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Singer 4Batz, whose track “act ii: date @ 8” erupted on social media and streaming services during Christmas week, has sparked a bidding war among several major labels, sources familiar with the negotiations tell Billboard.
Four years ago, it was routine for previously unknown artists with viral singles to score big record deals in a matter of weeks. But that path slowed to a trickle in 2023, and some label executives started to worry about a stagnant climate for new artists.
That helps explain why many A&R executives are now eager to sign 4Batz. One executive calls the singer’s rapid ascent “the most exciting thing to happen in the last six months” in the music industry. Multiple major labels, including Republic Records, Atlantic Records and Warner Records, are in conversations with 4Batz’s team about a potential deal.
While he has released just two songs to date, they are already earning more than 9 million streams a week in the United States between them, according to Luminate. “act ii: date @ 8” leads the way, climbing to No. 76 on the latest Billboard Hot 100 chart. Due to this upward momentum, two sources familiar with the label negotiations say they are all but certain to end in a robust seven-figure deal for 4Batz. When another R&B singer, Muni Long, enjoyed a viral breakout with “Hrs and Hrs” late in 2022, her subsequent record deal came with an advance of around $5 million, according to a source with knowledge of the negotiations.
Legal counsel for 4Batz declined to comment.
In the heady early days of TikTok, it was common for half a dozen major labels to compete over a new act with a hot single. From 2019 through at least the end of 2021, this led to big deals for artists like Lil Tecca, Arizona Zervas, Ant Saunders and more. During that period, “it felt like every single day another artist signed a deal that was a gazillion dollars,” one music attorney told Billboard last year.
But as 2022 bled into 2023, fewer unsigned acts surged into view behind singles that streamed like crazy. Executives worried that virality on short-form video platforms no longer sparked listening the way it once did; sometimes what happened on TikTok stayed on TikTok.
At the same time, many label executives became disillusioned with the viral chase. Due to the intense competition around these deals, they invariably ended up being costly. (Though two of the acts who were able to translate viral energy into noteworthy Hot 100 success in 2023, the rapper Superstar Pride and the singer Oliver Anthony, both ended up remaining independent rather than taking a fat check from a major label.) The high cost of the deal put a lot of pressure on young artists to replicate their initial success quickly — to prove they were worthy of a hefty investment in a bottom-line-focused business. Many of the signings were unable to make the leap from popular song to popular artist.
“We’ve all been burned to a certain degree,” Tab Nkhereanye, a senior vp of A&R at BMG, said last year.
As a result, labels have been more circumspect when it comes to signing artists with viral singles in the last 18 months. They’ve also been trying to connect with more acts earlier in their careers via low-cost distribution deals; that way, they have a pre-existing contractual relationship if one of those signings starts to take off. (“act ii: date @ 8” was released through Vydia, a music tech company which is now part of the Larry Jackson-helmed gamma; this marks another win for Vydia, which also brought in Sexyy Red, one of last year’s few genuine breakouts.)
But 4Batz has shown staying power in recent weeks, spending all of January to date near the top of Spotify’s Global Viral 50. “act ii: date @ 8” is hypnotic and loop-able, with feathery come-ons and a slinky bass vamp; it already cracked the top 10 on the Hot R&B Songs chart, leapfrogging established artists like Brent Faiyaz (a clear influence on 4Batz).
R&B is on the upswing at the moment, which is another factor working in 4Batz’s favor. SZA and Victoria Monet dominated the latest Grammy nominations, with Janelle Monae and Coco Jones also scoring nods in the Big Four categories. In R&B, “it’s highly unusual for an artist to come onto the scene with the numbers and interest from labels” that 4Batz has, an executive says. “Normally an artist has to drop more music to get this level of attention.”
There’s a new front in the long legal war between the family members of late Ramones founders Joey and Johnny Ramone, this time over a planned Netflix movie starring Pete Davidson centered on the pioneering punk band.
In a lawsuit filed Saturday (Jan. 21) in Manhattan court, Johnny’s widow, Linda Ramone, claims that Joey’s brother, Mickey Leigh (Mitchel Hyman) “covertly developed an unapproved and unauthorized Ramones-based biopic” based on his own “one-sided recitation of the history of the Ramones.”
Though the lawsuit doesn’t identify Netflix by name, it says that the disputed movie will be based on Leigh’s memoir, I Slept with Joey Ramone. Netflix’s planned movie, announced in 2021, has the same name; is based on the same book; and is being developed with the “support of the Estate of Joey Ramone.”
Since Linda and Leigh split ownership of the intellectual property for the band — widely regarded as pioneers of punk rock and one of the most influential rock bands of all time — Linda says a movie that will focus heavily on the Ramones as a group cannot go forward without her say-so.
“Ms. Ramone objects to defendants’ attempt to create a Ramones film without her involvement — not to be obstinate, but rather based on defendants’ disregard for [Ramones] assets and their conduct and treatment of Ms. Ramone and her late husband,” Linda’s attorneys write. “To permit defendants alone to tell the authoritative story of the Ramones would be an injustice to the band and its legacy.”
Though the planned movie is one major point of dispute, Linda’s lawsuit also includes a raft of other allegations against Leigh and David Frey, a director of the Ramones’ holding company appointed to his role by Leigh. She says the pair have “effectively shut down the entire company,” unfairly withheld payments to her, and otherwise thrown the company’s operations into chaos.
“It is apparent from defendants’ continuing course of conduct that their main objective is to torment Ms. Ramone until she agrees to sell her interests,” Linda’s lawyers write. “Regrettably, Defendants appear willing to allow the band’s legacy to decay, in order to benefit their own self-interest.”
“They Weren’t Friendly”
Joey (real name Jeffrey Ross Hyman), who served as the band’s lead vocalist from their founding in 1974, died of cancer in 2001. Johnny (real name John William Cummings), the band’s guitarist, died in 2004, also of cancer.
The two punk rockers, who were not actually related, had a notoriously unbrotherly relationship — a rift rooted partly in their differing personalities and political views, but also in the fact that Linda dated Joey before eventually marrying Johnny. The two nonetheless formed a lucrative business partnership, touring heavily for decades until the band finally broke up for good in 1996. But in a 2016 interview with the New York Post, Leigh put it bluntly: “They weren’t friendly.”
In the years since the two bandmates passed away, that feud has seemingly continued between Leigh and Linda.
As the executors of Johnny and Joey’s respective estates, Linda and Leigh each own half of Ramones Productions Inc., an entity that has been described in court filings as “the vehicle through which the iconic punk rock musical group … markets, merchandizes, licenses and produces its memorabilia and musical related products.”
In 2018, Leigh filed a legal action against Linda via private arbitration, alleging that she was improperly using the band’s intellectual property and unfairly associating herself with the “Ramones” name with projects like a “Ramones Ranch” in Los Angeles, violating the agreement that governs how Ramones Productions is run.
In a decision that was later made public in court, an arbitrator partly sided with Leigh, restricting how Linda could use “The Ramones” name, and even requiring her to go by “Linda Cummings-Ramone” in certain situations. But the arbitrator roundly criticized both sides for their ongoing feuding, reminding them that they had an “almost sacred mission to be the caretakers for the band’s creative work.”
“Instead, the parties have allowed their personal egos and their animus for one another to interfere with their joint obligations by failing to communicate, obfuscating information and unreasonably withholding their approvals,” the arbitrator wrote in May 2019.
The admonishment did little good. Last year, the pair headed back to litigation, this time after Linda initiated arbitration proceedings that aimed to remove someone from the board of directors of Ramones Productions. Leigh filed a court case to halt the arbitration, arguing that it was an improper use of that process. That case remains pending.
“A Universal Story of Family”
The latest legal scuffle appears to have been triggered in part by the plans for a movie version of I Slept With Joey Ramone — Leigh’s 2009 memoir billed as “an enduring portrait of a man who struggled to find his voice and of the brother who loved him.” Netflix announced the film in April 2021, with Davidson set to co-write and star as Joey, and Jason Orley (Big Time Adolescence, I Want You Back) signed on to direct.
“’I Slept with Joey Ramone’ is a great rock anthem that will make an equally great rock biopic, set apart by a universal story of family,” Adam Fogelson, chairman of the company spearheading the film, said in Netflix’s press release announcing the project.
Netflix said that the movie, which remains in early-stage “development” in 2024, would be produced with “the cooperation and support of the Estate of Joey Ramone.” But in her new lawsuit this week, Linda says that such a project needs the sign-off of Ramones Productions, not just Joey’s estate.
“As 50% shareholder of RPI, Ms. Ramone would never have consented to defendants’ unilateral development of a Ramones biopic,” her lawyers wrote. “Nor would she (then or at any point in the future) agree to permit the inclusion of any RPI intellectual property or recordings in such a film project.”
According to Linda’s attorneys, Leigh and Frey have told others that they plan to “circumvent” any objections she has to the movie, including by potentially re-recording Ramones songs that could be used in the film. And once they do so, she says they will unfairly get to tell the “authoritative story” of the iconic band.
“There will likely not be an appetite for a subsequent Ramones film, thus destroying the single most lucrative and substantial corporate opportunity of the company and usurping it as defendants’ own,” Linda wrote.
Netflix is not named in the lawsuit and is not accused of any wrongdoing. The company did not return a request for comment on the new lawsuit.
Life Rights? Or Free Speech Rights?
Legally speaking, whether a movie producer would need one band member to sign off on a movie about one of his famous bandmates is a tricky question. Would John Lennon’s estate need to sign off on a Paul McCartney movie? Could Dave Grohl stop a Kurt Cobain biopic?
While many risk-averse filmmakers and studios secure “life rights” before they make such movies — essentially a guarantee that the production will not be hamstrung by litigation over likeness rights or defamation allegations — they’re not strictly necessary. The First Amendment largely protects the right to make movies based on real historical figures, whether they want their story told or not.
“Life rights are an agreement for access and a promise not to sue, but there’s no intellectual property attached to our life story itself,” says Lisa Callif, an attorney at the firm Donaldson Callif Perez who specializes in rights clearance for films and TV. “We all have a First Amendment right to tell a story. A story about a band is just comprised of facts, even if they’re really interesting facts.”
But in practical terms, a movie about a famous band raises a unique problem: It effectively needs to use that band’s copyrighted music. Can you imagine watching Walk The Line without hearing Johnny Cash songs, or Straight Outta Compton without any N.W.A tracks? In the context of a musical biopic, that gives someone like Linda, with her veto power over the band’s music, more leverage to demand involvement.
“It gets stickier with rights to music,” Callif said. “Even if you can tell the story, you’re not going to be able to license any of the music.”
The other layer to the current dispute is contractual. Linda’s lawsuit points to a legal settlement from 2009 in which both she and Leigh allegedly agreed that any “separate or individual projects” involving Ramones intellectual property would “require the prior written approval” of the company and its owners. Even if a studio has the right to tell any historical story it wants, a party to a contract could be barred from signing certain deals.
“Intransigence and Harmful Actions”
Beyond the dispute over the film, Linda’s new lawsuit includes a slew of other accusations about Leigh, echoing the strongly worded tone of their previous legal battles.
Linda says Leigh and Frey have “refused to engage with the Ramones’ record label, its social media creative agency, its merchandising partners, or its long-term business managers”; that they “regularly create internecine disputes and unnecessary work that drains the company of funds”; that they have “prevented the company from conducting basic operational tasks”; and have “baselessly and in bad faith” withheld dividend payments from her, “effectively holding Ms. Ramone’s money hostage” unless she agrees with their initiatives.
“After exhausting every resource at her disposal to try to right the ship … Linda Ramone reluctantly brings this action as a last resort,” Linda’s lawyers write. “Simply put, RPI, as currently constituted, is not working due to the intransigence and harmful actions undertaken by [Frey and Leigh].”
Ultimately, Linda claims that the only possible solution to the years-long dispute is to remove Frey from the company and appoint a court-order receiver to take charge of it: “Mr. Frey’s continued involvement and obfuscation remains a significant hurdle toward resolving even the most straightforward of operational issues.”
In technical terms, the lawsuit accuses Frey and Leigh of breaching their fiduciary duty to the company and of unjust enrichment. It demands that the court order Frey’s removal as director of the company, and requests the appointment of a receiver.
An attorney for Leigh declined to comment on the lawsuit’s allegations. An attorney for Frey did not immediately return requests for comment.
“Ramones Fans Want A Ramones Movie”
In some ways, the current dispute over the Joey biopic was predicted by that 2019 arbitration ruling which detailed the long struggle between Linda and Leigh.
In it, the arbitrator went to great lengths to plead with Linda and Leigh to put aside their differences. He warned them that their “time-consuming and costly” legal battles had caused the Ramones brand to experience “tepid growth.”
“Mickey Hyman and Linda Cummings-Ramone have been entrusted with the exceedingly important mission of preserving the legacy of the Ramones for its existing followers, and to grow this iconic brand to a new world-wide group of music fans,” the arbitrator wrote at the time “The only way those goals can be accomplished, in my estimation, is for there to be some radical changes made by Mickey, Linda, and their representatives.”
If those changes could be made, the arbitrator identified one key area for future growth: A movie. He cited the then-recent success of the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, which he said had boosted Queen to “its highest chart position in 38 years” and “demonstrates the power that a biopic can have on improving the stature of a rock band.” That movie eventually earned more than $900 million.
“In my estimation, Ramones fans want a Ramones movie,” the arbitrator wrote at the time. “To make that happen, each side will need to put on hold their individual desires to make a Mickey movie or a Linda movie and join together to authorize a great biopic to be made about this historically important band.”
Lyor Cohen’s first encounter with Google’s generative artificial intelligence left him gobsmacked. “Demis [Hassabis, CEO of Google Deepmind] and his team presented a research project around genAI and music and my head came off of my shoulders,” Cohen, global head of music for Google and YouTube, told Billboard in November. “I walked around London for two days excited about the possibilities, thinking about all the issues and recognizing that genAI in music is here — it’s not around the corner.”
While some of the major labels are touting YouTube as an important partner in the evolving world of music and AI, not everyone in the music industry has been as enthusiastic about these new efforts. That’s because Google trained its model on a large set of music — including copyrighted major-label recordings — and then went to show it to rights holders, rather than asking permission first, according to four sources with knowledge of the search giant’s push into generative AI and music. That could mean artists “opting out” of such AI training — a key condition for many rights holders — is not an option.
YouTube did make sure to sign one-off licenses with some parties before rolling out a beta version of its new genAI “experiment” in November. Dream Track, the only AI product it has released publicly so far, allows select YouTube creators to soundtrack clips on Shorts with pieces of music, based on text prompts, that can include replicas of famous artists’ voices. (A handful of major-label acts participated, including Demi Lovato and Charli XCX.) “Our superpower was our deep collaboration with the music industry,” Cohen said at the time. But negotiations that many in the business see as precedent-setting for broader, labelwide licensing deals have dragged on for months.
Negotiating with a company as massive as YouTube was made harder because it had already taken what it wanted, according to multiple sources familiar with the company’s label talks. Meanwhile, other AI companies continue to move ahead with their own music products, adding pressure on YouTube to keep progressing its technology.
In a statement, a YouTube representative said, “We remain committed to working collaboratively with our partners across the music industry to develop AI responsibly and in a way that rewards participants with long-term opportunities for monetization, controls and attribution for potential genAI tools and content down the road,” declining to get specific about licenses.
GenAI models require training before they can start generating properly. “AI training is a computational process of deconstructing existing works for the purpose of modeling mathematically how [they] work,” Google explained in comments to the U.S. Copyright Office in October. “By taking existing works apart, the algorithm develops a capacity to infer how new ones should be put together.”
Whether a company needs permission before undertaking this process on copyrighted works is already the subject of several lawsuits, including Getty Images v. Stability AI and the Authors Guild v. OpenAI. In October, Universal Music Group (UMG) was among the companies that sued AI startup Anthropic, alleging that “in the process of building and operating AI models, [the company] unlawfully copies and disseminates vast amounts of copyrighted works.”
As these cases proceed, they are expected to set precedent for AI training — but that could take years. In the meantime, many technology companies seem set on adhering to the Silicon Valley rallying call of “move fast and break things.”
While rights holders decry what they call copyright infringement, tech companies argue their activities fall under “fair use” — the U.S. legal doctrine that allows for the unlicensed use of copyrighted works in certain situations. News reporting and criticism are the most common examples, but recording a TV show to watch later, parody and other uses are also covered.
“A diverse array of cases supports the proposition that copying of a copyrighted work as an intermediate step to create a noninfringing output can constitute fair use,” Anthropic wrote in its own comments to the U.S. Copyright Office. “Innovation in AI fundamentally depends on the ability of [large language models] to learn in the computational sense from the widest possible variety of publicly available material,” Google said in its comments.
“When you think of generative AI, you mostly think of the companies taking that very modern approach — Google, OpenAI — with state-of-the-art models that need a lot of data,” says Ed Newton-Rex, who resigned as Stability AI’s vp of audio in November because the company was training on copyrighted works. “In that community, where you need a huge amount of data, you don’t see many people talking about the concerns of rights holders.”
When Dennis Kooker, president of global digital business and U.S. sales for Sony Music Entertainment, spoke at a Senate forum on AI in November, he rejected the fair use argument. “If a generative AI model is trained on music for the purpose of creating new musical works that compete in the music market, then the training is not a fair use,” Kooker said. “Training in that case, cannot be without consent, credit and compensation to the artists and rights holders.”
UMG and other music companies took a similar stance in their lawsuit against Anthropic, warning that AI firms should not be “excused from complying with copyright law” simply because they claim they’ll “facilitate immense value to society.”
“Undisputedly, Anthropic will be a more valuable company if it can avoid paying for the content on which it admittedly relies,” UMG wrote at the time. “But that should hardly compel the court to provide it a get-out-of-jail-free card for its wholesale theft of copyrighted content.”
In this climate, bringing the major labels on board as Google and YouTube did last year with Dream Track — after training the model, but before releasing it — may well be a step forward from the music industry’s perspective. At least it’s better than nothing: Google infamously started scanning massive numbers of books in 2004 without asking permission from copyright holders to create what is now known as Google Books. The Authors Guild sued, accusing Google of violating copyright, but the suit was eventually dismissed — almost a decade later in 2013.
While AI-related bills supported by the music business have already been proposed in Congress, for now the two sides are shouting past each other. Newton-Rex summarized the different mindsets succinctly: “What we in the AI world think of as ‘training data’ is what the rest of the world has thought of for a long time as creative output.”
Additional reporting by Bill Donahue.
Todd Moscowitz‘s Santa Anna Label Group has invested in and partnered with OVO Sound, the Canadian record label founded in 2012 by Drake, Noah “40” Shehib and Oliver El-Khatib. Under the deal, Santa Anna will distribute and market OVO Sound releases while providing additional A&R support, production, finance and accounting, artist and label services, and more. OVO Sound’s current roster includes PARTYNEXTDOOR (slated to release his new album, P4, in the first quarter of 2024), Majid Jordan, Naomi Sharon, Roy Woody, Smiley, Popcaan and Drake collaborations with artists including Bad Bunny, Central Cee, Blocboy JB and Dave. OVO will remain a standalone record label as part of the agreement.
Warner Music Group (WMG) has partnered with Pakistani music and audio production company Giraffe, which was co-founded by artist Xulfi (rela name Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan) and CEO Muhammad Ibrahim. The deal, which allows WMG to establish a new A&R source in Pakistan, will kick off with Coke Studio Season 15. In addition to Coke Studio, Giraffe has produced some of the most popular music shows in South Asia, including Drummers of Pakistan, Nescafé Basement and Red Bull Music Sound Clash. “Pakistan has a rich music scene that offers huge opportunities for a global music company,” said Alfonso Perez Soto, president of emerging markets at WMG, in a statement. “Through the powerhouse that is Coke Studio, Xulfi and Ibrahim have proven to be phenomenal A&Rs that will be invaluable in Warner Music’s growth in the region. Together, we will discover and develop artists that have the potential to connect with fans all around the world.”
PPL, which licenses the use of recorded music for public performance and broadcast in the United Kingdom and collects neighboring rights royalties for performers and recording rightsholders globally, has signed a deal with the Indian Singers’ and Musicians’ Rights Association (ISAMRA). Under the deal, PPL will now collect royalties on behalf of mandated performers in India, while Indian performers will also receive payment for the use of their recorded music in the United Kingdom.
Kids’ music brand KIDZ BOP and Live Nation extended their partnership via a new three-year North American tour deal. KIDZ BOP is currently ramping up for its KIDZ BOP LIVE 2024 tour, which is slated to kick off June 27 in Stamford, Connecticut.
France-based streaming service Deezer has renewed its longstanding partnership with TIM, the largest mobile carrier in Brazil. Under the agreement, TIM customers will continue to receive access to Deezer.
Uber has taken naming rights for two AEG venues in Berlin: Uber Arena (formerly Mercedes-Benz Arena) and Uber Eats Music Hall (formerly Verti Music Hall). It also has naming rights to an adjacent complex encompassing a movie theater, restaurants and bowling alley that will now be known as Uber Platz (formerly Mercedes Platz). AEG’s partnership with Mercedes-Benz will continue, with the brand remaining a partner of the Uber Arena in a more general role.
Lyric licensing and data solutions company LyricFind and business-to-business music and streaming technology platform Tuned Global have signed a partnership that will allow Tuned Global clients to enroll with LyricFind to unlock lyric-based tools through APIs or turnkey apps. These tools include the ability to display lyrics in multiple languages; use lyrics to search catalogs to create thematic playlists or other content; and utilize LyricIQ, a content analysis engine that allows curators to filter lyrics and tracks by mood, subject matter and age appropriateness.
AI-powered marketing operating system SymphonyOS has partnered with CD Baby in a deal that will enable CD Baby artists to access SymphonyOS tools. Those tools include Forever Saves, which allows fans to subscribe to a creator’s releases, meaning all new music from the creator is automatically added to fans’ music libraries on release; and discounted access to SymphonyOS Pro via CD Baby’s tools & promotions page.
Music venue and hospitality company Notes Live has selected Live Nation as the operator of its Sunset Amphitheater, a new 12,500-capacity venue set to open in Broken Arrow, Okla., through a public-private partnership. The amphitheater is slated to open in summer 2025.
Latin American media solutions company US Media has signed an advertising sales partnership with Vevo. Under the deal, US Media will become the Latin American sales representative for Vevo’s ad inventory in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Peru. US Media will sell on Vevo’s behalf pan-regionally from Miami.
Barbadian copyright collective membership organization COSCAP (Copyright Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) has signed a partnership deal with CMRRA (The Canadian Musical Reproductin Rights Agency) and SX Works Global Publisher Services, which are both SoundExchange companies. Under the agreement, CMRRA will oversee the mechanical reproduction rights of COSCAP members across the Canadian marketplace, while SX Works Global Publisher Services will help manage the end-to-end administration on behalf of COSCAP members with the Mechanical Licensing Collective (the MLC) in the United States.
London-based Web3 music startup TRAX, described as a content aggregator and social marketplace helping artists build a digital space for superfans, raised a $2.9 million decentralized funding round on the Internet Computer ($ICP) blockchain. Following the investment, TRAX will operate as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) democratically controlled by holders of TRAX’s new governance token, $TRAX. The funds will be held in TRAX DAO’s treasury, which will allow $TRAX holders to decide how best to use them.
Rostrum Records has acquired distribution company and retail brand, Fat Beats.
The acquisition, announced today (Jan. 25), will give Rostrum artists direct backing from Fat Beats’ wholesale distribution, e-commerce support, and direct-to-consumer fulfillment with an open line to brick-and-mortar stores. In return, Fat Beats will join the Rostrum Pacific umbrella — Rostrum’s entertainment company — and continue to operate as their own entity with access to Rostrum’s various vehicles, including sister companies Spaceheater, Rostrum Pacific’s catalog marketing arm, and Rostrum Records.
“Fat Beats is a legendary brand that I’ve been a fan of for decades. From Rostrum Records to our most recent expansion of Rostrum Pacific, we’ve diligently outlined the next 20 years of our company. One of our goals has been to get vertically involved with physical distribution, and Fat Beats is a key part of that strategy,” Benjy Grinberg, Rostrum Pacific’s CEO and founder, tells Billboard. “Together, we can offer a level of professionalism, strategy, and forward-thinking that most physical companies lack. The ability to acquire Fat Beats and help it grow to new heights is incredibly exciting for us.”
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“As a pillar of the independent Hip-Hop community since 1994, it was important to me to ensure what we’ve built over the last 30 years is well cared for and respected,” adds Joe Abajian, founder of Fat Beats. “We have found the perfect custodians in Benjy and the Rostrum Pacific team, and we’re confident that Fat Beats now has the expertise and resources to continue growing well into the future.”
Along with acquiring Fat Beats, Rostrum announced that it would hire Kevin Engler as general manager of Fat Beats and Bobby Israeli as Rostrum Pacific’s head of e-commerce. For almost 20 years, Engler previously worked at UMG and was most recently vice president of Commercial Strategy at Ingrooves, a division of UMG, while Bobby Israeli will join Rostrum Pacific after leading the e-commerce teams and strategy for UMG’s East Coast labels, including Def Jam Records, Island Records, and Verve Music Group. Both will report directly to Rostrum Pacific COO Jonathan Partch.
Luana Pagani, one of Latin music’s most respected female executives, is launching her own company following a 12-year run with Latin entertainment powerhouse SeitrackUS.
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The new venture, called Fairwinds, will focus on the development of new and established artists in the U.S. and international markets, with Pagani using her expertise in marketing, promotion and management.
“After 12 amazing years of partnership with Seitrack in the U.S. where we established a profitable operation in the market, and I had the chance to grow professionally and work with people that I love and respect, I have decided to move on and start my own agency, remaining as an outside consultant for SeitrackUS,” Pagani tells Billboard.
This is not the first time Pagani branches out on her own. The multi-lingual exec for years was the senior vp of global marketing, Latin, for Sony and a central figure in the development of superstars like Shakira, Ricky Martin and Chayanne, at the height of the first “Latin explosion” of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Then, in 2007, when she was the most senior-ranking woman in a major Latin label, she left Sony to launch her own consultancy firm. She eventually partnered with SeitrackUS, which is part of giant OCESA Seitrack, and took the role of president here in the U.S., working with artists like Ha*Ash, Los Angeles Azules and Alejandro Fernández in their management, booking and overall development.
Although Pagani will continue to work as an outside consultant for Seitrack, she will also have other artists and companies as clients.
“Artist development is, and has always been my passion,” says Pagani. “At a time when there are so many possibilities to reach new audiences, it is a privilege to be able to work with dynamic artists who are redefining the musical scene. I thank Ocesa-Seitrack and its people for this wonderful ride and look forward to continuing working with everyone in this great industry, most of you my friends.”
David Kenner, the attorney who unsuccessfully represented Fugees rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel in his criminal trial case year, will plead guilty to a criminal contempt charge over allegations that he leaked grand jury materials to reporters ahead of the trial, prosecutors say.
In a court filing Thursday, prosecutors told a federal judge that Kenner had “agreed to accept responsibility for violating the court’s protective order” and plead guilty to a misdemeanor over the incident, in which he allegedly leaked “swathes of sensitive internal government records” to reporters.
It’s unclear what kind of repercussions Kenner will face under the plea deal. His attorney did not immediately return a request for comment. A hearing is set for Friday for Kenner to enter his plea.
Kenner’s planned plea comes as he is already facing accusations that he botched Michel’s April trial, in which the rapper was convicted of violating federal foreign lobbying laws. Michel’s new lawyers say Kenner “utterly failed” his client — including by using experimental A.I. tools to work the case — and are seeking a new trial on the grounds that he deprived Michel of an adequate defense.
Michel, a founding member of the influential hip-hop group Fugees, was charged in 2019 with funneling money from a now-fugitive Malaysian financier through straw donors to Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. He was also accused of trying to squelch a Justice Department investigation and influence an extradition case on behalf of China under the Trump administration.
In April, following a trial that included testimony from actor Leonardo DiCaprio and former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Michel was convicted on 10 counts including conspiracy, witness tampering and failing to register as an agent of China. Throughout the trial, Michel was represented by Kenner, a well-known Los Angeles criminal defense attorney who has previously worked for hip-hop luminaries like Snoop Dogg, Suge Knight and, most recently, Tory Lanez.
Weeks before the trial even began, federal prosecutors accused Kenner of committing a “blatant violation” of court orders by leaking sealed documents, including materials from a grand jury, to reporters for the financial outlet Bloomberg in an effort to engineer “defense-oriented articles” on Michel’s case ahead of the trial.
“In a show of gamesmanship seeking to influence public opinion and bias potential jurors in favor of defendant, the defense has disclosed for publication swaths of sensitive internal government records,” prosecutors wrote at the time. “The disclosure may result in harassment or intimidation of government witnesses – in a case in which witness tampering is among the charges.”
According to prosecutors, the two Bloomberg articles (read them here and here) that came from Kenner’s leaks not only included sensitive sealed information, but told the story “largely from Michel’s perspective” and incorporated “defense themes of innocent alternative explanations.” They called Kenner’s conduct an effort to “influence the jury pool” by selectively disclosing facts about the case. Bloomberg and its reporters were not accused of any wrongdoing.
After Michel split with Kenner, his new lawyers raised those leaking accusations as another sign of Kenner’s missteps during the case. They said the charges against Kenner himself created a conflict of interest and a distraction as he was trying to defend his client during the trial.
“Kenner’s conflict of interest—owing to his significant stress and distraction from the contempt charges, and his incentive to curry favor with the prosecution and pursue an unaggressive defense—adversely affected his performance at trial,” Michel’s new lawyers wrote back in October.
Kenner has denied the accusations, and prosecutors have argued that his conduct during the trial was not enough to require an entirely new trial. A hearing on the issue was held earlier this month, and a judge will soon rule on Michel’s motion to overturn the verdict.
In a statement to Billboard on Thursday, Erica Dumas, a spokeswoman for Pras, cited Kenner’s guilty plea as yet another example of his ex-attorney’s shortcomings: “Unfortunately, former attorney David Kenner failed at every turn to competently represent Pras over the course of this lengthy legal battle.”
Songwriters of North America (SONA), a songwriter advocacy organization, has launched a New York chapter. Along with the new branch, the organization has also announced new developments in its leadership.
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News of a New York chapter follows months of planning by SONA to successfully create an East Coast hub. The organization held a meeting in September in Manhattan with local songwriters and publishers to talk about the possibility of establishing a New York SONA chapter and to find new board members. At that meeting, the group also discussed BMI’s then-potential sale to New Mountain Capital for a reported $1.7 billion and how that might affect its membership.
According to today’s announcement, Camus Celli has been tapped to oversee the New York chapter. Additionally, Kellie Brown has been named SONA’s new COO. Erin McAnally has been appointed to Executive Director. In this role McAnally will oversee SONA’s advocacy, membership and education initiatives. Linda Bloss-Baum has been added to the board.
Michelle Lewis will continue to serve as SONA’s CEO, but she will now oversee both SONA and the SONA Foundation, which are sister organizations with separate boards and missions.
“I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with and build upon the strong foundation laid by such formidable advocates who work to protect and lift up songwriting as a profession,” says McAnally, executive director, SONA. “SONA provides a powerful nexus where advocacy, education, and songwriting meet, and the organization wholly aligns with so many of my life’s passions.”
“SONA’s original co-founders and I believe, as we grow from a friend-group of songwriters and composers advocating for our rights to an established, sustainable trade association and advocacy group, our most important, defining characteristic is that we remain creator-led,” adds Lewis, CEO of SONA and The SONA Foundation. “So, in selecting my successor, we looked for someone with a policy brain and a creator heart. I’m so happy and grateful to have found that unique combination in Erin McAnally. In addition, we have always imagined our growth would lead us to having a presence in DC and NY. It took eight years of hard work and growing pains to get here, but we are so excited to reach this goal! Welcome to the SONA-verse Camus and Linda!”
Warner Music Group has launched the Warner Music Space, a new hub headquartered in Rio de Janeiro that will house Warner Music Brazil, Warner Chappell Music Brazil and ADA Brazil operations. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The newly-inaugurated collaborative space, located in Barra da Tijuca in […]
Share of streaming among the top 10,000 tracks measured by Luminate in its recently-released 2023 Year End Music Report went down by 3.8 percentage points since 2021. Which begs the question: Where did that 3.8% go?
It went fully into the streaming share of Spanish language tracks, which went up by 3.8%.
Indeed, today, Spanish is the second most consumed language in music, both in the U.S. and globally.
In the United States, the top three languages in music consumption by percentage of the total are, of course, English (88.8%), followed by Spanish (8.1%) and Korean in a distant third (0.7%).
The most recent numbers show Spanish language music’s market share among the country’s most popular songs almost doubled over the past two years — jumping from 4.2% of the top 10,000 tracks in 2021 to 8.1% in 2023. Overall, consumption of Latin music in the U.S grew by 19.4 billion on-demand audio streams in 2023, a 24.1% jump. In total number of streams, it was second in growth only to country, which grew by 20.4 billion streams.
Worldwide, English-language music consumption among the 10,000 most listened to tracks fell substantially in 2023, from 67% in 2021 to 54.9% in 2023. Spanish-language music consumption also dipped, from 12.4% in 2021 to 10.1% in 2023, while consumption of music in Hindi grew from 6.1% to 7.8%, and in Japanese from 1.3% to 2.1%. However, all told, Spanish is still the second most listened to music language in the world, according to the study.
In the U.S., Spanish-language music’s growth has been a very gradual process that’s come with the growth of streaming, a bigger Latin population, and with a major cultural shift that accepts that there are more cultures and languages that can coexist. Chief among them is Spanish, which benefits from being the lingua franca of an entire continent, plus Spain. While Latins are not monolithic, as many have long pointed out, they are all (with the exception of Brazilians) united by language; go to any Latin music concert in the U.S., and you’ll find a plethora of nations gathered under the same roof enjoying the same music, regardless of its origin.
The shift in consumption has been noticed by mainstream labels; 25 years ago, Latin acts like Shakira and Ricky Martin, had to record in English to garner widespread promotion. Spanish, the language which has long defined “Latin” music, was conversely, widely seen as stepping stone on the path to international superstardom but not as the goal.
Today, for the first time, mainstream labels are signing and developing artists who record solely, or almost solely in Spanish, such as Yahrtiza y su Esencia to Columbia Records and Xavi to Interscope.
There is strength in numbers, and those numbers opened the door for Latin artists to scale the charts by singing only in Spanish, as well as for predominantly Spanish-language series –like “Narcos” and the new “Griselda”—to score big viewing numbers despite what many would have perceived as a language barrier years ago.
But clearly, today there is a growing number of non-Spanish speakers who also listen to music in Spanish. According to recent consumer research insights from Luminate, for example, 25% of U.S. music listeners (ages 13+) said they engage with Spanish-language music, even though Hispanics account for 19% of the population.
People may not speak Spanish, but they’re definitely listening to the music.