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Toby Gad’s music career began in the late ‘80s – and like many long careers in music, it has hardly been a straight line rising to the top. If anything, the German songwriter-producer’s journey brings to mind a hiking trail that winds through a mountain range: There have been tough, uphill ascents, breathtaking overlooks, extended rest stops and the occasional detour.
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Over the last couple decades, Gad has written songs for and with stars including Beyoncé (“If I Were a Boy”), Demi Lovato (“Skyscraper”), Madonna (“Living for Love”), Fergie (“Big Girls Don’t Cry”) and John Legend (“All of Me”), with the latter two songs topping the Billboard Hot 100.
Following a whirlwind period of hitmaking, Gad looked at his jam-packed schedule and decided to take a bit of a breather in the mid ‘10s. After becoming what he calls a bit of a “surf bum” in Los Angeles, he found himself back in the industry when Deutschland sucht den Superstar – the German version of the Idol franchise – invited him on the show as a judge.
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The stint reinvigorated Gad, who is currently back in L.A. and prepping for the release of Piano Diaries – Volume One. The album, slated for a mid 2024 release, finds him reimagining some of his signature songs, tapping previous collaborators (Keke Palmer, Victoria Justice) and fresh faces (Camylio) for new, stripped-down versions. Last month, he previewed the project on The Kelly Clarkson Show (a TV program hosted by yet another one of his star collaborators) with an intimate performance of “Big Girls Don’t Cry” featuring Justice on vocals.
Ahead of the release of Piano Diaries – Volume One, Gad spoke to Billboard via Zoom from his poolside L.A. studio, which boasts a grand piano (the one he and Legend wrote “All of Me” on) and a gorgeous view of the city – not bad for someone who spent several years living on instant soup in New York City waiting for that career-making song.
You were recently on The Kelly Clarkson Show, and you’ve known her for years. What’s it been like to watch her become this big daytime TV star in America?
I’m really happy for her. The first time we worked together on the Stronger album — before we even got into studio — she asked if we can go out for dinner. So we met in Silver Lake and had a dinner together. And we were just chatting away for two hours. And she’s such a wonderful, warm-hearted person and wants to know about your family and tells you all about her life and her family. And I think that’s why she has this show — because she loves talking to people. She has a very approachable way. If she talks to you, you instantly feel like, “We could be friends.”
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On her show, you performed a reimagining of “Big Girls Don’t Cry” with Victoria Justice. What was it about Justice that made you reach out to her for this particular song?
She has actually not sang for a long time. She’s put a lot of energies into just acting and then recently she began releasing some music again. There’s one song, “Only A Stranger,” that she released which is very soft. And when I heard that I just was really curious to see what she would sound like on “Big Girls Don’t Cry” with a soft rendition, because the [original] song is Fergie’s belting voice. It worked out and she was totally happy that I called her. We were having so much fun. If you look into her TikTok, there’s dozens of little video clips of us climbing mountains or going through L.A., surfing together. Anything we can connect to the song, it’s so much fun. We actually were just in Baja for three days writing a few more songs.
So there’s more coming with her?
That won’t be Piano Diaries, but for her, we just wrote some stuff for her. And it was a lot of fun.
You mentioned TikTok — what do you think of it? It’s become such a big part of the music industry.
Short answer, I think it’s an amazing opportunity in general – TikTok, Instagram, being able for artists to have a direct conduit to their fans and directly let people hear what they’re doing. This is such a blessing. Most of my career was the old days where you would depend on record labels. Between you and the listener, there was always label. Now any artist anyone can just release something and publish it. And that’s incredible. I love that. And just recently, we restarted my Kite Records record label, and we’re releasing Piano Diaries on that via AWAL and Orchard. And it’s such an incredible opportunity. I love it.
You also have “Little Do You Know” with Keke Palmer and Aloe Blacc. You worked with Keke, what, 15 years ago?
When she came from Akeelah and the Bee and had Barbershop with Queen Latifah, then she got a record deal with Atlantic Records. We wrote a few songs – I think I had three songs on that Atlantic Records record — and she must have been 12 or 13 years old. I have some videos from back then — she always wanted to do the trust fall with me. She was such a powerful, driven kid back then already. I called her up and she was like, “Yes! Let’s do it.” Aloe is the sweetest, too, they have amazing chemistry.
So with Keke, have you kept in touch all these years?
I reached out to her last year — I was a judge on German Idol, and we filmed a documentary about my life for the German network. I asked her to be part of that and she was happy to come over and give some interviews. And that was nice. I actually reached out to a bunch of people: John Legend, Leona [Lewis], Natasha [Bedingfield], Colbie Caillat, everyone did little interviews about the relationships we’ve had work-wise and it made it onto this one-hour documentary that aired in Germany. “Bottoms Up” is one of the songs we had back then and also True Jackson, VP, her TV show, we did the title song. So every now and then our lives intersect.
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You also have a new version of “Skyscraper” that you did with Camylio. He has such an amazing voice, how did he come across your radar?
I heard of Camylio a while ago and that was actually a little trickier because he’s signed to Universal/Republic so we had to convince his label. I’ve been a fan of his voice for a while, we’ve written together every now and then. I just wanted to hear it with a male voice — with a very strong male voice — and I think he did a beautiful job on it. We haven’t locked in the next single yet, but we have “All of Me,” which is going to be Colbie Caillat, and for “If I Were a Boy” or “Untouched,” but I’m not sure who it’s going to be. Who would you want to hear on these songs?
God, great question, putting me on the spot. Maybe SZA on “If I Were a Boy”? I don’t know. I did want to ask about that song. You co-wrote it with BC Jean, but how did you go about putting yourself in the mindset to write from a female perspective or to help enable that perspective?
With BC Jean, I had done 10 songs with her back then, we found each other on MySpace. This was one time where we just did a little pizza run from the studio in New York — I had a studio on 46th between 5th and 6th — and we were walking down the street and she was ranting about a boyfriend and said, “Well, if I were a boy, I would kick his ass.” Or something like that. And I was like, “Wait a minute, did you just say, ‘if I were a boy?’ That’s a great line. Let’s go back to the studio and write more of what you would do if you were a boy.” I got the guitar out and we were just line-by-line thinking all the all the things she would do different if she were a boy.
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What made you want to do this album in the first place, to revisit these songs in a stripped-down context. What inspired that idea?
Well, “Big Girls Don’t Cry” I wrote 20 years ago with Fergie. “All of Me” now has its 10th anniversary. When I hear them on the radio I feel like I want to record them how I hear them today. And I also wanted to make a collection with the songs that have defined my career. Also, when I write songs, I usually write on the piano here. This is the piano I like to write on – we wrote “All of Me” on this piano. Quite often, the first version of a song is piano-vocal, and I wanted to let people hear that. It has an intimacy to it. I felt it would be great to have an album where those songs are stripped down and you dig in a little deeper into the lyric. But then also remixes where it can go crazy with different styles.
So “All of Me” was written on that piano. Was it in the exact room you’re in right now?
Yeah, right in here. John was so in love with Chrissy [Teigen] and said he wanted to write a song for her. And he already had the words, “all of me loves all of you,” and he had the first chord. And then from there we just built it together. I’m still very much in love with my wife, and I was thinking, “What I would want to sing to her?” And we were trading places at the piano and an hour and a half later, it was done.
Amazing. That’s just two people in a room. I’ve read an interview with you where you opine that having a big team of songwriters can spoil a song. Why is that, for you?
Personally, to me, I think authenticity is very important. If it comes straight from a journal, basically, the song feels like it’s out of the moment and an urgent, honest emotion put into music. Then it resonates the most with me. And I think if you have many people in the room, everyone contributes their idea from a different angle, and it has a danger of possibly becoming a more generic song versus something that just happens to be really weird and original. “All of Me” isn’t weird but it touches on something in a very authentic way. It’s a love song that feels like, “Wow, he’s really in love at that moment.” I love that about songs if they feel personal.
I also want to ask about Madonna, because you worked on Rebel Heart. I gather there were some sessions where you were waiting around but she didn’t show up?
Waiting around? That was Beyoncé. That was the days with Beyoncé and Jay-Z where I was on hold for a week, and she didn’t show up the first three days. With Madonna, we had a writing camp from Interscope and she didn’t come to the writing camp. But then Interscope convinced me to do another writing camp in New York that time it was in a studio next to Alicia Keys’ studio. And they actually did show up the first day. It was very intimidating at first, but then we kind of bonded and we ended up doing five weeks together.
How was it songwriting with her?
You know, at first it was Mozella and me and S1, he’s a beatmaker from Dallas. The three of us prepared ideas, we came in a little earlier in the studio, and then when she arrived, we showed her what we had just prepared. And fortunately, she liked the ideas, and then she sat down with us. And those were just rough ideas, like a beginning of a chorus or a little hook or something. Then we worked on it together and finished it together. I recorded her and we got a routine going. And later on, she was in the studio with Diplo, and his career was exploding so he had very little attention for Madonna and Madonna was pissed. She said, “Let’s get Toby back in because he’s the finisher.”
“Living for Love,” which you worked on, is like the best song on the album.
Thank you so much. I’m debating if I should put that on the Piano Diaries album. I saw the tour right after we wrote those songs it was absolutely amazing to see how quickly she transformed those songs into something that could be performed on stage with all her acrobatics. It was such a beautiful payoff to the writing sessions, to see those songs visualized. She’s such a star on stage. It’s unbelievable.
I also wanted to ask about the new Milli Vanilli documentary. At the start of your career, you had some writing credits on their debut album. When did you realize there was some fakery going on?
We’ve never met the guys. Frank Farian took us to the studio and we recorded the three songs. And then like a week or two after that album was finished and on the charts, it was such a quick turnaround. We were pretty much watching it from the outside. We heard the rumors that they didn’t sing, but it only became really clear after the tape started jamming, and then when they had to return the Grammy. The movie is well done. It’s super entertaining. And it’s so funny, because while these things unfolded, I was in the studio with Frank but working on our album, my brother and me we were doing an album called Q during that time. And I mean, Frank had a heart attack during that time — it really got to him and it was a sh-tstorm in the studio while they were touring in America doing all these big stadium tours. They came back and said, “We must sing on the [second album],” and Frank was like, “No, the album is finished. I’m not touching it anymore. It’s coming out.”
So he must have been panicking. Was he more anxious or angry?
All of that, all of the above. It was not easy for him. I mean, it was his biggest dream to make his mark in America. So in a way that was his, “Wow, finally.” He’s a massive producer in Germany with Boney M., but I don’t think America knows Boney M.
They had a couple hits in America, but never as big as the Milli Vanilli songs.
To have something resonate in America was for him a lifelong dream, and then it going so wrong was a disaster for Frank.
Were you ever worried about how it would affect your career?
No, because people loved the music. And it was just the fact that the performers didn’t really sing. They performed, they were dancing, and at the time, it was a bit more of a grey zone. A lot of singers would have backing tracks when they performed live and sing a few words, but the fact that they didn’t sing at all, that was hard.
You’re working on Piano Diaries now, and I gather it’s not finished. Is there anyone who you haven’t worked with who you would really like to, either on this project or in the future?
I would love to work with P!nk. I think it’s about time that we write a song. Somehow it’s never happened but I think it should.
Anything else you want to add about this project?
It’s a really exciting inflection point in my career. I came to America in 2000 with a lot of dreams and very little money. The first four or six years in New York were really, really hard. There were times when I was living on a bagel and an instant soup but I just couldn’t imagine going back to Germany — I had to write the song that would put me on the map. And okay, if we go from 2005-2006 – when “Big Girls Don’t Cry” was on the map – to 2015, which was kind of the culmination of all this amazing, incredible work with all these big stars. I was the No. 3 songwriter on Billboard [in 2014], which was incredible. And then I kind of dreamt of not working anymore. My calendar was two to three sessions every day for the next several months, and I thought, “When is this going to end?” [laughs] I pulled the plug and actually learned to surf, traveled, did some home renovations, started working on a movie I’m still working on, and then became a judge on German Idol. And that was such a great experience — being in front of the camera and being celebrated for being a songwriter — that I felt I needed to write songs again. From that, I was pushing hard again. The last two years, I was working really hard on getting good songs again, and with Piano Diaries I’m for the first time looking back on this incredible journey.
Fortnite owner Epic Games has reached an agreement with a celebrity choreographer to resolve his lawsuit claiming the company stole copyrighted dance moves, three months after a federal appeals court issued a first-of-its-kind ruling that allowed the case to move forward.
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In court filings on Monday, Epic and choreographer Kyle Hanagami asked a Los Angeles federal judge to dismiss his lawsuit, which had been schedule to go to trial in May. The terms of any kind of agreement were not made public, and neither side immediately returned requests for comment.
The lawsuit from Hanagami, who has worked with BTS, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Bieber and Britney Spears, claimed that Epic had turned his novel dance moves into lucrative “emotes” that Fortnite players could buy in the game – one of a spate of such cases over the use of viral dance moves in video games.
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In his complaint, he claimed that Epic had copied a routine he created to a Charlie Puth song and used it without permission as the basis for a Fortnite “emote” — a pre-programmed dance move that players can purchase from Epic and employ using their digital avatars. He called it “intentional misappropriation” of his “fame and hard work.”
Dancers and choreographers have fought for years to protect pop music routines — like JaQuel Knight, who has created dances for Beyoncé and Megan Thee Stallion. But federal courts and the U.S. Copyright Office for years largely rejected those efforts, often ruling that copyright law only covers more extensive choreography, like ballets.
In August 2022, Hanagami’s case faced that same fate. A federal judge tossed the case by ruling that Epic had copied only several unprotected “poses” from Hanagami’s routine in Fortnite, and that even when combined together, they were just a “short” routine that couldn’t be covered by copyright law.
But in November, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned that ruling, reviving Hanagami’s case and allowing it to move forward toward a jury trial. Calling its decision a “novel” ruling on “one of the oldest forms of human expression,” the appeals court said that dance copyrights should be analyzed more holistically — more similarly to how courts dissect copyrighted music.
“We see no reason to treat choreography differently,” the appeals court wrote. “Reducing choreography to ‘poses’ would be akin to reducing music to just ‘notes.’ Choreography is, by definition, a related series of dance movements and patterns organized into a coherent whole. The relationship between those movements and patterns, and the choreographer’s creative approach of composing and arranging them together, is what defines the work. The element of ‘poses,’ on its own, is simply not dynamic enough to capture the full range of creative expression of a choreographic work.”
That ruling sent the case back to the lower court for more proceedings, and a trial had been tentatively scheduled to begin in May.
Veteran music industry executive Jessica Rivera has joined multimedia company HOORAE — owned by actress, producer and entrepreneur Issa Rae — as president of its Raedio division. In her new post at Raedio, which is approaching its fifth anniversary, Rivera will supervise the “audio everywhere” division’s various operations including its record label, publishing, music supervision, […]
With SZA’s album SOS leading the way and the market enjoying more growth in streaming royalties, Sony Music’s revenue grew 16.0% to 422.1 billion yen ($2.85 billion at the period’s average exchange rate) in its fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31, the company announced Wednesday (Feb. 14).
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Other top releases for the quarter were Travis Scott’s Utopia, Rod Wave’s Nostalgia, Doja Cat’s Scarlet, Blink-182’s One More Time…, Tate McRae’s Think Later, Harry Styles’ Harry’s House and Fuerza Regida’s Pa Las Baby’s Y Belikeada. A couple holiday classics were amongst Sony’s top albums in the Christmas quarter: Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas and Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector.
Streaming fueled growth in both the recorded music and music publishing segments of the business. Paid subscriptions were a major factor in the first full quarter after Spotify raised prices in roughly 50 markets, including the U.S., in July. Favorable foreign exchange rates accounted for about 24% of the quarter’s 58.4 billion yen ($394.9 million) revenue increase.
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Its double-digit revenue growth was comparable on a percentage basis to other music companies that have released earnings. In the same quarter, Warner Music Group’s revenue grew 17.5% to $1.75 billion and Reservoir Media revenue improved 19% to $35.5 million. Spotify, the largest single source for music royalties globally, grew revenue by 16% to 3.67 billion euros ($4.05 billion).
Sony Music’s margins improved across the board, too. Operating income improved 20.8% to 76.1 billion yen ($514.4 million) and adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization jumped 25.3% to 98.5 billion yen ($666.2 million). Adjusted OIBDA margin improved nearly two percentage points to 23.3% from 21.6% in the prior-year quarter.
The strong quarter led Sony Music to raise its full-year forecasts for the third consecutive quarter. On Wednesday, the company raised the forecasts for both revenue and adjusted OIBDA by 10 billion yen ($68 million) — revenue from 1.56 trillion yen ($10.37 billion at the current exchange rate) to 1.57 trillion yen ($10.43 billion) and adjusted OIBDA from 350 billion yen ($2.33 billion) to 360 million yen ($2.39 billion). When the company released its fiscal second quarter earnings in November, it increased its revenue guidance by 5% to 70 billion yen ($485 million) and adjusted OIBDA by 4%, or 15 billion yen ($104 million). In August, it raised its revenue forecast by 6%.
Both music divisions each posted solid year-over-year gains in the quarter. Recorded music revenues jumped 19.9% to 286.5 billion yen ($1.94 billion). Streaming revenue rose 17.2% to 186.5 billion yen ($1.26 billion) and accounted for about 58% of the segment’s improvement. Physical revenue gained just 1.5% to 31.5 billion yen ($213.2 million). The “other” category — including merchandise, live performances and licensing revenue from synch, public performance and broadcast — jumped 45.9% to 59.7 billion yen ($403.9 million).
Music publishing revenue rose 16.1% to 86.1 billion yen ($582 million). Streaming revenue climbed 22.4% to 50.9 billion yen ($343.9 million) and accounted for 78% of the segment’s year-over-year gain. Publishing’s “other” category grew 8% to 35.2 billion yen ($238.1 million).
Visual media and platform revenue declined 5.1% to 45 billion yen ($304.4 million). The segment includes mobile gaming, software for PCs and game consoles, and software development contracts.
Financial metrics for Sony Music’s fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31, 2023:
Revenue of 422.1 billion yen ($2.85 billion), up 16.0% year over year.
Adjusted operating income of 98.5 billion yen ($666.2 million), up 25.3% year over year.
Recorded music of 286.5 billion yen ($1.94 million), up 19.9% year over year.
Music publishing revenue of 86.1 billion yen ($582 million), up 16.1% year over year.
Visual media and platform revenue of 45 billion yen ($304.4 million), down 5.1% year over year.
Oak View Group (OVG), the owner and operator of the 11,000-capacity Acrisure Arena near Palm Springs, Calif., has entered into a partnership agreement to manage, program and seek out new sponsorship opportunities for the historic Palm Springs Plaza Theatre, it was announced Tuesday (Feb. 13). Restoration work on the theater will begin in March 2024, with completion expected in fall 2025.
“This agreement between the City, the Palm Springs Plaza Theatre Foundation, and the Oak View Group is an economic game-changer,” said Scott Stiles, city manager of Palm Springs, in a statement. “The restoration of the historic Plaza Theatre is a major milestone in the Downtown Revitalization Plan and will bring the world’s best artists and culture to our revitalized downtown.”
John Bolton, senior vp of Oak View Group, added, “All of us at Oak View Group are thrilled to partner with the Plaza Theatre Foundation and its dedicated group of Board of Directors. We look forward to bringing the full breadth and scope of OVG to the table to make this City of Palm Springs asset shine and become a huge community and cultural asset in downtown Palm Springs.”
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Last year, OVG committed to donating $1 million to help fund the restoration of the Plaza Theatre and has agreed to waive all management fees, said Kevin J. Corcoran, vp of the Plaza Theatre Foundation, adding, “We have been impressed with the launch of the Acrisure Arena and the programming, sponsorship, and management expertise they have brought to the very successful first year of operation.”
The agreement provides the City of Palm Springs with a total of 21 days annually to offer public programming at the discretion of the city council. This programming would include the annual state of the city address, cultural and civic programs, and more.
“Oak View Group is internationally admired for their management of significant sporting, convention, arts, and entertainment venues,” said Palm Springs Plaza Theatre Foundation president J.R. Roberts. “We are delighted to have this strong community partner further commit to working with us to provide the expertise that this theatre needs to be a successful economic force in Palm Springs. We are especially thrilled to be working with Palm Springs resident and Oak View Group senior vice president John Bolton on this exciting collaboration. We are delighted that John has agreed to join our hard-working board of directors.”
Content ideas for the theater include concerts, chamber orchestra performances, film festivals, community meetings, conventions, cabaret performances, lectures, music festivals, ideas festivals, children’s programming, charity and fundraising events, and other theater performances and events. OVG will pursue corporate sponsorship to further support the Theatre.
The Palm Springs Plaza Theatre Foundation is continuing to raise funds to fully restore the venue, having raised $16 million of its $26 million goal to cover construction costs and contingencies along with startup expenses. The funds will help restore the building to its original state and update it to meet access, technology and equity needs. There are several naming opportunities still available, including a special theater naming option for a single $10 million donor.
Russell Simmons has been sued by a former Def Jam video producer over claims of rape and sexual assault that took place in the 1990s.
Billboard obtained the complaint filed to New York Federal Court on Tuesday (Feb. 12), which was filed under “Jane Doe” to protect the victim’s identity. She detailed the “devastating” experiences with the music mogul that led to her career being “derailed.”
Doe alleged that she was raped in the late ’90s by Simmons at his Manhattan apartment when she visited him at his residence to receive approval for a video.
While in his bedroom, she claimed that Simmons pinned her down with a “wrestling” move and proceeded to rape her despite her repeatedly professing her desire for him to stop his unwanted sexual advances.
Ms. Doe tried to continue her executive job at Def Jam but she suffered alleged panic attacks and developed an eating disorder and eventually moved across the country to California seeking new opportunities in 1997.
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She left three jobs throughout the two-year period following the alleged sexual assault at the hands of Simmons in part due to her crippling anxiety.
“As detailed in the complaint, our client was sexually assaulted and harassed by her boss, Russell Simmons, while pursuing her professional ambitions as an executive at Def Jam,” Doe’s attorney Kenya Davis relayed in a statement.
“She was proud of her contributions to the burgeoning musical genre of hip hop, but her hard work and her career in music was disrupted and derailed by Mr. Simmons, a rich and powerful celebrity whose wealth and influence allowed his abusive behavior to go unchallenged for decades. Now a successful writer and producer in the entertainment industry, Jane Doe’s traumatic experiences with Simmons echo those of so many other women who he has preyed upon for decades.”
Over the years, Jane Doe had encounters with Russell Simmons in various social settings and even ran into him at a yoga studio in Los Angeles circa March 2023. While they didn’t speak much in previous encounters, she asked if it was OK to practice next to him when he allegedly replied in a whisper, “Of course. What, do you think I’m gonna try and f— you?”
With the “lookback window” of New York’s Adult Survivors Act reopening, Jane Doe had the opportunity to file the federal lawsuit with the state where otherwise the statute of limitations would have expired. She’s suing Simmons for sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and false imprisonment.
Russell Simmons has been named the perpetrator in other sexual assault-related lawsuits in recent years. Since 2017’s allegations, multiple women have come forward recounting similar experiences with the Def Jam Records co-founder. He has maintained his innocence and claims to have passed “nine lie detector tests.”
iHeartMedia received $101.4 million from the sale of BMI, in which it held a minority stake, to New Mountain Capital, the company announced Monday (Feb. 12) through an SEC filing. The sale was finalized on Feb. 8. iHeartMedia had previously announced on Nov. 27 that it expected to receive approximately $100 million from the sale, […]
Roddy Ricch has defeated a copyright lawsuit that claimed the rapper stole key elements of his chart-topping 2019 song “The Box” from a decades-old soul song, with a judge ruling “no reasonable jury” would find the two songs similar.
Songwriter Greg Perry sued Ricch (real name Roderick Wayne Jr.) and Atlantic Records in 2022, claiming the hit track (which spent a whopping 11 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100) had been ripped off from Perry’s 1975 “Come On Down” — an oft-sampled song in the hip-hop world.
But in a decision Monday (Feb. 12), Judge Analisa Torres ruled that the two songs were clearly very different: “No reasonable jury could find that the works are substantially similar,” the judge wrote, noting “significant dissimilarities” between the “aesthetic appeal” of each track.
While Perry’s track is a “soul song that contains a melodic tune” and is performed with acoustic instruments, Judge Torres said, Roddy’s track is “a hip-hop song delivered in a monotone rap” created primarily with a synthesizer. The tempo of the older song is “significantly faster” than that of “The Box,” the judge added, and the overall “feel” of the two songs is also clearly distinct.
“[‘Come On Down’] is a sentimental song about ‘love and heartbreak,’ while ‘The Box’ is a braggadocious song about ‘amassing wealth, sleeping with multiple women, and being more skilled than other rappers’,” the judge wrote.
Perry’s lawyers filed the case back in December 2022, claiming an average music fan would be able to hear the “strikingly similar” aspects of the two tracks simply by listening to them, but that more thorough investigation by music experts has more conclusively proven the theft.
“Comparative analysis of the beat, lyrics, hook, rhythmic structure, metrical placement, and narrative context by a musicology expert demonstrates clearly and convincingly that ‘The Box’ is an unauthorized duplication and infringement of certain elements of ‘Come On Down,’” the suit read.
“Come On Down” is a popular sample in hip-hop — featured in both Young Jeezy’s 2008 “Wordplay” and Yo Gotti’s 2016 “I Remember.” Perry’s lawyers said both of those songs had been fully cleared and licensed by giving him a songwriting credit and an ownership stake.
“Other [artists] in the rap world that have chosen to copy elements of ‘Come On Down’ have done so legally and correctly,” Perry’s lawyers wrote. “Defendants chose not to license the musical composition from plaintiffs and instead chose to intentionally infringe upon the copyright.”
But in Monday’s decision, Judge Torres said there was no need for Ricch to secure such a license because his song did not infringe Perry’s tune. She said that the central alleged similarity — a so-called “ascending minor scale played by violin” that Perry claimed was repeated 24 times in Ricch’s song — was “expressed differently” in the two works. Other important elements of Perry’s work, like a so-called tremolando, are “notably absent” from “The Box,” she added.
“The musical composition … differs from ‘The Box in each of the components where plaintiff claims similarity,” the judge wrote. “Plaintiff has failed to demonstrate that defendants copied any protectable portion of the musical composition.”
With her ruling, Judge Torres dismissed Perry’s case permanently, ending the lawsuit entirely. Attorneys for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment on Tuesday.
Spurred by Kip Moore‘s massive touring success in Cape Town and Pretoria last year, South Africa is set to launch what organizers are calling one of the largest country music festivals outside of the United States.
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Kip Moore and Zac Brown Band will headline the Cape Town Country Festival on Oct. 26-27 at Cape Town’s 60,000-capacity DHL Stadium, which has previously hosted concerts from stars like U2, Foo Fighters, Mariah Carey, Rhianna and Justin Bieber.
“I absolutely love Africa and try to visit every year,” Zac Brown said in a statement. “We’re so excited that we get to perform at South Africa’s first-ever country music festival in October.”
The lineup also highlights American musicians including Darius Rucker, Brothers Osborne, Cam, James Johnston, Morgan Wade and Craig Morgan, as well as 10 local South African artists including Ricus Nel, Riaan Benade, Demi-Lee Moore, Juan Boucher, Appel, Ruhan du Toit, Brendan Peyper, Ivan Roux, West and Cheree. Additionally, Roan Ash, who moved to Nashville in 2022, will return to his hometown for the inaugural festival.
Wimpie van der Sandt of Heroes Events, who is also a DJ at BOK Radio, is producing the Cape Town Country Festival, with Red Light Management’s Gaines Sturdivant, one of Moore’s managers, serving as an executive consultant.
Moore’s headlining slot on the festival follows his successful trio of shows in Cape Town and Pretoria in 2023, where Moore sold 44,000 tickets. Van der Sandt was also instrumental in bringing those shows to South Africa.
The origins of Moore’s involvement with the festival and in building his audience in South Africa reach back to 2020 when Van der Sandt was introduced to Moore’s second studio album, 2015’s Wild Ones. Van der Sandt put Moore’s song “Heart’s Desire” on the radio during primetime hours.
“He said it caught like wildfire and people started calling and emailing trying to figure out who it was,” Moore tells Billboard via phone. “Then he did a deep dive into all my records and started playing lots of album cuts that I’ve always wanted to be singles, like ‘That Was Us’ and ‘The Bull.’ We had hits over there that we never even played live, like ‘Hey Old Lover’ and ‘Tennessee Boy.’ So when we played in South Africa, it was unlike anything I’d ever felt from a crowd. It was magical. And it was all from this one guy taking a chance and spinning my records.”
“The idea [for Cape Town Country Festival] was born from the success we had with Kip. We knew the synergy between South African music and country music — that wasn’t a surprise,” Van der Sandt tells Billboard. “When we saw the success we had with Kip, we knew we had a market. In South Africa, on our radio stations, they are used to Don Williams and Kenny Rogers, older country music. There’s not a lot of radio stations that play country music. We sort of introduced them to the new country and it took off. There were a lot of people that were skeptical about it, and didn’t know what was going to happen.”
Moore adds, “The beauty of what Wimpie did is that he doesn’t have any gatekeepers he has to get through. If he decides he likes something, he’ll roll the dice, take a chance and play it. He’s a true music lover. He’s a prime example that radio can still lead the way — they don’t have to just find out what’s streaming and follow it.”
Moore worked with Van der Sandt and Sturdivant on imagining the lineup. “I brought up Brothers Osborne — because I felt like if people were responding to what I’m doing, they’ll respond to Brothers Osborne. Darius Rucker has played in South Africa before. I said I loved the rawness in Morgan Wade’s voice,” Moore says, noting their previous collaboration, “If I Was Your Lover,” and imagining that they might perform the song together during the festival. “We’re super excited about shining a light on South African artists.”
The festival further evolves Moore’s touring success in the area as well as the vital scene of both country music fans and artists in South Africa. In 2023, Apple Music launched the country music competition series My Kind of Country, which highlighted international competitors. Nearly half of the competitors — including the competition’s eventual winner — hailed from South Africa. Moore says that he and his fest co-organizers are “super excited about shining a light on South African artists.”
Van der Sandt tells Billboard that they have a three-year agreement with the venue, with aims toward making the festival an annual event, on the scale of country music festivals such as Europe’s C2C: Country 2 Country festival and the Tamworth Country Music Festival in New South Wales, Australia.
Tickets for the event go on sale Feb. 16 at ctcfest.net, and will include special payment plans, allowing attendees to purchase tickets and pay over three, six or eight months.
For years, ASCAP and BMI were seen as the Coke and Pepsi of the performing rights management business — two giant entities with complicated formulas that seemed the same from a distance but quite different if you examined them closer. The November agreement to sell BMI to a group of investors led by New Mountain Capital, which was completed Feb. 8., has changed that — and the songwriters for whom they compete have already seen it in the marketing. BMI is making the case that a for-profit model will let it invest more aggressively in technology, among other things, while ASCAP pointed out on social media that “private equity never wrote an iconic love song.” The Pepsi Challenge seems quaint by comparison.
There were always differences between the two — ASCAP is governed by members, BMI was owned by its licensees; ASCAP charged a onetime $50 fee to join, while BMI was free, though that changed and now ASCAP is free to join and BMI charges $75. And although it’s hard to know for certain, this could end up being more of an evolution than a revolution: Nonprofits invest in technology and operations all the time, although it can be tricky, and the music business wasn’t exactly unsullied by greed before the days of private equity.
BMI and ASCAP collect and distribute more money than any other rights organizations in the world, though. So any changes in the way BMI operates — let alone whatever changes ASCAP makes in response — will reverberate through the entire competitive ecosystem to their less regulated U.S. rivals SESAC and GMR (which invite only the songwriters they want to join); to performing rights societies around the world; and ultimately to everyone who writes, owns or publishes songs.
New Mountain Capital wants a return on its investment, so BMI will need to make a profit — plus grow. Some of this will presumably come from higher-margin new businesses, including international venture — think cooperations or partnerships with societies in India, Africa or the Middle East. (BMI and ASCAP are subject to consent decrees that limit what other businesses they could get into in the U.S.) There’s already some competition in some of those places from European organizations, though.
Presumably, some of the profit is going to have to come from BMI’s traditional U.S. performing rights operations — and that won’t be easy, according to about a dozen rights organization and music publishing executives I spoke with for this column. (None has any inside knowledge about BMI’s plans.) Essentially, BMI will need to hold back enough of the money it collects to both cover its operating costs and make a profit on top of that, while paying its songwriters and publishers more than they can get from its rivals.
BMI has said a bit about how it plans to do that. In an Oct. 12 letter to “BMI affiliates and industry partners,” CEO Mike O’Neil said that for the next three years, BMI’s goal would be to retain 15% of its licensing revenue, as opposed to “around 10%,” although it would take a higher margin on “incremental growth we create for the company,” including acquisitions and new services. To make sure that additional 5% doesn’t come at the expense of songwriter and publisher royalties, BMI will need to negotiate deals that are significantly better than ASCAP’s on a consistent basis.
The only way to do that is to have the most in-demand repertoire from top songwriters like Taylor Swift, probably BMI’s biggest songwriter— and getting and retaining it may require offering better terms to top writers. That would almost presumably involve attractive advances (which all four U.S. performing rights organizations sometimes offer) and some form of bonus structure for top performers (which ASCAP and BMI offer, although their methodology differs). BMI said that advances have always been part of its strategy and it has no plans to change its general approach to this or its bonus structure, or its distribution policies. But what if BMI’s rivals also offer higher advances and better bonuses? If getting the best deal terms means having the best repertoire, they have every reason to do so.
The question is how those writers will be rewarded for the leverage they provide, and if Swift’s popularity helps her fellow songwriters, it’s only fair that she should benefit. But this can also create a temptation to pay out even more to the most successful writers — to give a bit more to Peter and a bit less to Paul and Mary. It’s good for everyone — until at some point it starts to feel unfair. And everyone who writes songs or manages those who do is either deeply concerned about this issue or simply eager to make sure they end up on the right side of it. Competition is all well and good, and it will be interesting to see which creators look for better deals and which stick with their current rights organization. (It can be harder than it should be to switch in some cases, which will be the subject of another column.) Ultimately, though, all these creators may find themselves fighting for bigger slices of the same pie.
