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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 deep dive into allegations that NYC radio host DJ Envy was complicit in a multi-million dollar real estate scam; country star Maren Morris files for divorce; an explainer on the battle between Coldplay and its longtime manager; an interview with legendary music lawyer Don Passman; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Top NYC Radio DJ In Hot Water
After news broke last week that DJ Envy, the co-host of the nationally-syndicated hip-hop radio show The Breakfast Club, was accused of taking part in a real estate scam, Billboard dove deep into the complex web of lawsuits, countersuits and bankruptcies that lay out the full picture of the allegations.
In at least 20 civil cases filed in recent months, dozens of investors claim that Cesar Pina and wife Jennifer Pina — New Jersey house-flippers with famous friends — took their money with promises of big profits only to return little or nothing. Lawyers for some of the alleged victims estimate that more than 30 investors have already come forward, seeking over $40 million from the Pinas.
Many of those lawsuits name DJ Envy (RaaShaun Casey) as a co-defendant, citing his close ties to Pina and claiming he used his platform to lend legitimacy to the alleged schemers. One case says Envy “aided and abetted” the fraudsters by “using his public likeness as a well-known radio disc jockey to promote their real estate scheme.”
Envy says those kinds of allegations are not only false — he says he himself is also a victim of Pina’s alleged scheme — but also defamatory. He’s suing the social media influencer who first publicized the claims, claiming he “spewed” lies to promote his own real estate business, and he’s demanding to be dismissed from the investor lawsuits.
Who is Cesar Pina? What are he and Envy accused of doing? What comes next? For the full story, go read our entire deep-dive on the messy scandal.
Other top stories this week…
COLDPLAY LEGAL BATTLE EXPLAINED – With Coldplay involved in a nasty back-and-forth legal battle against former manager Dave Holmes, Billboard’s London correspondent Richard Smirke pored over all the legal docs and broke down everything we’ve learned from the allegations – like the band’s claim that it incurred $21.5 million in touring costs overruns because of Holmes.
LAWMAKERS TARGET AI FAKES – A bipartisan group of U.S. senators released draft legislation aimed at protecting musical artists and others from artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes and other replicas of their likeness, like the infamous “Fake Drake” song released this spring. The so-called NO FAKES Act, which would create a federal right for artists, actors and others to sue those who create “digital replicas” of their image, voice, or visual likeness without permission, is one of the first concrete legislative proposals in the wake of the sudden growth of AI tools over the past year.
DON PASSMAN INTERVIEW – The legendary music lawyer sat down to chat with with Billboard’s Glenn Peoples, talking about the challenges and opportunities posed by AI; about labels “bidding against each other out of FOMO”; about how he thinks artists “now have a lot of power to demand things that they’ve never gotten before in history”; and about his “philosophy” on the catalog sale mania: “For most people, I think it’s a mistake, and I try to talk them out of it.” Go read the full interview here.
MAREN MORRIS DIVORCE – The country star filed for divorce from husband Ryan Hurd after five years of marriage, saying that she and Hurd were “unable to live together successfully as husband and wife” and were “experiencing irreconcilable differences in their marriage.”
SONOS VERDICT OVERTURNED – Five months after Sonos won a whopping $32 million patent infringement judgment against Google over smart speaker technology, a federal judge overturned it on the grounds that the patents involved in the case were invalid. And he didn’t mince words: “This was not a case of an inventor leading the industry to something new. This was a case of the industry leading with something new and, only then, an inventor coming out of the woodwork to say that he had come up with the idea first — wringing fresh claims to read on a competitor’s products from an ancient application.”
MOBB DEEP SUED OVER LOGO – Mobb Deep and the streetwear brand Supreme hit were hit with a trademark lawsuit over their recent collaboration on t-shirts, filed by a New York City hardcore punk band (Sick of It All) that claims that the legendary hip hop duo stole their dragon-shaped logo. Apparently, the two musical acts have been quietly battling over their nearly-identical logos for decades.
Another legend of Laurel Canyon has partnered with Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group. Joining his Crosby, Stills & Nash bandmates on Team IAG is Graham Nash in a wide-ranging deal that aims to bolster the influential singer-songwriter’s musical legacy for future generations.
Under the agreement, Iconic has purchased a controlling interest in Nash’s music intellectual property assets, including his interest in his sound recordings and compositions, as well as his name, image and likeness. The prized assets include his work with a few bands you may have heard of: The Hollies, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Also in the mix is Nash’s solo music and his work in the Crosby & Nash duo.
IAG declined to share financial details of the deal, or the size of their controlling interest in Nash’s rights.
Nash, 81, joins an elite roster of acts at IAG, which Azoff co-founded in January 2020: Cher, Dan Fogelberg, Linda Ronstadt, The Beach Boys, Joe Cocker, Nat “King” Cole, Dean Martin and of course Stills and Crosby, who died earlier this year.
“I am thrilled to welcome Graham Nash to the iconic family, which now represents the works of all three of Crosby, Stills, and Nash,” Azoff said. “Graham is not only an incredible talent and true gentleman but a longtime friend as well. Back when I struck out on my own and started my first management company, Graham visited my office and came up with the name, ‘Front Line Management.’”
Nash co-founded the Hollies in the early 1960s with his school mate Allan Clarke, and along with guitarist Tony Hicks is credited (Lennon-McCartney style) with penning many of the British invaders’ original songs, including “On a Carousel,” “Carrie Anne,” “Stop Stop Stop” and “King Midas in Reverse,” among others.
By 1968, Nash was feeling creatively stifled with the Hollies and moved to California where he formed a supergroup of sorts with Crosby (The Byrds) and Stills (Buffalo Springfield). The trio’s 1969 self-titled debut, with its sterling three-part harmonies, miraculously gelled despite having three distinctly different songwriters. Nash’s keystone contribution to the set was the rolling “Marrakesh Express,” written for the Hollies but rejected, which peaked at No. 28 on the Hot 100. For the band’s next album, 1970’s Déjà Vu with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Nash brought a pair of all-timers with “Teach Your Children” and “Our House,” the latter written about the home he shared with Joni Mitchell.
Through their various configurations, the band produced eight studio albums and five live albums.
Nash launched a solo career in 1971, starting with the critically acclaimed Songs for Beginners, which includes “Chicago” and “Military Madness,” and then a few years later with Weird Tales. His latest studio album, Now, his seventh overall, was released in May. Throughout the 1970s, he and Crosby paired their voices for a series of similarly acclaimed albums: Graham Nash David Crosby (1972), Wind on the Water (1975) and Whistling Down the Wire (1976). Nash wrote their lone Top 40 hit, the politically-charged “Immigration Man” off their debut. The pair teamed again in 2004 for their Crosby & Nash double album. Nash also reunited with the Hollies in the mid-1980s for an album, What Goes Around…
The two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (CSN in 1997 and The Hollies in 2010) said he looks forward to working with Azoff and his team on “various projects to further the legacy of CSN’s music and my own.”
Universal Music Group’s Universal Production Music division has launched a new subscription-based service, offering a pre-cleared library 50,000 songs and 200,000 sound effects, starting at $5.99 per month. The new library, called Universal Music for Creators, is aimed at servicing influencers and online talent that need royalty-free music for their videos and podcasts at a low price.
Universal Music Group’s library includes the option to separate out some of its songs into audio “stems,” industry shorthand for individual instrument tracks used collectively to create a full sound recording. This offers creators greater flexibility to customize the song to best fit their needs.
Though it is full of options for creators, the library does not include any of the major acts that are signed to UMG — like Drake, Rihanna, Taylor Swift and many more. It is searchable through the website’s search bar, where users can type in descriptions of mood and style to find the songs they want. The company also offers curated playlists of different moods and occasions for faster discovery.
UMG is not the first to try to fulfill the needs of the growing creator economy through a subscription-based pre-cleared music library, but the company’s announcement claims that Universal Music for Creators “boasts more tracks and SFX than any other claims-free music subscription service.” In recent years, a number of other libraries have formed with similar business models and offerings, including Songtradr, Loudly, Collabhouse, Bopper, Epidemic Sound and more. Some digital platforms, including TikTok and YouTube, have also amassed their own pre-cleared music libraries for creators to choose from in order to dissuade creators using songs without the proper clearance to do so.
Soundtracking social media content is also one of the most cited use-cases for the burgeoning field of generative artificial intelligence. Some of the models hoping to provide AI music for this use includes Stability AI’s Stable Audio, Soundful, Tuney, and more. These companies threaten to disrupt today’s music libraries, offering soundtracks that are one-of-a-kind and customizable for content creators at a similarly low monthly fee. Still, some of these models do not yet create music that rivals the quality of stock human-made music.
Jody Gerson, UMPG chairman and CEO, said: “Universal Music for Creators delivers our unparalleled production music library to content creators everywhere for the first time. Innovative programs like this exemplify why Universal Production Music continues to lead the industry.”
Jane Carter, president of Universal Production Music said, “We’re thrilled to become the first major publisher to offer production music to content creators as a subscription service and grow the accessibility of our music catalog. With a brand heritage that signifies trust, quality and prestige, Universal Music for Creators will provide affordable, hassle-free music and sound effects for the most imaginative creators. We are excited to provide yet another innovative opportunity to support our talented production music songwriters and composers.”
Epic Games and Songtradr confirmed plans to let go of roughly half of Bandcamp’s workforce on Monday (Oct. 16), as the two companies finalized the sale of the popular independent music sales and streaming platform.
Epic Games first announced plans to sell Bandcamp to Songtradr — an online music licensing marketplace — on Sept. 28 amid a broad restructuring that involved laying off 830 employees, or about 16% of its workforce. In addition to divesting Bandcamp, the Fortnite developer also said it would spin off kidtech company SuperAwesome, a move that would impact 250 people in total.
An Epic Games spokesperson declined to comment on how many Bandcamp employees were terminated, but said impacted workers received notification of severance packages on Monday.
In a statement, Songtradr said Bandcamp’s operating costs have “significantly increased” in recent years and the job cuts, which were impacted all divisions, were necessary to “ensure a sustainable and healthy company that can serve its community of artists and fans.”
“After a comprehensive evaluation, including the importance of roles for smooth business operations and pre existing functions at Songtradr, 50% of Bandcamp employees have accepted offers to join Songtradr,” according to the statement. “We are looking forward to welcoming Bandcamp into our musically aligned community.”
Songtradr said it will keep popular Bandcamp services, including “artist-first revenue share, Bandcamp Fridays and Bandcamp Daily.”
Employees of the independent music storefront had been attempting to unionize since March, a move prompted by Bandcamp’s 2022 sale to Epic Games. On Oct. 3, Bandcamp workers affiliated with the effort wrote Songtradr’s CEO asking that he recognize their union and extend offers to all current employees. The company ultimately stated that not all employees would receive offers to join Songtradr.
Bandcamp employees affected by Monday’s layoffs described disjointed communication from their new and outgoing employers about the job cuts.
“Officially laid off from bandcamp, after two weeks of waiting in limbo with many of my fellow colleagues,” according to a post by Atoosa Moinzadeh on X (formerly Twitter) shared on Monday. Moinzadeh wrote on her LinkedIn page that she was let go after working for 2.5 years as a social media manager and editor at Bandcamp.
Rochelle Shipman, whose LinkedIn page describes her as a vinyl representative at Bandcamp, wrote on X on Monday, “3 years at Bandcamp, nearly 100 records & an entire union later, and laid off without so much as a peep from (ex) leadership. Please continue to support artists. Buy music at every turn … Artists first forever.”
Additional reporting by Kristin Robinson.
The concert business is set to close out another record year fueled by pent-up pandemic demand, higher priced tickets and intense fan commitment to their favorite artists.
Hoping to capture a snapshot of the concert business when cumulative grosses for the top 100 tours and attendance are higher than ever, Variety VIP+ and talent agency UTA have released a new report titled “Peak Performance” combining data from Billboard and Pollstar with insights from PwC and an online survey of more than 1,500 concert goers.
“Our desire to do this study was spurred by the anecdotal evidence we were seeing from our own music representation and music brand partnerships business,” said Joe Kessler, UTA partner and global head of UTA IQ.
The report paints a bullish and optimistic picture of the concert business with more fans willing to spend money and travel farther to see their favorite artists live, as well as an increased urgency for consumers to find time for more live music and festivals in the post-pandemic period. But the rapidly increasing price of tickets and the increased use of credit cards and debit to pay for experiences continues to represent a potential liability for both music fans and the industry writ large, the report finds.
For the first time ever, the concert business is expected to cross the $30 billion revenue mark in 2023, with the top 100 tours accounting for nearly 20 percent of total sales. Survey respondents overwhelmingly agreed that some of their favorite memories took place at concerts and 79 percent of respondents agreed that attending a concert or festival is more important to them following the COVID-19 pandemic. Approximately 43% of consumers said live music events were more meaningful to them than other types of live events or experiences.
Driving the enthusiasm for concerts, Kessler explains, are millennials, now in their mid 20s to early 40s, who have “consistently and substantially shown a desire to want to engage in collaborative and communal experiences as a group.”
“Music has always been a big part of that,” Kessler says, noting that it was millennials who fueled the growth of the festival business over the last two decades.
“As the economy improve and they have more disposable spending, I think we’re going to see a continued rise in the desire to want to see live shows,” Kessler says,” a trend he expect to grow “as our lives become increasingly virtual and we spend more and more time behind screens.”
While Taylor Swift and Beyonce have dominated the headlines in 2023, the report found that men still significantly outnumber women in terms of concert attendance, with men more likely to have gone to a concert in 2023, with 42 percent saying they’ve attended a live music show in the past 12 months, compared with 31 percent of women.
The survey also found that more fans are traveling for events than ever before, with half of respondents traveling four hours or more to attend a concert, 39 percent have flown within the U.S. to attend a show, and 30 percent have traveled to another country for a live music event.
While fans are willing to spend more money that ever on concert tickets, the survey also finds that high ticket prices are among consumers’ chief complaints. With average ticket prices north of $122, more than 62 percent of respondents said the biggest impediment to live music attendance was the price, while 38 percent of fans reported that high ticket prices have prevented them from attending at least one concert in the last 12 months.
“That should not be all that surprising,” says Andrew Wallenstein, president and chief media analyst for Variety Plus, noting that while concerns over price have long existed in the concert business, ‘more than half of the consumers surveyed are just as willing to purchase VIP tickets now as they were prior to the pandemic, while 3 in 10 have become more willing” to buy expensive tickets.
“I think there is a demographic out there that despite the cost pressures feels there is more value in spending top dollar than ever before,” Wallenstein says.
Unsurprisingly, debt is fueling a large part of consumer spending. The survey found that more than one-third of fans had used a buy-now, pay later service to buy tickets, while 34% have opened a credit card specifically for a concert or music festival presale.
“Macroeconomic circumstances have to be paid attention to,” says Wallenstein, who notes that federal student loan payments are resuming this month after a three-year pandemic pause, but notes “this demographic values the concert going experience in a way that previous demographics may not have.”
“Despite the fact that student loan forgiveness is out the window, and many are not saving for things like home ownership, [millennials] may still spend money on concerts the same way they have in the past,” he tells Billboard.
While the report doesn’t offer up any forecasts as to how much runway is left for growth in concerts, Kessler says be doesn’t expect the business to cool off any time soon.
“No one can know how long it will last, but I don’t think this is a temporary blip on the map,” Kessler says. “The data that came through the study tells us that, this is here to stay for the foreseeable future.”
Click here to access a copy of the report.
Hipgnosis Songs Fund said on Monday it would not pay its investors a dividend in October because of new, lower projections for the amount of revenue it can expect from the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board for certain streaming royalties, causing its stock to dip more than 10%.
Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s board said it had to withdraw the proposed interim dividend of 1.1325 pence per share, which it had announced to shareholders on Sept. 21, after its independent portfolio valuer, Citrin Cooperman, “materially reduced” Hipgnosis’ projected payments from CRB III, causing the board to cut its expectations for CRB III retroactive accrual to $9.9 million, from $21.7 million. Hipgnosis’s board said it “expects to declare and pay future dividends as targeted,” subject to discussions with its lenders.
The announcement comes 10 days ahead of the London-listed music royalty trust’s first shareholder continuation vote, where investors are asked to vote on whether they want to keep the investment trust going or liquidate the fund.
Hipgnosis Songs Fund made history in the music industry when it went public in July 2018 as the first publicly listed company offering investors the chance to earn returns from the royalties on famous songs like “Sweet Dreams Are Made of This,” “Don’t Stop Believin’,” Neil Young’s catalog and more.
But the company is facing some of its first, serious growing pains as the high interest-rate environment has made acquiring more catalogs more expensive and drawn investors’ interest away from alternative investments like music rights to high-yielding bonds. Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s share price is down more than 25% over the past year and was trading at 66.26 British pence ($0.90 USD) as of 8:50 a.m. New York time.
The board has announced a number of initiatives since September that appear to be aimed at addressing investors’ concerns ahead of the Oct. 26 continuation vote, including the proposed sale of $440 million worth of catalogs from its portfolio to the private side of Hipgnosis — Hipgnosis Songs Capital, which is backed by private equity goliath Blackstone. The board said it would use the proceeds to buy back up to $180 million of its own stock, pay down $250 million of its revolving debt and to introduce new, lower advisory fees to be paid to Hipgnosis Song Management Limited.
The board has said it hopes the proposal, which must be approved by shareholders, would help to “re-rate” the company’s share price in the eyes of investors and the broader market.
The board said it learned of the reduction in expected payments around Sept. 30, after Citirn Cooperman “reduced its expectations of industry-wide retroactive payments in relation to the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board’s decision in relation to royalties payable to songwriters for the period covering 2018-2022 (“CRB III“) for its valuation of the Company’s portfolio.”
Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign are shopping for a partner to distribute their forthcoming collaborative album — and sources tell Billboard they are considering five different offers. West “will make a decision soon,” says one source. And while sources say the album release was originally planned for Friday (Oct. 13), it was pushed back and is expected to land in the coming weeks.
The project has record industry executives weighing the risks and rewards of releasing what some who’ve heard the music say is West’s best music in at least five years, since 2018’s Ye, but at an especially fraught time as the conflict between Israel and Hamas intensifies following the surprise attack on the Supernova Sukkot Gathering music festival on Oct. 7.
Some label leaders have passed on the opportunity to distribute the project given the antisemitic comments West began making almost exactly a year prior, beginning Oct. 8, 2022 — even though the music itself isn’t controversial lyrically, sources say. But there are a multitude of smaller distributors in fierce competition for whom such a release could be game-changing, given the two artists’ streaming histories. One such possible company is Too Lost, the music distribution and publishing company that launched in 2021 and currently represents West’s rights on YouTube. (When reached for comment, Too Lost CEO Gregory Hirschhorn declined to comment.)
The last time West and Ty Dolla $ign released a collaboration was “Junya Pt 2” on Ye’s 2021 album, Donda. Before that, they worked together on Ty Dolla $ign’s “Ego Death” (2020) and on West’s “Everything We Need” (2019), “Real Friends” (2016) and “Only One” (2014).
After releasing 10 albums on Def Jam, Donda was West’s last release with the label. His 2022 album, Donda 2, was exclusively released on the Stem Player, and later that year, following West’s antisemitic comments, a spokesperson for Def Jam parent company Universal Music Group denounced his rhetoric and distanced the company from the artist. “Def Jam’s relationship with Ye as a recording artist, Def Jam’s partnership with the GOOD Music label venture and Ye’s merchandise agreement with Bravado all ended in 2021,” the rep said.
West has not officially released any new music since then, and industry watchers have wondered what kind of route he might take when he decided to make his return. Owning all his copyrights, West also has the option to self-release his music through a do-it-yourself service such as Distrokid or Tunecore for a modest one-time fee, but may favor a boutique distribution service that would pay an advance for the deal, provide a more personalized approach and work directly with streaming services for promotion and editorial placements.
Abu Dhabi-based music streamer Anghami led all music stocks this week after gaining 17.6% to $0.82. On Thursday, the company announced through an SEC filing it had received a written notification from the Nasdaq Stock Market regarding its closing share price being below $1.00 for the previous 30 days. The Nasdaq gives companies 180 days to regain compliance or face de-listing from the exchange.
The warning appeared to spur a 16.5% gain on Thursday as investors saw signs the share price won’t remain under $1. In its SEC filing, Anghami stated if the share price remains under the $1 threshold it will “consider available options to cure the deficiency,” including a reverse share split (which would increase the share price by reducing the number of shares outstanding while the market capitalization remains unchanged).
SiriusXM gained 5.7% on Friday (Oct. 13) and finished the week up 11.8%. Its $4.85 closing price was the highest for the satellite radio company since Aug. 9. The typically steady stock has fallen 17% this year as self-pay satellite radio subscribers stagnated at or around 32 million for eight straight quarters. SiriusXM will host a Nov. 8 presentation to unveil a new streaming app and preview upcoming in-car innovations and new programming.
The 21-stock Billboard Global Music Index fell 1.3% to 1,355.65 this week as 13 stocks were in negative territory and only eight stocks gained ground. Year to date, the index has gained 16.1%. Led by SiriusXM’s gain and a 7.6% increase from Cumulus Media, the index’s three radio stocks had an average improvement of 5.5%. Eight record labels and publishers had an average weekly gain of 0.3%. HYBE improved 6.8% while Believe climbed 3.6% and Universal Music Group added 0.6%. Streaming companies were, on average, flat this week.
Live music stocks dropped an average of 4.8%. Shares of Sphere Entertainment Co. dropped 11.1%, effectively offsetting the 11% gain on Oct. 2 following U2’s debut performances at Sphere in Las Vegas. Live Nation dropped 3.9%, MSG Entertainment fell 3.5% and CTS Eventim shares fell 0.7%. If investors are curious what’s next for Sphere Entertainment, clues comes from an interview published Thursday. Executive chairman and CEO James Dolan said the company is “actively pursuing other markets” and “has six different kinds of spheres down to a 3,000-seater.” A Las Vegas-style Sphere may not work in London, where according to reports residents are concerned about the location and light pollution that could arise from a massive external display similar to the Las Vegas venue.
Music stocks underperformed numerous indexes. In the United States, the S&P 500 gained 0.1% and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.3%. In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 gained 1.4%. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index rose 2%.
Stocks faded after the release of consumer sentiment data for October by the University of Michigan showed a decline from September based on “a substantial increase” in concerns about inflation. Expectations for inflation in one year rose from 3.2% in September to 3.8% this month. That’s the highest mark since May 2023 and substantially above the 2.3% to 3% range seen in the two years before the pandemic.
Also a factor in stock prices, the U.S. Federal Reserve expects to raise interest rates one more time, according to minutes released from its September policy meeting. Interest rates have an inverse relationship with equity prices. Higher interest rates make borrowing more expensive and cut down on corporate profits.
Following Hamas’ attacks throughout Israel this past weekend and Israel’s current bombardment of Gaza, the three major labels, along with the Recording Academy, have released statements condemning Hamas. In a statement posted Thursday to X, the platform previously called Twitter, Warner Music Group wrote, “We condemn the terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas and the […]
U.S. labels and musicians have long counted on welcoming international audiences to turn home-grown successes into global stars. Just as people around the world snap up tickets for Hollywood blockbuster movies, consumers abroad have been typically eager for English-language music from the world’s leading entertainment exporter.
In recent years, however, U.S. pop stars have increasingly heavy competition from artists most Americans will never know. In France, the top song of 2022 was “Tout va bien” by Alonzo featuring Nino and Naps, according to French recorded music trade group SNEP. Only one foreign song, “As It Was” by Harry Styles, cracked France’s top 10. The top of the chart’s composition looked drastically different from previous years. In 2017, when Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” reigned supreme with French music fans, five of the country’s top 10 songs came from foreign artists. In 2012, eight of France’s top 10 songs were from foreign artists.
To Will Page, author and former chief economist at Spotify, the changing fortunes of French artists is evidence streaming and online platforms have changed the balance of power. “When the cost structure changes, local [music] bounces back,” he says. The CD era involved higher costs — mainly manufacturing and marketing — that favored international artists. Despite France’s rule that a quarter of the songs played on radio must be French, the system still tilted toward foreign artists with greater financial backing.
But with streaming and digital distribution, those costs are all but eliminated. Local artists are free to create and distribute music in far greater numbers, satiating a demand that had been unfulfilled. Consumers who previously listened to American pop stars are all too happy to stream artists singing and rapping in their native tongue. “An unregulated free market has achieved what regulation failed to do,” says Page.
In a paper titled Glocalization of Music Streaming Within and Across Europe, Page and Chris Dalla Riva, a musician who works at music tech startup Audiomack, showed France is hardly alone in this trend toward “glocalization” — local entertainment succeeding in an increasingly globalized digital economy. In other large European markets such as Italy, Poland and Sweden, consumers are also gravitating toward local artists who create music in local languages. These countries — along with Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and the U.K. — matched or reached their peak domestic share of top 10 songs in 2022. In 2012, less than a fifth of the top 10 songs in Poland, France, Netherlands and Germany were local artists. In 2022, local music’s share of the top 10 songs reached 70% in Poland, Italy and Sweden, 60% in France, 30% in the Netherlands and Spain, and 20% in Germany.
Similar results are echoed on TikTok, which has transformed how people discover music around the world. In France, Italy, Poland and Greece, 80% of TikTok’s top 10 songs of 2022 were by home grown acts. Local artists accounted for 60% of the top 10 in Spain and 50% in the U.K. Local hip-hop is especially popular on TikTok in these markets, says Paul Hourican, the platform’s global head of music operations. Drake and Eminem may have a universal appeal but don’t connect with audiences the way local musicians can. “When you think about what hip-hop is, it’s amazing beats and truth telling, and speaking their truth in local language,” says Hourican. “That seems to be really, really connecting, and kind of forwarding the culture of hip-hop into into all these markets.”
The localization shift doesn’t surprise Sylvain Delange, managing director, Asia Pacific at French music company Believe. “We knew that the market would grow domestically, and that the local music would take a bigger share of the music consumption,” he says.
“When streaming came in, there was a very natural effect that skewed consumption towards international music for the simple reason that when streaming music comes, it serves, first and foremost, the higher income, large, tier one cities that are more open to international influence,” says Delange. “So, it’s very logical that in the beginning, international music would over index on streaming platforms. But then it would progressively switch back towards a fairly natural trend — which is domestic music.”
Early on, streaming services’ curation was much more focused on English-language music, adds Dominique Casimir, chief content officer at BMG. “You couldn’t put an Italian song in the middle of that playlist, that just certainly makes no sense.” But as streaming exploded in popularity, the services hired more staff to service the local music market and put a greater emphasis on local music. With boots on the ground, streaming services created channels and playlists that focused on local repertoire, she says. “That did change massively the work we can do together with DSPs.”
Supply alone doesn’t explain the trend toward globalization, though. An additional explanation, “is generally people’s need to identify with their culture,” says Golnar Khosrowshahi, CEO of Reservoir Media. “That is driving listenership and the importance of that identification, whether it’s around the subject matter or the sound or the person. This is not new news. People identify with their culture. Their culture is important to them. Maintaining that culture is important.”
To take advantage of the forces shaping globalization, Khosrowshahi has targeted investments throughout Latin America and the Middle East. Among Reservoir Media’s recent acquisitions are the catalogs of Latin songwriter and producer Rudy Perez and, in conjunction with PopArabia, the catalogs of Egyptian company RE Media and Egyptian rap duo El Sawareekh. Additionally, in June, Reservoir Media and PopArabia formed a joint venture with Saudi Arabian hip-hop label Mashrex and acquired some of its back catalog.
“One of the reasons we’re compelled by the Middle East market and the Arabic-speaking market is because of the size of that diaspora,” says Khosrowshahi. “The geographical reach of that diaspora goes to Malaysia and Indonesia. You have substantive Arabic speaking populations, granted different dialects, but music seems to be able to transcend them a little bit.”
Through both catalog acquisitions and frontline label partnerships, companies are finding opportunities in an increasingly online global music market. Investments are now commonplace in developing markets that were previously overlooked by music companies. Believe acquired Indian music company Venus Music, partnered with Indian imprints Think Music and Panorama Music, and partnered with Viva Music and Artists Group in the Philippines. In August, Universal Music Group-owned Virgin Music Group acquired United Arab Emirates-based Chabaka. In 2022, Warner Music Group purchased a majority stake in Africori, the top digital distributor in Africa.
While TikTok and streaming services’ international popularity have leveled the playing field for local music around the world, Delange says YouTube has been the biggest driver of this trend over the last decade. For years, a debate raged throughout Europe and the U.S. about YouTube’s “value gap,” the difference between its ad-supported royalties and per-stream payments from competing subscription services. While the West was hesitant to embrace YouTube, Asian artists and labels embraced the opportunities for promotion, marketing and monetization, says Delange. In the West, YouTube was a problematic free platform. In the East, YouTube was a free platform with a massive audience. “That was revolutionary in a market that had been decimated on the physical side,” says Delange. It’s now proving the driver for a new stage of growth in the global music market.