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An Atlanta judge on Friday once again refused to release Young Thug from jail while he awaits trial in a sweeping RICO case against alleged gang members, denying him bond for a fourth time over fears of witness intimidation.
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At a hearing in Fulton County Superior Court, Judge Ural Glanville cited claims by prosecutors that “recent conversations” with witnesses in the case suggested that the superstar rapper (real name Jeffery Williams) was “asking for permission to harm others.”
“The court finds that would pose a significant risk to the community,” Judge Glanville said. “For that reason I’m going to continue to deny bond at this time. That’s my ruling.”
Earlier in the hearing, Thug’s attorney Brian Steel had argued that his client posed no such risk, and that the rapper’s pre-trial incarceration – for 14 months and counting – were causing serious harm to his health, including exacerbating a kidney condition with poor nutrition. At one point, he likened Thug’s stay in jail to a form of “torture.”
Among other alleged evidence, prosecutors claimed that a person close to Thug told police the rapper had messaged her “Snitch hoes get murked. Them and their kids.” Thug’s lawyers strongly disputed the existence of that text, and prosecutors later clarified that it had been sent in 2010.
In his closing plea to Judge Glanville, Steel sharply criticized the claims made by prosecutors to keep the rapper behind bars.
“Your honor, you are being given information that is not appropriate,” Steel said. “I would not come before the court, for a third time. Mr. Williams can have a bond with whatever conditions the court needs. It will just be the right thing to do under law.”
But Judge Glanville was unswayed, saying the claim of potential witness intimidation “still troubles the court.”
Such denials of bond are a loss for any criminal defendant, but they have loomed particularly large in the YSL case in recent months, as the start of the actual trial has repeatedly been delayed.
The trial technically started in January, but after six months of attempting to pick a jury that will decide the case, not one single juror has yet to be chosen as of Friday. The delay has largely been driven by the fact that the massive case, dealing with years of allegations and many separate defendants, is expected to run well into next year. Many prospective jurors have successfully argued that they cannot afford to halt their lives for that long, citing jobs, childcare commitments and health problems.
Young Thug was indicted in May 2022, along with dozens of others, on accusations that his YSL was not really a record label called “Young Stoner Life,” but a violent Atlanta street gang called “Young Slime Life.” Prosecutors claim members of YSL committed murders, carjackings, armed robberies, drug dealing and other crimes over the course of a decade.
The case is built around Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law based on the more famous federal RICO statute that’s been used to target the mafia, drug cartels and other forms of organized crime. Such laws make it easier for prosecutors to sweep up many members of an alleged criminal conspiracy based on many smaller acts that aren’t directly related.
The rapper Gunna was also charged in the original indictment, but he agreed in December to plead guilty to the single charge he was facing. At the time, Gunna said he was not cooperating with prosecutors, but he acknowledged in court that YSL was both “a music label and a gang.”
Thug, who continues to strongly deny the charges he’s facing, has repeatedly sought to be released on bond ahead of trial. But such release has been repeatedly denied, largely because prosecutors have warned the judge that he might threaten witnesses or otherwise obstruct the case.
In April, Thug’s attorney again demanded that his client be released from jail. Steel argued that his client was “innocent of all charges” and that he should not be left “languishing in county jail” while the case continued to drag on.
“Conditions can be set to ensure that Mr. Williams comes back to court when required to do so, and due to the extended nature of this trial, Mr. Williams respectfully requests this Honorable Court reconsider its position on bond,” Steel wrote at the time.
Universal Music UK appointed Sally Davies as managing director of Abbey Road, the legendary recording studio forever linked with iconic albums by The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Kate Bush and more. This is an in-house move for Davies, who arrives after a 10-year run at U-Live, the live promoter within the Vivendi Group and UMUK. As CEO of U-Live, she notably produced the immersive dinner show Mamma Mia the Party! alongside ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus. Prior to U-Live, Davies spent seven years with AEG as assistant GM/director of events of The O2 arena. Since Abbey Road became part of UMG as part of its 2012 acquisition of EMI (the studio was initially called EMI Recording Studios), it has expanded its services beyond recording and mixing. It offers audio mastering, audio restoration, and post-production services, among others. Davies is based in London and will report to UMUK COO David Sharpe.
“I’ve known Sally for a long time so it was an easy decision to appoint her to one of the most important leadership positions in our industry, at the forefront of world class recordings, sound innovation and creative education,” commented David Joseph, chairman and CEO of Universal Music UK. “Sally balances creativity and business strategy exceptionally well and I couldn’t be happier to welcome her back to the Universal Music family.”
Interscope Records appointed Manny Prado vice president of marketing and A&R. In the newly created role, Prado will work alongside executives Nir Seroussi and Jose Cedeño to sign and develop artists for Interscope Miami as well as work closely with its existing roster, according to a press statement. Most recently, Prado served as vp of West Coast operations at Sony Music Latin, where he worked for 20 years. During his tenure at the label, he was a key figure in the careers of Becky G, Carin León and Christian Nodal, among others. “Manny Prado is simply one of the most talented and driven executives working in music,” said Nir Seroussi, executive vice president of Interscope Geffen A&M Records. “We’re thrilled to have him join the team at Interscope Miami as we continue to build a best-in-class platform for Latin artists.” –Griselda Flores
ASCAP hired Tim Daugherty as senior vice president of general licensing. Based in New York City and reporting to head of licensing Stephanie Ruyle, Daugherty will oversee all licensing for brick-and-mortar businesses like bars, hotels and live music venues. Daugherty’s résumé includes five years with Vice Media, where he was most recently svp of revenue and digital operations, and earlier he held roles with Lonely Planet Global and Turner Broadcasting. Ruyle said she was eager to work with her new svp to “respond to the evolving economic and technology landscape for general licensees and to ensure that ASCAP members are fairly compensated for the public performance of their works.”
Verve Label Group hired longtime Spotify executive Monica Santucci as the UMG division’s new vice president of streaming, overseeing strategy and initiatives for the entire VLG family, including Verve Records, Decca Records US, Impulse! and Verve Forecast. Santucci joined Spotify back in 2013 in its label relations department and went on to launch and manage hugely popular franchises like Spotify Singles and the Live at Electric Lady series. Prior to Spotify, she spent six years at Sony Music, where she rose to associate director of digital sales. Dickon Stainer, president and CEO of VLG, said the NYC-based Santucci joined “at the perfect moment to help our artists and their music navigate the many routes to worldwide discovery.”
Porter’s Call, a Franklin, Tennessee-based nonprofit that has provided counseling and support to recording artists since 2001, is changing leadership. Effective May 2024, Porter’s Call founder/executive director Al Andrews will step down from his leadership role. Beth Barcus and Chad Karger will take the helm as co-executive directors. Phil Shay, who joined Porter’s Call in 2022, has been named director of development, while two additional staffers have joined the team: office and hospitality manager Audrey Ragan and porter Jared Farley. –Jessica Nicholson
Influence Media Partners, the music and entertainment investment firm backed by BlackRock and WMG, hired Lisa Licht as their chief marketing advisor, overseeing strategy in the spheres of partnerships, content development and communications. Over the decades, the experienced marketer has held C-suite and senior roles at Live Nation, Yahoo, Hasbro, Fox and Mattel, and owns her own consulting firm (where she advises companies like Build-a-Bear, Cameo and Illumination). Assisting Licht will be Nneka Ani, who has been promoted to head of marketing and will continue to manage corporate communications and develop opportunities around the fund’s portfolio. Additionally, Influence exec Danny Klotz has been named head of underwriting and will manage the company’s pipeline of deals and run the investment team’s catalog models and projections, among other duties. Launched in 2019 and led by Lylette Pizarro, Lynn Hazan, Rene McLean and Jon Jashni, Influence’s fund has invested in catalogs from a diverse slate of artists including Blake Shelton, Tainy, Future and Julia Michaels.
ICYMI: Longtime IFPI chief executive Frances Moore is retiring from the global trade body at year’s end … Four executives were promoted at Interscope Geffen A&M … Andre Perry was elected board president at NIVA … Amazon Music elevated Ryan Redington to general manager … Tencent Music’s chief strategy officer stepped down … and UMG upped Manusha Sarawan to MD of Southern and East Africa.
The Oriel Company welcomed Chrissy Borsellino as senior director of communications and Kelli Wasilauski as the director of operations in Nashville. Borsellino arrives from ADA Worldwide, where she was head of PR and promo, while earlier in her career she notably took the lead in launching a U.S. publicity division at WMA. Wasilauski most recently served as vp of publicity at Adkins Publicity, where she helped grow the company’s roster by double-digits and worked on high-profile campaigns for Billy Ray Cyrus, The Judds and others. The communications agency, launched in early 2021 by veteran publicists Carleen Donovan, Chloë Walsh and Jen Appel, has offices in New York, Los Angeles and Nashville. You can reach the new additions to the Oriel team at kelli@theoriel.co and chrissy@theoriel.co.
Yendi Rodriguez has been promoted to vice president, creative and songwriter services, U.S. Latin at Sony Music Publishing. In her new role, Rodriguez will lead expansion efforts for the U.S. Latin roster with emphasis on career development, talent discovery, creative collaboration and song placements. She will also continue to liaise across the company’s divisions including administration and synch to advance songwriter service efforts. The Miami-based executive will report to Jorge Mejia, president & CEO, Latin America and U.S. Latin, Sony Music Publishing. “Music has always been my passion and it is an honor to be working alongside the best songwriters in the business,” Rodriguez said. According to a press statement, Rodriguez has been key to landing top signings including Keityn, Bizarrap, Nicki Nicole, The Rude Boyz and Jay Wheeler, as well as renewals including Tainy, Camilo and Farruko, among many others. –GF
Sarah Gallagher was promoted to managing director at Modest! Management, home to Olly Murs, JLS and other artists. Gallagher is fast-approaching her 14-year anniversary at the London-based company, where she has overseen a slew of successful campaigns and tours. She reports directly to co-founders Richard Griffiths and Harry Magee. In addition to Sarah’s promotion, Natalie Vassileiou has been elevated to operations director, working alongside Gallagher to manage the day-to-day running of Modest!.
Discogs promoted Anbu Ilango to vp of engineering, Jen Agosta to brand director and Jeffrey Smith to vp of marketing.
Courtney Johanson, who was with public relations company The Greenroom PR for more than a decade, has left the company to join Red Light Management in a management capacity for artists Kip Moore, Caylee Hammack and Tucker Beathard. At The Greenroom PR, Johanson worked on campaigns for clients including Moore, Hammack and Beathard, as well as Brooks & Dunn, Rascal Flatts and Elvie Shane. –JN
Ami Gan has taken her leave as CEO of OnlyFans, the subscription platform popular among adult content creators and the occasional music artist (see: Iggy Azalea, Bhad Bhabie, Bella Thorne and Rubi Rose, among others). Gan, previously chief marketing officer, spent two and a half years in the top job and says that during her tenure the company paid out $10 billion to creators. Replacing her will be Keily Blair, who rises from chief strategy officer. “Spending nearly 3 years at OnlyFans while it echoed throughout the cultural zeitgeist, has been beyond rewarding,” said Gan, who returns to her roots as founder of a marketing firm called Hoxton Projects.
Nashville Bites: Alyssa Ramsey was promoted to manager of label services at Play It Again Entertainment, the label and management company founded by singer-songwriter Dallas Davidson. She’ll oversee label projects and artist development, including A&R and release timelines. Ramsey works with Cade Price to manage rising singer Dylan Marlowe. .. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum hired senior director of education and community engagement Katherine Palmer and director of facilities Ed Schulte. Palmer arrives from the Phoenix-based Musical Instrument Museum, where she was curator of education. Schulte has been the Nashville Zoo director of facilities for the last five years … Newly launched public relations firm King Publicity added Christina Bosch in a publicist role, effective immediately. She was most recently vice president at The Nash News. Bosch can be reached at christina@kingpublicity.com.
In June, Dylan Bourne, who manages JELEEL! and Dwellers, opened Instagram to find his inbox flooded with messages. Earlier that day, he had posted an exasperated friend’s observation about the habits of some music industry attorneys: “Seems like the standard with all these lawyers is [to] sign a million things you can’t possibly time manage.” Many of Bourne’s followers were quietly harboring the same frustration, and they started sending him their own stories of long delays and extended silences.
“I just had this feeling that if both myself and another respected peer were both experiencing these same difficulties, we couldn’t be alone, and I was curious to hear other people’s perspectives on the matter,” Bourne tells Billboard. “I could have never imagined the volume of responses that came in from fellow managers, artists, producers, and even lawyers.”
While attorneys operate almost entirely behind the scenes in the music industry, they wield a significant amount of power. Artists require a lawyer before they can sign a record deal, and “the lawyer controls that conversation in most cases,” explains one senior label executive. As a result, “Lawyers are the center of A&R.”
With great power comes great responsibility. But “there is no scrutiny on lawyers,” says one artist manager who requested anonymity to speak freely. “There’s no way to hold them accountable other than firing them.”
Jason Berger, a partner at Lewis Brisbois, was among those who reached out to Bourne after the post. “He’s right,” Berger says. “Some lawyers abuse that position because of the money that can be made when you’re in such a unique space.”
“This is a problem with lawyers that I’ve observed since I started practicing,” adds Gandhar Savur, founder of Savur Law. “I sometimes don’t get a response from an opposing lawyer for months, and these lawyers somehow flourish professionally while routinely not responding to people or getting transactions closed. It’s something that reflects poorly on our profession as a whole.”
Other attorneys bristled at the critique. “Often, lawyers will be blamed for the shortcomings of incompetent managers,” one attorney says. “Even some managers that are very prominent in the business have no idea what they’re doing” — and they bog down lawyers with requests that should be handled by an accountant or a label, the attorney continues, preventing them from focusing on their actual jobs.
“Lawyers aren’t just like, ‘We’re gonna cash these checks and screw our clients because we don’t care,’” adds Zach Bohlender, a former music attorney who left the profession to co-found Charta, a company that aims to save lawyers time by distilling the process of drawing up side-artist and producer agreements. “We feel that stress. It’s really tough mentally.”
The simmering tension between music-industry factions is partially a symptom of a shift in the broader ecosystem. “The blame shouldn’t all fall on [lawyers’] shoulders,” Bourne acknowledges. “Every role has been affected by the oversaturation our market is experiencing.”
Executives on both sides of the debate agree that there are more artists than ever before, and today’s music lawyers have more to do than their predecessors. “The workload of an artist attorney has definitely increased as music-making has become more collaborative,” says Adam Zia, founding partner of the Zia Firm. “There used to be a few producers for every album; now there might be 20 or 30 different writers and producers.” And a contract has to be drawn up and negotiated for each one of those collaborators.
“When we started going to five agreements per song, we should have taken them down from 35 pages to three pages,” says Josh Pothier, director of Kingsway Music Library, a collection of original compositions created by the producer Ging (formerly known as Frank Dukes) for sampling purposes.
“You look through those agreements, and there are still B-side protections that haven’t been necessary since we were pressing 7-inch singles,” Pothier continues. “We had a real opportunity to restructure this business when it went digital. We didn’t take it, and now we’re really struggling.”
Not only does each contemporary release tend to come laden with more paperwork, there are also simply more releases than there used to be. “Now artists are terrified that if they don’t put out music constantly, people are just going to forget them,” Bohlender explains.
But many of the managers and lawyers who spoke for this story also pointed out that lawyers are “incentivized” to take on a lot of clients since most of them operate on a 5% commission for the deals they shepherd across the finish line. “We represent developing acts for basically nothing, and there’s a venture component — you represent X number of artists, and hopefully a couple end up making it and they make everything worthwhile from a financial standpoint,” says the attorney who requested anonymity. But this can frustrate managers who see their lawyers single-mindedly chasing “after big money deals and just leaving all the smaller shit to the side,” as Pothier puts it.
More artists releasing more music with more paperwork, combined with a business model that encourages volume, means that “everybody’s completely jammed,” according to Lucas Keller, founder and president of Milk & Honey. Jammed to the point where attorneys’ response time is almost a joke around the music industry.
“A guy called me the other day and said, ‘I want to sack my lawyer — he takes too long on agreements, two months sometimes,’” Keller recalls. While his friend was annoyed, the Milk & Honey boss thought two months was actually a pretty decent turnaround time relative to some of the lags he’s seen. “The guy sounds great!” he quipped. “We should send him more business!”
Lawyers are hardly the only music industry operators accused of stretching themselves thin — the major labels have been charged with doing the same thing. However, “When a label is over-signing stuff, they’re paying money for it, and the artist is making a judgment call: ‘There’s a very real possibility that I could be shelved or get lost in the sauce,’” says Matt Buser, founder of Buser Legal. In contrast, he notes, “When you sign up with an attorney, you might even be paying the attorney a retainer. The consideration flow is different.”
And unlike labels, lawyers also have certain duties to their clients, according to Stephen Gillers, who teaches ethics at New York University School of Law. Under the court’s rules of professional conduct, “you can’t take on more clients than you can competently handle,” Gillers says. (He also notes that “you cannot take on a client in a matter if the matter is adverse to another client,” another problem in the music industry.)
What can be done to both help artists who need legal counsel and ease the burden on their lawyers? “We could do a lot better at streamlining a lawyer’s job by making a global template for agreements,” Pothier says. Several managers also believe that artificial intelligence might one day take over some of the time-consuming contract-drafting duties.
Bohlender is attempting to create his own tech solution with Charta. “How do we create a more efficient way to draft contracts?” he asks. His platform aims to distill producer and side-artist agreements to a few key provisions that can be quickly negotiated and then slotted into standardized contracts.
But for now, Bohlender notes, solutions are scarce: “No one’s winning.”
Swiss-based tech company Utopia Music is undertaking a fresh round of job cuts. In a memo to staff on Friday (July 20), co-founder/interim CEO Mattias Hjelmstedt said the company is closing its research and development offices in the United Kingdom and Finland, resulting in the loss of around 5% of its global workforce.
The closures come less than a week after distribution and music services company Absolute Label Services was reacquired from Utopia by its original owners. Billboard understands that around 25 jobs are being lost as a result of London-based Utopia UK (R&D) Ltd and Helsinki-based Utopia R&D Tech Finland Oy being shuttered.
In the staff memo, Hjelmstedt says the cuts are being made in line with the company’s “shifting focus from hyper-growth to sustainable growth and profitability.” Moving forward, writes Hjelmstedt, Utopia’s office in the Swedish capital city Stockholm — where the majority of its engineers are based — will remain the firm’s main research and development hub as part of “a leaner and more efficient setup.”
Utopia’s 10 other employing divisions or companies are not affected by the cost-cutting measures. They include Proper Music Group, the United Kingdom’s leading independent physical music distributor which provides distribution services for 1,000-plus indie labels and service companies. Also unaffected is Utopia Distribution Services, which in September 2022 acquired the assets of Cinram Novum, one of the United Kingdom’s leading physical home entertainment suppliers that provides warehouse, fulfillment and distribution services to a range of labels, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and [PIAS].
“While not taken lightly, consolidating our R&D entities is a necessary step,” Hjelmstedt writes, “as it will enable us to more efficiently deliver new products and improve our existing services.” He adds that all impacted employees will be considered for any future openings.
Friday’s announcement marks the third round of layoffs to take place at Utopia in just under nine months. In November, around 230 posts were cut (then representing 20% of the company’s global workforce), followed by a further 100 redundancies in April. High-profile exits in 2023 have included former CEO Markku Mäkeläinen and Roberto Neri, the United Kingdom-based former CEO of Utopia’s Music Services division.
Twelve months ago, when Utopia was still turning heads throughout the industry on the back of a frenetic buying spree that saw it rapidly acquire 15 companies, the firm’s global workforce numbered around 1,200. Sources tell Billboard that following the closure of the London and Helsinki tech divisions – and the exit of a number of staff who were already in the process of leaving – the number of employees will be around 440.
Alongside job cuts, Utopia has offloaded three companies this year, the most recent being Absolute, which it acquired in early 2022. Other divestments in 2023 include U.S.-based music database platform ROSTR and United Kingdom-based publisher Sentric, which in April was sold to French music company Believe in a deal worth €47 million ($51 million).
In February, the Zug, Switzerland-based tech company was hit with a lawsuit from U.S. music technology company SourceAudio over a stalled acquisition deal. According to a complaint filed Feb. 13 in Delaware court, lawyers for California-based SourceAudio claim that Utopia owes the tech company over $37 million for failing to complete an agreed acquisition deal. (Utopia estimates that this will be settled in the next coming weeks.)
Following Friday’s announcement of more job losses, a spokesperson for Utopia said the company was “streamlining its organization to increase efficiency.” Despite the consolidation, Utopia will continue to develop its product offering, said the spokesperson, and its physical distribution business “remains a priority area.”
Read the memo in full below.
Dear colleagues,
2023 has been a year of transformation, optimization, and delivery. We have been shifting focus from hyper-growth to sustainable growth and profitability. We have taken the necessary, and sometimes difficult, decisions to get there. While we see the fruits of our actions taken so far – with more products on the market and increased sales traction – we need to further consolidate our research and development (R&D) organization. The main purpose for this consolidation is streamlining our operations to increase focus on delivering our market-ready products to the music industry.
Moving forward, Utopia R&D Stockholm will continue to be our main R&D hub. Through this concentration we will be able to build on the successes delivered through this entity with a leaner and more efficient setup. As part of this consolidation, we will close down two R&D entities, Utopia UK (R&D) Ltd, and Utopia R&D Tech Finland Oy. This will not impact our other 11 employing entities. Our Finnish and UK R&D offices represent a relatively small footprint in Utopia’s overall R&D teams and we have a very strong R&D office in Stockholm that will continue developing, maintaining, and improving our core products.
Our product offering and promise to deliver world class services to our customers also remains. However, we sadly have to say farewell to some very appreciated colleagues, who have greatly contributed to our mission through their hard work, as a result. I want to express my sincere apologies to those affected and would like to thank every one of you for your hard work – you have greatly contributed to our mission. I trust you to bid the employees who are leaving a heartfelt farewell – they deserve all the respect and support we can give. All impacted employees will of course be considered for any future openings.
I’m extremely proud of all the hard work you have put in so far, and continue to deliver. The output from this last six-week cycle was truly amazing – you keep showing impressive dedication, competence, and passion. I’m convinced that we are fully equipped to continue delivering superior services to the music industry through our current customer offerings; Distribution, Radio Monitoring, TrackNClaim, Enhance & Discover, HeartBeat, and Accelerate. While not taken lightly, consolidating our R&D entities is a necessary step to realize our long-term vision of Fair Pay for Every Play as it will enable us to more efficiently deliver new products and improve our existing services.
Mattias
YouTube raised prices on the individual plans for both YouTube Premium and YouTube Music for new and current U.S.-based subscribers on Thursday (July 20), marking the first time YouTube Premium has increased prices for individual plans in the United States since launching in 2018. Subscribers to YouTube Premium will pay $13.99 per month, up from […]
A home that Las Vegas police searched this week in connection with the 1996 drive-by shooting of Tupac Shakur is tied to a man long known to investigators, whose nephew had emerged as a suspect shortly after the rapper’s killing.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department confirmed it served a search warrant Monday in the neighboring city of Henderson. But the department hasn’t released other details, including whether they expect to make an arrest for the first time in the slaying of the rapper nearly 30 years ago.
Public records, including voting records, link the property to the wife of Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a self-described “gangster” and the uncle of Orlando Anderson, one of Shakur’s known rivals who authorities have long suspected in the rapper’s death. Anderson denied involvement in Shakur’s killing at the time, and died two years later in an unrelated gang shooting in Compton, California.
A copy of the warrant obtained Thursday by The Associated Press shows detectives collected multiple computers, a cellular telephone, “documentary documents,” a Vibe magazine that featured Shakur, several .40-caliber bullets, two “tubs containing photographs” and a copy of Davis’ 2019 memoir, ”Compton Street Legend.”
Residents of a suburban small Henderson neighborhood — nestled in the foothills of the city about 20 miles southeast of the Las Vegas Strip — said they saw officers detain two people outside the home while investigators searched the one-story property.
“There were cruisers and SWAT vehicles. They had lights shining on the house,” said Don Sansouci, 61, who had just gone to bed with his wife when a swirl of blue and red police lights stirred them awake sometime after 9 p.m.
Sansouci said he watched from the sidewalk Monday night as a man and a woman stepped outside of a house surrounded by police, place their hands behind their heads and slowly walk backwards toward the officers.
The case is being presented to a grand jury in Las Vegas, according to a person with direct knowledge of the investigation who was not authorized to speak publicly. The timing and results of those proceedings was unclear, and the person did not identify the two people whom police encountered at the house.
The person confirmed that investigators seized computers, published materials and photos, along with copies of Davis’ 2019 memoir titled “Compton Street Legend.”
Sansouci said he and his wife don’t know the people who live in the home. He described the area as “a nice, quiet cul-de-sac neighborhood” where most residents keep to themselves.
It was not immediately known if Davis has a lawyer who can comment on his behalf, and messages left for Davis and his wife, Paula Clemons, weren’t returned. Records show the two were married in Clark County, Nevada, in 2005.
News of the search breathed new life into Shakur’s long-unsolved killing, which has been surrounded by conspiracy theories. There have never been any arrests, yet attention on the case has endured for decades.
Shakur’s death came as his fourth solo album, “All Eyez on Me,” remained on the charts, with some 5 million copies sold. Nominated six times for a Grammy Award, Shakur is largely considered one of the most influential and versatile rappers of all time.
On the night of Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur was riding in a black BMW driven by Death Row Records founder Marion “Suge” Knight in a convoy of about 10 cars. They were waiting at a red light a block from the Las Vegas Strip when a white Cadillac pulled up next to them and gunfire erupted. Shakur was shot multiple times and died days later.
The shooting unfolded shortly after a casino brawl earlier in the evening involving Anderson, Shakur and their associates.
There were many witnesses, but the investigation quickly stalled, in part because those witnesses refused to cooperate, Las Vegas police said in the past.
That silence broke, to a point, in 2018, when Davis — saying he was ready to speak publicly after a cancer diagnosis — admitted to being in the front seat of the Cadillac. In an interview for a BET show, he implicated his nephew in the shooting, saying Anderson was one of two people in the backseat.
Davis said the shots were fired from the back of the car, though he stopped short of naming the shooter, saying he had to abide by the “code of the streets.”
But in his memoir, Davis said he shared what he knew nearly a decade earlier in closed-door meetings with federal and local authorities who were investigating the possibility that Shakur’s slaying was linked to the March 1997 drive-by shooting of his rap rival, the Notorious B.I.G.
“They offered to let me go for running a “criminal enterprise” and numerous alleged murders for the truth about the Tupac and Biggie murders,” Davis said in his book. “They promised they would shred the indictment and stop the grand jury if I helped them out.”
At the time of their deaths, both rappers were involved in an infamous East Coast-West Coast rivalry that primarily defined the hip-hop scene during the mid-1990s. The feud was ignited after Shakur was seriously wounded in another shooting during a robbery in the lobby of a midtown Manhattan hotel.
Shakur openly accused B.I.G. and Sean “Diddy” Combs of having prior knowledge of the shooting, which both vehemently denied. It sparked a serious divide within the hip-hop community and fans.
Davis wrote that he “went ahead and started answering their questions about the events leading up to Tupac getting shot.”
“I sang because they promised I would not be prosecuted,” he said, adding that he thought they were lying about the deal. “But they kept their word and stopped the indictment, tore up the whole case. Nobody went to jail.”
It’s unclear if Davis has been living in the home Las Vegas police searched this week and whether he was present when officers descended on the property. Las Vegas court records show there has been an active warrant out for his arrest since July 2022, when he failed to appear in court on a drug charge.
In 2022, SoundExchange reported that collections fell slightly to $1.017 billion from 2021’s $1.06 billion — a decrease of about $43 million, or 4.1%. Likewise, distributions fell 3.4% to $959 million from 2021’s $993 million.
However, those collection decreases mainly appear to be due to either revenue or content payout declines from digital services in direct licensing arrangements with labels as well as from foreign collection societies.
Of the $1.017 billion in total collections, $813 million was derived from statutory royalties, while $204 million was paid to SoundExchange via direct licensing deals between labels and services and from foreign collection societies. That’s a drop from the prior year when statutory royalty payments to SoundExchange were $824 million and direct licensing payments were $236 million. So while the statutory royalties fell slightly by $11 million — a decline of 1.3% — the bulk of the decline, or $32 million, was due to a 13.6% fall in direct licensing payments and from foreign societies.
Overall, SoundExchange president/CEO Michael Huppe declared 2022 a “tremendous year” for SoundExchange, in a note leading the organization’s annual report.
“Living up to our mission to foster an equitable music industry where all creators can thrive, the company collected $1.017 billion digital royalties from more than 3,600 digital streaming platforms and distributed them to more than 600,000 creators and rights holders,” Huppe wrote in the note. “In doing so, the company crossed the $[10] billion threshold for distributing royalty payments since its inception in 2003.”
As a percentage of revenue, SoundExchange claims a 6.6% operating administration rate or a 7.2% consolidated administration rate. Either way, the organization claims it has “maintained one of the music industry’s lowest admin rates.
However, expenses grew a whopping 17.5% to $74 million from the prior year’s total of $63 million. While SoundExchange didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, the cost increase could have been due to costs associated with upgrades to the organization’s technological infrastructure.
According to Huppe’s note in the annual report, SoundExchange also “unveiled a suite of next-generation solutions to make the business of music easier and fairer — including a new look, a new website that serves as a resource for creators, publishers, and digital service providers, and a mobile app to give creators easy on-the-go access to their accounts.”
Its expense structure is also undoubtedly impacted by finding and paying the correct rights holders, particularly on the indie artist side of things. According to a press release, “SoundExchange collects and distributes digital performance royalties on behalf of 650,000 music creators and growing.”
Finally, SoundExchange attributed the $10 billion in distributions to date to its “proprietary music tech solutions that turn data into accurate revenue.”
Owning and operating a record store was never the career plan for Ashli Todd. Sure, her father Nick ran Spillers Records in Cardiff, Wales, for decades, and she grew up helping out at the shop to earn spending money (it was either that, she explains, or “clean up s–t in the chicken shed”). But Todd insists that taking over was “never discussed as a succession situation,” nor did the part-time employee ever sit around the store thinking of ways to run it differently.
So in the late ‘00s, when Nick Todd – facing skyrocketing rent, a divorce and the ongoing nosedive of physical music sales – decided to retire and sell the store, she didn’t for a second consider taking it over. But after several deals with interested parties fell through and her father made moves to shutter the shop permanently, something in her head clicked: This couldn’t happen to a living piece of music history.
Founded in 1894 by Henry Spiller in Cardiff’s Queen’s Arcade, Spillers’ claim to fame is that it’s the oldest record store in the world (other stores may lay similar claims, but Spillers stands out in that it can prove it’s been continuously selling records since the 19th century). If you think vinyl is retro, consider this — when this store opened, vinyl wouldn’t become the norm for a half century; sound recordings at the time came via wax cylinders or heavy discs made of hard rubber or shellac, and were mostly a cost-ineffective novelty.
“With Spillers Records being the world’s oldest record shop, I felt it would be an awful sign — to the industry, the world, whoever cares — about the state of the physical music and independent music retailing, specifically,” Todd says of what motivated her to take action when the store faced its final act.
Suddenly, despite having an art degree and mostly part-time experience at the front of the store, she was learning employee contract laws, negotiating deals and eyeballing new locations. Within six months, “It went from ‘it’s going to shut’ to ‘I’ve got a business plan, and I’m going to give it a go,’” she recalls, shaking her head as if struggling to parse a half-remembered dream. “When I reflect on it, it seems absolutely bonkers.”
Back in 2010, a physical music store was, simply put, a bad investment. Vinyl’s comeback seemed like a pipe dream maintained by an aging, niche demographic, and the vast majority of artists didn’t even bother putting out new releases on wax. But Todd — a music junkie whose teenage favorites were Sparklehorse, Placebo, Mogwai and “anything and everything that [BBC Radio DJ] John Peel played” — saw a few signs of encouragement that made her think the vinyl market would improve despite it being “s–t” when she took over. One was Record Store Day, a U.S.-born event that had crossed the pond to encourage U.K. vinyl fanatics to support ailing indie stores throughout the tough times.
The other was Jack White. “That guy, that label [Third Man], people were nuts for it,” she states. “At a time where everything was like, ‘You don’t need to pay for music or even look at album artwork,’ (he motivated) people (to think), ‘I must have this record, it’s a limited this or that.’” While Third Man started in 2001, it was around 2008 – the year after the White Stripes’ final album – that the label’s trend-bucking efforts to turn vinyl back into a hot commodity began in earnest.
“It made things feel magical again,” she says. The mystical appeal of vinyl was something Todd understood on a personal level. “I’m the kid who bought 7-inches I couldn’t play,” she says, sharing that as a teen without a record player, she would nevertheless track down hard-to-find singles after hearing them on Peel’s show, simply to own a physical token of a cool band.
As Record Store Day and Third Man began stoking fervor for vinyl based on limited-edition pressings and products with a distinct visual aesthetic, she intuited that that Spillers’ future might not be as grim as her father – who oversaw the store during the big-money heyday of the ‘70s and ‘80s — feared.
The recovery wasn’t immediate for Spillers, but it did come. With the rent at the shop’s long-time (but not original) location set to quadruple, Todd moved it to a nearby locale in Queen’s Arcade, where it reopened under her ownership in 2010. The store – tucked away in a cute, slightly Byzantine city center that’s walking distance from a train station (a high-speed line can make the trip from London to Cardiff in two hours) – features a thoughtfully curated selection of everything from MF Doom to Lana Del Rey and plenty of colorful merch that proudly trumpets the 1894 birth year. Beyond Spillers’ historicity, Todd also takes pride in Spillers as a Welsh institution, greeting me in Welsh when I enter the store and drawing my attention to a portion of the stacks devoted specifically to vinyl from Welsh artists (on her advice, I picked up two records from North Wales surf rock instrumentalists Y Niwl).
These days, the issues facing Spillers are less existential and more operational: increased vinyl prices, slow order turnaround times and delivery delays caused by Brexit-related workforce shortages. In her eyes, Brexit has been worse for business than the pandemic. “Twelve years of Tory rule has not benefitted this country in the slightest,” she muses. “Even when you’re dealing with best case scenario, it only takes one thing being off…. In terms of providing a service to customers, it doesn’t feel great. It’s unstable, and everything is stretched to the point of breaking,” she says, before adding with a laugh, “But other than that it’s brilliant.”
As Todd continues full-steam-ahead into her second decade of running Spillers, she’s acquired a greater understanding of her father, too. “(Growing up), work was the big time-consuming thing for him, and now that I’m in the same position, I completely understand it,” she says with a touch of exhaustion, having already worked several hours on her off-day. Still, plenty of surprises keep her energized about running the store, including its changing demographics.
“I will be honest. Pre-pandemic, the general feeling was like, ‘Our customer base is getting older,’” she recalls. “Now, I’m absolutely blown away by the age range — and seeing more women as well.” Todd cites the increased popularity of vinyl from Taylor Swift, Harry Styles and hip-hop artists as pushing younger generations to get excited about the format. “That’s one of my favorite things.”
The other? “Seeing which bands of my era have made an impression and stick with people. I’m not telling people what to listen to, but it is lovely seeing which artists have remained relevant.” Her eyes sparkle when she shares that Placebo remains a regular seller at Spillers: “For 13-year-old me, it’s thrilling every time someone buys them.”
Over just seven or eight months, touring has evolved from an emotional nightmare for small and mid-range touring acts to what many managers and agents say is a booming, healthy business. But the influx of artists hitting the road midway through 2023 continues to cause supply-and-demand challenges — specifically around vehicles and crew.
“Everybody seems to be out on the road and all the shows seem to be doing really, really well,” says Joady Harper, CEO and founder of Rocky Road Touring, the agency for Sisters of Mercy, Killing Joke, Peter Murphy and others. “It’s almost like all the problems are because of how successful everything is. I feel like the clock struck 12 on Dec. 31, and I haven’t put the phone or the computer down ever since. It’s just been go, go, go.”
Late last year, club and theater acts were despondent as they returned to touring after the COVID-19 pandemic. Supply-chain issues meant they had to scramble for backline equipment, personnel shortages made it impossible to track down truck and bus drivers and inflation meant touring artists came home with less money. And while things have improved dramatically — especially in terms of obtaining equipment, which has become much easier this year — some of those problems linger.
For touring acts, the biggest issue remains difficulty in procuring buses, especially on short notice. During the pandemic, many drivers left the business, and bus companies’ fleets were designed for a much lower level of demand. Now, with more acts on the road, personnel and vehicle shortages have led to higher prices. Andy Vickery, tour manager for rockers Boys Like Girls, reserved vehicles and crew for a September club-and-theater tour six months ahead of time, compared to what might have taken a few days ahead of the group’s previous tour in 2016.
Vickery says prices also remain “astronomical” for vehicles and crew. Dave Chavarri, drummer for New Jersey metal band Ill Niño, says bus prices have increased by 40—50% since 2019 — from around $690 a week pre-pandemic to at least $1,200 per week now, not counting a $500-per-day driver and hundreds of dollars in daily fuel costs. And a semi-truck that cost $30,000 per month to haul production equipment pre-pandemic is often “almost double” today, says Vickery. That’s not to mention additional costs for things like maintenance and internet service.
Liam Pesce, manager of shock-metal band GWAR, says some bands lease older buses and save as much as $1,000 per day — but those vehicles tend to break down more frequently, and “you get what you pay for,” he says. “With GWAR, we take what we can get, because there’s a shortage lately.” Inflation has decreased significantly over the past year, but gas prices remain high in much of the United States, particularly on the West Coast and in the Northeast, in addition to the higher costs of drivers and in-demand crew members — forcing small-to-mid-level acts to cut costs. Some have no choice but to set a grueling schedule on the road, often performing five or six nights straight. This can lead to fatigue for artists and crew — particularly singers, who often aren’t able to take needed breaks between shows to recuperate.
“They can’t afford to take days off. You’re still paying your staff weekly,” says Chavarri of Ill Niño, which begins a tour in October with Cradle of Filth and DevilDriver. “But a singer can only do so much with vocal chords. You have to rest.”
Brian Schwartz, who manages Dinosaur Jr. and other touring acts, adds that many bands are reluctant to raise prices due to fans’ own financial hardships as a result of inflation, but the artists still have to pay the increasing prices for hotels, buses and crews. (Managers of international acts say it’s also costly and time-consuming to come up with U.S. visas for touring — and those costs could go up even further this year.) “It’s still very much a reality we’re all having to deal with. It just becomes harder to tour,” Schwartz says.
While megastar stadium and arena acts are able to absorb the higher costs, artists at the club and theater level have had to rethink their businesses — and even create new ones. In response to higher bus prices, Chavarri used his music-business connections to start a bus-rental company, TBA Bus Co., with a fleet of 10 vehicles, along with his wife and a friend, charging lower-than-average prices to customers like Mos Def, Coal Chamber and his own band and tourmates.
Artists are finding a variety of other ways to make the tougher conditions work. Miles Sherman, who co-manages rock band Bad Omens with former Good Charlotte guitarist Benji Madden, says the band’s staff has simply worked harder to manufacture merch, find deals, ramp up production and adapt to adversity. When New Jersey’s Bamboozle festival, where Bad Omens was slated to perform, abruptly canceled in April, the band pivoted to setting up a last-minute local pop-up store and meet-and-greet.
“It’s been difficult but also rewarding,” Sherman says. “All the tours have been selling extremely well and we continue to level up.”
Harper adds that agents and managers have become skilled at planning for tours farther in advance than ever before — unlike late 2021 and early 2022 when vaccines started to kick in and many artists rushed back to the road on short notice. She’s hopeful that “kids who came of age during COVID” are finally able to see the bands they discovered online, creating what she calls “a brand-new, gig-going audience.”
Schwartz, who also manages Dawes and Hiss Golden Messenger, is more cautiously optimistic about the economic future of touring at this level. “We’re in this hybrid space,” he says, “where it’s not as bad as it was six months ago, it’s not as good as it can be, but we’re getting there.”
With Taylor Swift hiring one of her longtime lawyers as the new general counsel for her 13 Management, Billboard dug into the many cases he’s handled for the superstar – including a bizarre trademark battle with an “Evermore” theme park and Taylor’s high-profile assault accusations against a radio DJ.
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As reported Tuesday by The Wall Street Journal, Swift’s company is set to hire Douglas Baldridge, a veteran litigator at the major Washington, D.C.-based law firm law firm Venable, as the new top attorney for her company in the fall. He’s replacing Jay Schaudies, who the Journal says is retiring.
Though he’s technically a new hire at 13 Management, Baldridge and Swift are hardly strangers. From his position as outside counsel at Venable, Baldridge has repped Swift and her company for years in a number of major lawsuits.
His work for the star first made headlines in 2017, when he represented her in a high-profile battle with a Denver radio DJ named David Mueller, who Swift claimed had groped her at photoshoot. Mueller sued Swift for defamation, claiming her accusations were false and had cost him his job. Taylor quickly countersued, accusing Mueller of civil assault and battery over the incident.
At a jury trial in August 2017, Baldridge was direct with jurors in his closing statement: “The guy did it. Don’t be fooled. Don’t be snookered.” After just four hours of deliberations, the jury agreed – rejecting Mueller’s allegations and holding him liable for assault and battery. After the verdict was read, Taylor blinked back tears and mouthed “thank you” to Baldridge and her other attorneys.
His work for Swift dates back even further, though. In 2014, Baldridge and other Venable lawyers defended the star in a lawsuit filed against her by a small apparel company called Lucky 13, which accused Swift of infringing its trademarks by selling T-shirts featuring that same phrase. After an extended battle over whether the star would be forced to sit for a deposition, the case ended in a settlement the next year.
One of Baldridge’s biggest recent wins for Taylor came in 2021, when a Utah fantasy theme park called Evermore sued her for trademark infringement, claiming her smash-hit acoustic album was threatening to “crowd out” its own brand name.
But Swift’s lawyers quickly flipped the script. They filed a countersuit claiming it was the theme park that was in the wrong, for allegedly neglecting to pay royalties for playing Taylor’s songs for their customers – not just over loud speakers, but with live performances by the theme park’s character performers. They argued the park had even sought out retroactive licenses to cover up its wrongdoing.
“Defendants are making a thinly-veiled attempt to fabricate a record to justify and retroactively authorize their intentional infringement that has gone unabated since Evermore Park opened in 2018,” Baldridge wrote in that complaint. “However, a cover-up attempt now does not and cannot erase years of willful and knowing infringement.”
A month later, the park dropped its case with no money changing hands.
Baldridge also represented Swift in the epic copyright case over the lyrics to “Shake It Off,” but as part of a larger defense that also heavily featured veteran music copyright litigator Peter Anderson of the firm Davis Wright Tremaine. That case ended in a settlement in December.
As he gears up to step into the general counsel role, Baldridge is currently defending the star from another copyright lawsuit, this one filed over a companion book for her album Lover. In that case, a woman named Teresa La Dart claims Taylor stole key elements of the book’s design from her own self-published book of poetry.
In a February response to those allegations, Baldridge didn’t hold back – arguing that the case should be dismissed immediately because it failed in every way possible: “This is a lawsuit that never should have been filed, as it is legally and factually baseless.”