rising young country singer-songwriter Owen Riegling. The Familie’s client roster includes Machine Gun Kelly and Avril Lavigne and it recently launched a country music division.
Now boasting over 50M global streams for his songs, Riegling won the 2022 Emerging Artists Showcase at the CanCountry mega-fest Boots & Hearts, then signed his record deal with Universal Music Canada. Last year he was selected for Apple Music’s UpNext Program and is now part of Spotify’s Hot Country Artists To Watch and Amazon Canada’s Breakthrough Artists to Watch 2024. – Jeevan Sanha & Kerry Doole
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Toronto Chinese Restaurant Gets a Boost from Kendrick Lamar’s Namedrop
Toronto caught a few strays in Kendrick Lamar’s “Euphoria,” the first of two diss tracks aimed at hometown star Drake. While listing all the things he hates about Drizzy, Kendrick takes a moment to slip into an exaggerated Toronto accent complete with local slang and a surprising reference to a popular late-night Chinatown restaurant: “I be at New Ho King eatin’ fried rice with a dip sauce and a blammy, crodie,” he raps.
CityNews spoke to New Ho King owner Johnny Lu for a TV segment. Playing him the track, they get his live reaction to the nametrack: “I see, Kendrick’s a good guy. Oh my God!” he says.
CityNews also caught up with residents who are fans of Kendrick who made trips just to give the fried rice dish a try. “I came all the way from Markham just to see this fried rice,” one says. “Kendrick Lamar, man. You gotta pay respect to K. Dot, man. Ever since he dropped the diss track I was like, ‘I gotta visit this place.’”
The reference may have had a darker meaning than just fried rice, with some fans believing it was a sly reference to Drake’s 2009 armed robbery. Toronto rapper Sizzlac, who was rumoured to be part of the robbery, once filmed a music video at New Ho King, which may be how the restaurant hit Kendrick’s radar. But New Ho King is reaping the rewards. Since the track dropped, New Ho King has been showered with five-star reviews on Google and Yelp. – Richard Trapunski
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