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Lady Gaga originally released “Bloody Mary” way back in 2011, but it only cracked the Hot 100 for the first time this January. The revival was due in part to a sped-up remix that careened around TikTok, soundtracking videos of users pairing up the track with an eccentric dance sequence from Wednesday, Netflix’s hit Addams Family update.
The surprise success of “Bloody Mary” in altered form presented Matt Kelly, operations manager and on-air personality for WVAQ in Morgantown, West Virginia, with a dilemma. “What version do we play?” he asks.
“The original is 100 beats per minute — so slow, relative to the new version that people are more familiar with,” he explains. “The sped-up is 130 bpm, but I hated that it sounded like Alvin and the Chipmunks.”
So Kelly split the difference by making his own 120-bpm edit to play on the air. “It appeases the ear like it’s the sped-up version,” he says, “but I kept the pitch correction — so it sounds like Gaga, not Alvin.”
Homemade remixes, often sped-up or slowed-down, have been a hallmark of the TikTok era. In recent months, they’ve helped rejuvenate years-old songs from Lady Gaga and Miguel and driven swarms of listeners to newer releases from Lizzy McAlpine and Raye. In some ways, the music industry has adapted — it’s become common to see artists release official tempo-shifted versions of songs that have started to bubble back up, for example. Streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music, have playlists dedicated to these releases; SiriusXM launched TikTok Radio, which program director Marie Steinbock envisions as “completely reflective of exactly what is trending on TikTok.”
But much remains the same: Even if a sped-up remix is ubiquitous on TikTok, the original version of the track tends to get most of the exposure. There are no sped-up remixes in Today’s Top Hits, the most followed playlist on Spotify, for example. And even when labels decide to promote revived songs to radio, they push the original, so that’s usually what saturates the airwaves. The Weeknd’s “Die For You” topped Billboard’s Radio Songs chart in February, more than six years after its release, with the normal-speed version earned the overwhelming majority of its plays.
Can sped-up renditions thrive in the wild, or do they function primarily within the confines of TikTok? Homemade remixes will only become more prevalent in years to come, thanks to platforms that make it so easy to futz with audio. (Meng Ru Kuok, CEO of music technology company BandLab, is fond of saying that they “think everyone is a creator, including fans.”) In this environment, will the industry continue to prioritize originals?
Right now, the dominant school of thought in the music industry is that the sped-up versions are effective… as a conduit to drive listeners back to the version the artist released. “The sped-up versions are more attached to the medium in which people are consuming them than they are the actual song itself,” one senior label executive says. Listeners “are discovering a song through the sped-up version, but they’re consuming the original.”
And even as more acts put out sped-up and slowed-down reworks, there’s still a sense that the original version remains the truest reflection of artists’ intentions. “That’s their art and their creativity — that’s what they want the world to hear,” says Rich McLaughlin, program director at WFUV and a former executive at Amazon Music. “I’m focused on what the artists want to release to the world. That’s what interests me.”
That said, McLaughlin continues, “From a radio programming perspective, I want to be open to playing songs that our listeners want to hear. If there’s a version of a song that comes out that adds a dimension to the original that’s unique and something that I think our listeners are going to like, of course I would be open to playing that.”
Some radio stations are already experimenting with playing alternate versions. Josh “Bru” Brubaker, a TikToker (4.5 million followers) and radio personality for Audacy, often plays a mix stitching together songs that are trending on TikTok after his Today’s Top 10 countdown. The in-house DJs adjust the tempos to nod to the version that’s being incorporated into short video clips.
Kelly has been evaluating songs for WVAQ on a case-by-case basis. While he sped up “Bloody Mary,” he prefers to play the original version of Raye’s “Escapism,” not the faster rendition popular on TikTok. “I think that one loses some of what makes it a great song when it’s the sped-up version,” he says.
What about Miguel’s “Sure Thing”? Originally a hit for the R&B singer in 2011, it returned to the Hot 100 earlier this year after a sped-up remix took off on TikTok and has now climbed to a new peak of No. 28. “That’s one where I might gravitate towards the sped-up version if we needed it, because listeners are going to recognize that from TikTok,” Kelly says. “I could see making an edit where we can keep the timbre of his voice, what makes Miguel Miguel, but speed it up.”
It’s likely that no one is playing more sped-up remixes on the air than SiriusXM’s TikTok Radio, which launched in 2021. Steinbock currently has around a dozen uptempo reworks in rotation. “This has been my life lately: A song will trend on TikTok, and it’s sped-up,” she says. “And then I have to wait and see if the label is going to put out an official version or not.”
In some situations — she points to Justine Skye’s “Collide” and SZA’s “Kill Bill” — “people are consuming both [versions] at kind of the same rate,” so she can play the original without fear of alienating listeners. But when it came to The Weeknd’s “Die For You” and Mariah Carey’s “It’s a Wrap,” she waited until the artists released official sped-up remixes. “It’s kind of a dance,” she says. “Is the audience going to recognize it when it’s not that TikTok remix?”
The current iteration of remixes — the sped-up and slowed-down versions that can serve as rocket fuel for TikTok trends — is unlikely to be the last one. Ebonie Smith, in-house engineer at Atlantic Records, thinks fan-made remixing is only going to become more sophisticated and widespread in the years to come. Young listeners are “already changing expectations around what is normal to hear,” she says, pointing to the popularity of sped-up songs. But “once young people are able to parse out each element of a song, and that becomes somewhat gamified, we’re going to see remixing like we’ve never seen before.”
Jessica Powell, CEO and co-founder of AudioShake, an A.I. music software company, expresses a similar sentiment. “We’re going to see the same shifts in audio that have happened in video and image,” she explains. “There will continue to be really professional uses of tools like Photoshop, but you also have the other end of it — me turning myself into a fish on Snapchat. That’s all coming to audio.”
If this proves to be the case, it’s likely that streaming services and radio stations will have to change their relationship with tempo-shifted remixes, or whatever else young listeners decide sounds good a few years from now. Steinbock will be ready. She recently made room in her rotation for McAlpine’s “Ceilings,” a love-drunk acoustic ballad. It came out roughly a year ago but exploded recently on TikTok thanks to a high-speed rework.
“We’re playing the normal one just because it’s so big,” she says. But “I’m just waiting for an official sped-up version.”
While working as a partner and manager at Emagen Entertainment Group, Ebonie Ward watched #MeToo gain momentum and #TheShowMustBePaused bring the music industry to a halt in the name of racial justice. In the wake of these movements, “there have been all these indications of putting women of color into leadership positions,” she says, but little in the way of sustained action.
“I’ve seen a lot of Black women, especially in hip-hop and R&B, who are the backbones at many companies. I’ve also seen a lot of women who are actually running these companies, but they’re still not the face,” adds the 2023 Women in Music honoree. “It was time to do something different.
“During COVID-19, I realized that I was limiting myself by not being forward-moving or thinking out of the box,” Ward recalls. So after five years at Emagen, she has opened the doors to her own full-service management firm, 11th & Co (pronounced “co”) — the first management company to be led entirely by women and, specifically, Black women.
In addition to Ward, who’s chairwoman/CEO, 11th & Co’s seven-member executive team includes CFO Alexandria Kindle, chief marketing officer Jenna Magee-Tyson, chief legal advisor Zita Brack, executive vp of lifestyle promotions Imaine Molo, executive vp of tour marketing Krishna Lee and head of A&R operations and administration Asha “DJ Osh” Holland.
“The one thing I love about the women on my team is that they’ve done a multitude of different things: from working in politics, finance, entertainment law and marketing to fashion, DJing, touring and restaurant ownership,” says Ward. “It was important to have a diverse group of experienced people who might not necessarily work with each other traditionally but would be able to come together and bring out the best in each other.”
Based in Atlanta and with plans to open a Los Angeles office, the 11th & Co roster includes Ward’s longtime clients Future, Gunna and Flo Milli, as well as its newest client, NBA player James Harden. “In its own way, sports is very similar to music because a lot of athletes want to get into lifestyle,” she says. “They want marketing.” Ward says she’s also looking forward to working with the Italian fashion house Pucci. (Ward and her executive team are all wearing Pucci in the group photo.)
What was the inspiration for your firm’s name?
My birthday is Sept. 11. And my executive board, staff and client roster now total 11. I’ve always had this synergy around the number 11; it has always felt powerful to me. Plus, I wanted something timeless. Something that would make people ask more about it.
What is your vision for the firm?
I want to do something that is very unorthodox, not one-dimensional. In addition to our music clients, we’ve just added James Harden of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers. James has an agent with whom I work very closely, but I’m more like James’ lifestyle manager. He’s his own brand. I went to him and asked if he’d thought about life after basketball. I wanted to help him understand and realize that he needed to pay attention to how he’s perceived off the court. People don’t know his story. He’s very humble and gracious. He’s a board member and minority investor in Saks Fifth Avenue’s e-commerce business [known simply as Saks] and is doing things in the alcoholic beverage world with wine and tequila. And there are other things that we’re helping him build and navigate.
Future, meanwhile, is touring the rest of this spring with Don Toliver and other artists and has a new album coming in 2023 [teased earlier by the rapper as a collaboration with Metro Boomin]. Flo Milli will be performing at Coachella, with her second album due later this year.
From left: Krishna Lee, Imaine Molo, Jenna Magee-Tyson, Ebonie Ward, Asha “DJ OSH” Holland, Alexandria Kindle, and Zita Brack photographed on February 22, 2023 in Los Angeles.
Yuri Hasegawa
What are the challenges of being a Black, female C-suite executive in the music industry?
The first challenge is to be received and respected. Even working with my previous partner [Emagen founder/CEO Anthony Saleh], I’ve walked into rooms and not been addressed, let alone been respected, for knowing this business inside and out. You don’t want to say you didn’t get a deal because you’re a woman. And you don’t want to use your Black card. That’s something a lot of women in this business have to deal with. At the same time, you have to have a level of stamina to sustain yourself through the joys and pains, to be able to accept the word “no,” which can feel defeating. Many of us women don’t protect or advocate for each other. When someone invites you to something, go; get someone’s phone number and call them. Get real information and learn from it. Please tell me when I’m wrong or I didn’t do enough. And then we must be able to take that information gracefully. More women need to do that for each other, especially Black women, because we can be each other’s harshest critics.
Why are there still so few female managers and C-suite executives — especially those of color — in the industry?
More work needs to be done. Aside from holding other people accountable, we need to hold ourselves accountable. As soon as everything came back after the show was paused, a lot of those efforts stopped. Going back into our offices, we need to still have that same hunger and that same fight to hold the industry accountable for what they said they were championing.
In the wake of Gunna’s plea deal before the Young Stoner Life Records RICO trial, does he have new music projects in the pipeline?
Because of the ongoing trial, I really can’t speak to that. But the time will come. Having been incarcerated for seven months, he’s really just getting acclimated to being out of a cell. Sometimes people need to give people an opportunity just to be human. In the meantime, myself and all of my clients have signed [300 Elektra Entertainment chairman/CEO] Kevin Liles’ “Art on Trial: Protect Black Art” petition. People need to understand that this issue affects not just the people who are dealing with it personally, but all of us. It’s a very serious issue that we need everyone’s support to rally behind.
You moved into artist management after meeting Future while operating your own men’s boutique. And you were featured in Emilio Pucci’s recent collection celebration in Switzerland. Will 11th & Co be collaborating with Pucci on other projects?
I have built an amazing relationship with fashion house Emilio Pucci’s new designer, Camille Miceli. I was so honored to be a part of their collection celebration in Switzerland and look forward to us continuing our relationship. 11th & Co will be working with Emilio Pucci to integrate new life to the brand, and I cannot wait to share more once everything is finalized.
Universal Music Group has acquired the British indie classical label Hyperion Records, the company announced Wednesday (March 15).
The 43-year-old label — which is home to artists like Marc-André Hamelin, Angela Hewitt and Stephen Osborne and represents a catalog of 2,5000 recordings, some of which date back to the 12th century — will operate as a standalone label within Universal Music U.K. alongside Decca Classics. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Hyperion will now join Decca Classics and Deutsche Grammophon in UMG’s classical portfolio, while Simon Perry — who has overseen the label for more than 20 years, after taking over from his father, Hyperion founder Ted Perry — will remain as managing director.
“I’m thrilled to bring Hyperion to Universal Music Group, a company that shares Hyperion’s commitment to bringing the most distinctive and brilliant musicians to as wide a public as possible,” Perry said in a statement. “By being part of UMG, while keeping our artists and staff together, we can continue to build on my father’s legacy and that of everyone who’s been part of the Hyperion family over the past 43 years. My debt to all of them is huge and I look forward to leading this incredible label into an exciting new chapter.”
Hyperion is next set to release Vaughan Williams’ Sinfonia Antartica and Symphony No.9 with BBC Symphony Orchestra, a series it says is dedicated to the Masses and Magnificats of Cristóbal de Morales, as well as recordings from the London Haydn Quartet and Stephen Layton and the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, among others. In a statement, UMG president/CEO of global classics and jazz Dickon Stainer called Hyperion “a jewel of a label,” adding that “we are committed to continuing the magnificent work done by the Perry family and to preserving and building on the special place Hyperion occupies in the hearts of artists and music fans alike.”
The acquisition comes amid a veritable wave of news spilling from the world of classical music lately. In November, Deutsche Grammophon launched a new standalone streaming service, Stage+, catering to its own catalog and that of Decca Classics. And earlier this month, Apple Music announced its own standalone streaming app, Apple Music Classical, which will roll out later this month and stems from its August 2021 acquisition of Primephonic.
“We are enormously proud that Hyperion has joined Universal’s family of classical labels to sit alongside Decca Classics in London,” Decca Label Group co-presidents Tom Lewis and Laura Monks said in a statement. “Simon and his father have created a very important recorded classical catalogue that serves a dedicated global audience. And the label continues to work with artists who are the best of the best. We are determined to celebrate the label’s legacy and continue its extraordinary story.”
Nigerian Afropop singer Adekunle Gold has officially signed with Def Jam Recordings, the company tells Billboard.
“I’ve been following Adekunle Gold since I first heard his record ‘Sade’ in 2016. Over the years, everything in AG’s world has elevated — his songwriting has refined, the scope of his artistry has widened, his vocals have strengthened, his approach to fashion is more distinct, and his showmanship and performance ability have grown exponentially,” says Def Jam CEO/chairman Tunji Balogun in a statement to Billboard. “He’s stepped into stardom on his own terms and is completely comfortable being his true self.”
Balogun added, “When I started at Def Jam, I knew I wanted to bring the label into the Afrobeats space tastefully, with the right artists and partnership. Adekunle felt like the perfect fit – he’d already done so much work on his own to build a base, but I knew that we could scale his audience to an even bigger level if we combined our energies and worked together.”
Gold (real name Adekunle Almoruf Kosoko) describes his signing as a “full circle moment” after Balogun tried signing him years ago, prior to the executive’s 2022 arrival at Def Jam. The “5 Star” singer said that because he and Balogun share Nigerian roots, “he understands it, so signing to Tunji makes sense. He’s like my studio buddy that just comes everywhere I go. The day he doesn’t have time to be there, I know he must’ve been like stupidly busy. He’s great.”
When it comes to signing with Def Jam, Gold continued, “The track record is there. The history is there. They break artists, and they have niche, unique artists like me, so I think it’s the right move for me. All of the things that I’ve done for myself already, they know already and that’s why they’re on board.”
Balogun was in Lagos, Nigeria, says Gold, when he and fellow Nigerian singer Zinoleesky were writing and recording “Party Dey no Stop,” Gold’s new single featuring Zinoleesky that marks his Def Jam debut. “When we started to make the music, it was so easy for me to go in and just attack the song. I wrote my verse, I wrote the chorus, and it was a rap. I knew from then that this song was a jam,” Gold says of the track.
“Party Dey no Stop” arrives ahead of Gold’s fifth studio album due in June. In support of the project, he’ll embark on a four-month world tour that’s set to kick off in North America in September and run through the United Kingdom, Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, South America and the Caribbean through next year.
Gold first rose to fame in 2015 with the single “Sade,” a highlife love song that samples instrumentals from One Direction‘s 2013 hit “Story of My Life.” “Sade” went on to win best alternative song at the 2015 edition of The Headies, a Nigerian music awards show. Gold eventually signed his first record label deal with Olamide‘s YBNL Nation and released his debut studio album, Gold, in 2017. It peaked at No. 7 on Billboard‘s World Albums chart.
After Gold’s YBNL Nation contract expired, “I didn’t quite know what to do,” he says. “I was signed for two years, fresh off the industry. I was just thinking, ‘What am I going to do from here?’ [And] I’m like, ‘You know what? I got this. Let me just start my own thing.’”
The Afrobeats star then started his own label, Afro Urban Records — “one of the best decisions I’ve made,” he says — and put out two albums: 2018’s About 30 and 2022’s Catch Me If You Can. He released his 2020 album, Afro Pop, Vol. 1, under EMI.
In a previous Billboard interview, Gold explained why he switched labels and the benefits of working with distributor Platoon, which helped with the rollout for his last album, Catch Me If You Can, featuring Davido, Lucky Daye, Fatoumata Diawara, Fousheé, Ty Dolla $ign and Stefflon Don. “When I was fully Afro Urban Records and no distribution label, me and my manager [Elizabeth Sobowale] had to do a lot of work. Platoon has the best hands in everything from PR to marketing,” he said at the time. “All I had to do was work on the music and they’re ready to take the rest upon themselves.”
After his groundbreaking success with Wizkid and Tems during his tenure as executive vp of A&R at RCA, Balogun has been playing a monumental role in bolstering Def Jam’s roster with more talent from the African diaspora. In September 2022, the label signed an exclusive worldwide joint venture with Native Records to develop African artists.
“I think AG is a truly global artist, and a rightful ambassador for Nigerian music and the emerging Afrobeats scene,” Balogun says. “He has the talent, virtuosity, focus, work ethic and temperament required to be a worldwide superstar. I’m excited to work with him and the Def Jam team to bring more fans into his world.”
“Hear it from me,” Gold says. “Afrobeats is taking over the world.”
Facebook parent Meta is slashing 10,000 jobs, about as many as the social media company announced late last year in its first round of cuts, as uncertainly about the global economy hits the technology sector particularly hard.
The company announced 11,000 job cuts in November, about 13% of its workforce at the time. In addition to the layoffs, Meta said Tuesday that it would not fill 5,000 open positions.
“This will be tough and there’s no way around that,” said CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Meta and other tech companies have been hiring aggressively for at least two years and in recent months have begun to let some of those workers go. Hiring in the U.S. is still strong, but layoffs have hit hard in some sectors.
Early last month, Meta posted falling profits and its third consecutive quarter of declining revenue. On the same day, the company said that it would buy back as much as $40 billion of its own stock.
The Menlo Park, company said Tuesday it will reduce the size of its recruiting team and make further cuts in its tech groups in late April, and then its business groups in late May.
Zuckerberg has invested tens of billions of dollars building out its metaverse, its virutal reality concept, and renamed the company Meta, signaling a new focus for Facebook.
“As I’ve talked about efficiency this year, I’ve said that part of our work will involve removing jobs — and that will be in service of both building a leaner, more technical company and improving our business performance to enable our long term vision,” said Zuckerberg.
The biggest tech companies in the U.S. are cutting costs elsewhere, too.
This month, Amazon paused construction on its second headquarters in Virginia following the biggest round of layoffs in the company’s history and its shifting plans around remote work.
Global inflation has remained stubborn and its made for more difficult decisions for both households and businesses in the U.S.
Fast growth companies, including many in the technology sector, are hunkering down for what may be an extended period of adverse economic conditions.
“At this point, I think we should prepare ourselves for the possibility that this new economic reality will continue for many years,” Zuckerberg said in a message to employees.
Meta shares rose nearly 7% Tuesday.
Johnny Chiang, Pandora’s senior director of country programming, will expand his role to also oversee country music programming at SiriusXM, the company tells Billboard. Chiang will report to SiriusXM/Pandora’s GM and senior vp of music programming Steve Blatter.
Chiang’s new role fills duties previously held by JR Schumann, who exited SiriusXM in July 2022. Darrin Smith, SiriusXM’s vp of programming, oversaw the satellite broadcaster’s country channels on an interim basis.
Before joining Pandora in July 2022, Chiang served as vp of radio promotions and artist development at Red Street Records following the announcement that the label had launched a country division. Prior to his work with Red Street, Chiang spent 18 years at KKBQ in Houston and was also the Cox country format leader.
During Chiang’s time at KKBQ, the station was named the Country Music Association’s major market station of the year three times (in 2014, 2016 and 2018), as well as the Academy of Country Music’s major market station of the year in 2017. It also won the Marconi four times (in 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2018). In 2016, Billboard named him the most influential country program director in the United States.
During Nashville’s Country Radio Seminar earlier this week, Chiang led a panel during CRS’ Digital Music Summit titled “Sweet Streams (Are Made of These),” which provided an overview of music streaming services. The panel also included Spotify’s Rachel Whitney and Amazon Music’s Michelle Tigard Kammerer, as each music service detailed their respective platforms’ tools for independent artists and discussed the role of playlisting in music marketing, how DSPs use data to make decisions and more.
Chiang’s role expansion comes on the heels of SiriusXM’s announcement earlier this month that it would be laying off 475 employees, or 8% of its workforce. In a statement that followed, CEO Jennifer Witz called the job cuts difficult but “the right thing to do” as the business grapples with lower ad sales, a still-delayed recovery in the automotive subscription business and major investments in its technology.
This is Signed, a new biweekly column that rounds up artist signings at labels, agencies, management companies and more.
Two-time Grammy winner Tori Kelly signed with Epic Records, which will release her latest single, “missin u,” on Friday (March 17) with an album to follow. She’s managed by SB Projects.
Singer-actor Dove Cameron (“Boyfriend”) signed with WME in all areas. She’s signed to Columbia Records and represented by LBI Entertainment, attorney Patti C. Felker and Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis.
Country singer-songwriter Nate Smith (“Whiskey On You”) signed with WME for global representation in all areas. He’ll be represented by Joey Lee, Sloane Cavitt Logue and Braeden Rountree at the agency. He’s signed to Sony Music Nashville and managed by Kevin “Chief” Zaruk and Simon Tikhman at The Core Entertainment.
Bettye LaVette signed with Steve Jordan and Meegan Voss‘ Jay-Vee Records, which is distributed by MRI Entertainment. Jordan produced two previous albums for LaVette, 2018’s Things Have Changed and 2020’s Blackbirds. She’s represented by manager Kevin Kiley; agents Seth Rappaport and Steve Martin at Paladin Artists (North America) and Neil O’Brien of Neil O’Brien Entertainment (international); and publicist Carla Parisi at Kid Logic.
ONErpm signed singer-songwriter Chance Peña, who got started as a contestant on The Voice in 2015. He’s currently working on a new EP to follow up 2019’s project anxiety & mixed emotions and 2020’s The Inevitable. He’s managed by Liz Baylog at Bread City.
Universal Music Group Nashville teamed with Universal Music Canada to sign country singer Josh Ross (“First Taste of Gone”). He’s represented by managers Chief Zaruk and Simon Tikhman at The Core Entertainment, booking agent Adi Sharma at The Neal Agency and publicist Jodi Dawes at UMG Nashville.
Country singer-songwriter Ella Langley (“If You Have To,” “Damn You,” “Country Boy’s Dream Girl”) signed with Columbia Records/Sony Music Nashville. In January, Langley was named to Spotify’s list of Hot Country Artists to Watch.
Toronto rock band Half Moon Run signed with BMG, which will release the group’s fourth studio album. Previous album releases for the band — a two-time winner of adult alternative album of the year at the Junos — include 2013’s Dark Eyes, 2015’s Sun Leads Me On and 2019’s A Blemish in the Great Light. The group is managed by Mathieu Drouin and Marie-Eve Carriere; their label representative at BMG is Steve Nightingale.
Texas-based band Pecos & The Rooftops (“This Damn Song”) signed to Warner Records, which released their latest single, “5AM,” in the leadup to their forthcoming album. The group is represented by managers Chase Cooper and Jeb Hurt at Floating Leaf Entertainment, booking agent Chad Kudelka at CAA and A&R Miles Gersh.
South Africa-born, Canada-raised rapper ARDN signed to Capitol Records, which will release his major label debut single, “Plain Jane” and forthcoming EP, The Bronze Age. ARDN gained notice when a snippet of his song, “Til the Morning,” went viral on TikTok last year.
Los Angeles duo SkyeChristy signed to Warner Records, which released their new single “Beach Zombies.” They’re represented by manager Jesse Beer at The MGMT Company and Bex Majors at Sound Talent Group.
Milk & Honey signed singer-songwriter-producer JHart, production duo The Elements and songwriter-producer-composer Alexis Kesselman, who performs under the name Idarose. The company will manage all aspects of their music careers, including artist projects. JHart will be managed by Lucas Keller, Nic Warner and Danny Herrle; The Elements will be managed by Ant Hippsley, Keller, Warner and Justin Frazier; and Kesselman will be managed by Keller, Warner and Frazier.
Minneapolis indie-rock trio Yam Haus signed to Big Loud Rock, the new alternative/rock imprint of Big Loud Records. The label released the trio’s latest single, “Rafters.” The group is represented by managers Deborah Wilson and Doug Wilson at Wilspro and agent Sara Schlievert at Paladin Artists.
Pittsburgh-based rock and blues group Ghost Hounds signed to Gibson Records, which will release the band’s fourth studio album on June 29 in partnership with distributor Firebird Label Services. It will mark the second album release from the recently-formed Gibson Records following Slash ft. Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators’ album, 4, last year.
Drummer-producer-emcee Kassa Overall signed to Warp Records, which will release his new single “Ready To Ball.” He previously released two studio albums, 2019’s Go Get Ice Cream and Listen to Jazz and 2020’s I Think I’m Good.
Los Angeles-based “grit-pop” duo ill peach signed to Hardly Art, which released their new single, “Heavyweight,” on Feb. 28. Ill peach is managed by Chris Mcilvenny and Nic Damasio at Tap Management.
Country artist Kirk Jay signed to Yung Bleu’s label Moonboy University, which is distributed by EMPIRE. Jay was a finalist on The Voice in 2018.
Philadelphia rapper Sheedts signed to Great Day Records, the label launched in January by Barolilne Diaz in partnership with Todd Moscowitz‘s Santa Anna and Alamo Records. The news coincided with the release of a video for “Rockin’ & Rollin’,” a track off Sheedts’ 2022 album 5ive. He’s managed by Rahee “Heezy” Ellis.
Singer-songwriter and American Idol alum Harper Grace signed with Curb Records, WME and Jonas Group Entertainment. Her first original song is set to drop on Friday (March 17).
Arthur Moon, Cale Hawkins and Raia Was have joined together to form Switch Hit Records, described as a “musicians-run cooperative record label committed to giving artists 100% of the profits from their work” that’s comprised of “a collective of multi-hyphenate artists: producers, instrumentalists, composers, musical directors and business owners.” Moon, Hawkins and Was have all released singles through the label, while full-length albums from all three are expected for release later this year.
Even though NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are experiencing a lull in 2023 following a boom the two previous years, the companies behind NFT technology are pressing forward to prove the initial buzz wasn’t a fluke.
One of those companies, OneOf, got a boost in February when Stephen Cooper, Warner Music Group’s CEO from 2011 to the end of 2022, joined the Miami-based company’s board of directors. A little over a year after Warner Music announced a partnership with OneOf to create exclusive NFTs for its recording artists, Cooper has high praise for the company. “I think that it’s the right organization with the right vision and the right tech at the right time,” he says.
NFTs are part of a technological shift away from websites with user-generated content (Web2) to decentralized (Web3) applications that utilize blockchain technology. They landed on many people’s radars in April 2021 when NBA Top Shot sold a video of a dunk by basketball superstar LeBron James — a one-of-a-kind digital collectible on the blockchain — for a startling $387,600. Dapper Labs, which provides Top Shop’s blockchain technology, is one of many Web3 startups to receive financial backing from Warner Music Group during Cooper’s tenure as CEO. Indeed, Warner has given its stamp of approval to a bevy of forward-thinking platforms and technologies in recent years. It invested in such companies as Roblox two months before it went public in March 2021, as well as DRESSX, a digital fashion retailer, and generative music startups Authentic Artists and Lifescore.
Being the “next big thing” has come with disappointments, though. NFT sales fell from more than $6.3 billion in January 2022 to about $1 billion in February 2023, according to NFT aggregator CryptoSlam, and cryptocurrency enthusiasts have suffered through the collapses of trading platform FTX and stablecoin Terra, among other high-profile failures. Along the way, NFTs earned a reputation for being expensive digital artwork with little purpose other than to — hopefully — appreciate.
Today, Web3 and NFTs are behind everything from fractionalized ownership of music royalties to proof of attendance at concerts or virtual events. For OneOf CEO Lin Dai, Web3 has the potential to transform the way artists build communities. “I liken it to if this was 1997 and I went to either a music artist or music label or just a brand to say, ‘Hey, you have your fan club or your consumer following, and you have millions of mailing addresses that you communicate with them,’” says Dai. “‘There’s this thing called email that’s coming that’s going to make that relationship much easier and we have software to do that.’ This is kind of the stage where I’m at.”
Stephen, what attracted you to the board of OneOf?
Cooper: Well, I’ve known Lin for a number of years. Warner has invested in him. And I’ve not only liked the way that the company has been able to pivot over time as the tech space morphed, but more importantly, I think that what they’ve done and what they’re going to continue to do — by building out this blockchain technology and being able to utilize that technology in conjunction with the superfast capabilities to mint NFTs — it’ll create an amazing opportunity for utilization not only in music but across a spectrum of any number of consumer brands that are interested in building communities of their fans or followers or admirers, and utilize that capability to turbocharge the success in their businesses.
Lin, what do you think Stephen’s going to bring to the company?
Dai: I’ve always admired the amazing work Stephen has done at Warner Music. If you think about 11 years ago or 12 years ago, when he took on the job, the music industry was very much in disarray and disrupted by potentially the idea of digital transformation. It was able to turn that into a position of strength, to doubling down on digital transformation, like the Spotify deal and the partnership with YouTube. Warner, even as the smallest of the three major labels, has really done a tremendous job in taking market share. And Steve’s broader experience in his life before Warner — Steve was CEO of MGM and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. It just spans a lot of different industries. Over the years, I always feel like every time I talked to him, we learned a lot as a young startup with hot technology. A lot of the bigger picture of how industry moves, and how our technology can apply to industry, Steve brings a wealth of knowledge [to].
Not all artists jumped on digital downloads right away. There were some notable holdouts once iTunes was out. What are your conversations with artists and their teams like? Tell me about their understanding of Web3 and where they sit? What is that education process like?
Cooper: Well, I think that it really goes across an entire spectrum, where there are people that go anywhere from not interested all the way to people that embrace it or immerse themselves more fully into it. I think that what will happen is that, like with any new technology, there’s a period of skepticism, then there’s the period of testing, then there’s the period of early adoption. And once the early adopters begin to proselytize the technology, you can see generally that it begins to accelerate at a fairly rapid pace.
The good news, I think, for Web3, is that for many artists — and again, it’s much broader than music — but for the Gen Zs, the millennials that have grown up in a digital age as opposed to people like me, that acceptance and that adoption has accelerated. There used to be a much greater mean time between the introduction and the broad acceptance of technology. Those mean times have collapsed over the last two or three decades, where new technologies are embraced much more rapidly. There are millions of people that have, primarily through gaming, immersed themselves in these new technologies and these metaverses for some length of time now. With these better foundational technologies and the ability to keep track of who’s got what at all times it’s something that people…are far better off embracing than rejecting.
And the music industry, in large part, has had a history — as far as I can tell being mostly an outsider looking in — that if they had looked at Napster in a different way, they would have controlled file sharing. If they had listened to [former Apple CEO Steve] Jobs differently, they would have controlled downloads. And if they had acquired Spotify in the early days, the industry would have controlled streaming as opposed to allowing these technical iron curtains to get between content and fandom. And I think what people will begin to realize in Web3 is that it creates another shot for the industry to converge content with distribution, where the artists and the fan are right up against each other as opposed to being separated by this tech iron curtain.
Lin, where are we on the Web3 hype cycle? You’re familiar with this curve? There’s an initial peak of buzziness followed by a trough of disillusionment. Have we fallen down into that trough right now? And what does that mean for OneOf?
Dai: I hope we have completely fallen down and rode around for a few cycles and are ready to climb out now. You know, I think in the last 18 months, the general excitement really is great for mainstream awareness of Web3 and NFT technology, but we only really used it for two use cases. One is high-end digital art. The other is how to use this technology for a profile picture on my Twitter account. If you’re talking about the internet in, like, 1997, there’s going to be 990 other use cases we haven’t even started fathoming.
We work closely with Pepsi and Anheuser Busch, and American Express is a major investor in our last round. In music, we are working on tool sets for artists and creators, but also on things that directly impact the kind of three pillars of the music business today, like how does Web3 technology enhance the experience of streaming? How does Web3 technology do a better job at ticketing? How can Web3 technology be applied in the realm of publishing and rights? So those are much deeper and more long-term kinds of use cases. The most recent hype cycle was about speculators getting involved. That’s not really a sustainable model for any industry.
You mentioned American Express. When Amex Ventures invested in OneOf, the managing director referred to brands’ involvement in NFTs as “experimenting.” So, what have brands learned from the experiments so far?
Dai: The ask is no longer, “How do we do a profile picture collection?” It’s, “How do we build entire systems that connect our data that we know about consumers to allow them to really have a full ecosystem, whether it’s rewards, whether it’s commerce, whether it’s better communication?” So, there is kind of a quiet race for Web3 by all the major Web2 companies right now — or even Web1 companies. I think it’s unlike the dot-com bust where I think most companies wrote off the internet and everybody went back to brick-and-mortar for 10 years. And that’s how you allowed Amazon to have such dominance. There were only a few companies that really stayed the course.
Now, I think every major company, whether you’re CPG [consumer packaged goods] or you are music streaming — Spotify just rolled out some new software — everybody kind of knows and believes Web3 is going to happen. They know today’s tools suck. Today’s tools are not good for beer drinkers or fans that just want to go to a festival [to] enjoy and don’t want to connect a crypto wallet. That’s why they are actively looking for solutions.
Stephen, from a label’s point of view, how is Web3 different and how do you tackle it? Is it like traditional digital marketing or promotion? There is an element of community to it. That is a different relationship than labels have typically had, maybe outside of fan clubs. What challenges does that bring to a label?
Cooper: I think it does several things. One, it does bring challenges because I think that Web3 will heighten the requirements for many artists to introduce music on a far more regular basis. There’s some artists that will adapt and adopt. There will be some artists that won’t — but the labels will also begin to attract a new generation of artists that have been immersed in the digital world since birth, have been immersed in social platforms, and will flow naturally into Web3.
The advantage that I see for labels is that even though they will be, you know, paying a tolling fee to be on these platforms — whether it’s Roblox, Sandbox, Fortnite, whatever, inside of those worlds — they will be able to create their own worlds, to draw music fans, fans of specific artists, into those worlds where they will be able not only to interact with the artists on a regular basis, but they will be able to interact with each other on an ongoing basis. So, the relationship with the artist, one, should deepen considerably. Two, the relationships between super fan to super fan ought to accelerate. The glue that holds fans’ loyalty to those artists ought to strengthen through the ramp-up of interaction, both horizontally and vertically. I think that the labels understand this.
It’s been very public at Warner that they’ve invested heavily in Web3. They are building out spaces in Web3. They are experimenting with their artists in Web3. And I think that as they refine those experiments, as they refine their approaches, they will find that this gives them a freshened opportunity to really bring content and distribution together and take advantage of a situation that they missed in the late ‘90s, the early 2000s, and in 2010.
Some people think Web3 is an opportunity for artists to gain more independence. In some Warner earnings calls, you’ve talked about the artists’ need for labels in the Web3 environment. Are both of those true?
Cooper: I think that people will take a shot at Independence. Here’s what I see as the math problem: If you talk to YouTube, or you talk to TikTok, they will say that there 20, 25, 30, 35 million musical artists that use TikTok use YouTube [and] so on and so forth. So, you start with that number. What Web2 and Web3 have done — or will do — is democratized access. But what they can’t democratize is talent.
When you look today at the active rosters of Universal, Sony and Warner, there are probably less than 15,000 artists. Those artists — in conjunction with the catalogs [owned by] the three, plus BMG and a few others — represent 85% of all the listening on the planet. And if you think about 20 or 25 years of American Idol, of The Voice, of America’s Got Talent, after 25 or 30 years, you can name on one hand the people that have made it. When you look at TikTok, there’s only one or two or three [star] artists that have emerged over the last few years. And YouTube has been the same. Those that have emerged have ended up having the global machine of a label behind them. Because it is so hard even with extraordinary talent to be recognized and to do it on your own is almost impossible. The fact of the matter is to be able to be recognized as that talent and then have the right machine behind you with the right global footprint is just not something most young artists are capable of doing on their own.
Lin, Stephen said Web2 is not going away. This week, we saw news that Spotify is testing NFT-accessed playlists. Do you see Web2 and Web3 integrating in ways like that?
Dai: Yeah, absolutely. We did the first-ever beta with Spotify integration last year with some of our artists, that was early Web3. So Web2 companies certainly are very much embracing Web3. Web3 is not really replacing traditional businesses. But what Web3 does really well is this idea of creating community. If you think about traditional fan clubs, you used to write a letter and put $2 in there and somebody mails you back a sticker, right? That’s replaced by a kind of an email fan club. And everyone says, “Okay, here’s a link, you get to go buy our concert ticket earlier,” but it’s still kind of a one-to-many relationship. The value exchange is still a one-way street. The artist is asking the fan to please spend money for [their] product or experiences.
Web3 is interesting because it really encourages members to work with each other. Because you’re basically receiving a digital asset. That price can fluctuate based on how engaged the membership is. You’re incentivized to go out there and evangelize for your artist and really make sure you’re potentially participating in the success of the artists, whatever that may be. Now for the artists, the algorithms of Spotify really created this kind of this all-or-nothing world. You’re either one of the 500 artists that is making a killing because the algorithm just keeps feeding that or you just you don’t break through. So Web3 changes that. I can make a living only having 500 super fans. I don’t need to be the next Taylor Swift.
I grew up in China. I played the accordion. I was a very good accordion player when I was in elementary school. So, if I’m just passionate and want to play accordion, maybe I can rally up like 100, 200, 500 super fans, but it’s very, very hard for me to be on a Taylor Swift level. The reality is as a passionate musician if you just can’t make a living doing what you do now — streaming — you can’t support yourself. You have to take on a different soul-crushing job that you’re not passionate about. And at some point, life comes at you, and you have to give up your art.
But Web3 potentially enables a whole slew of creators to be able to do their art for a living, if they can use the tools to really gather and rally around just a few hundred super fans. And I think in the long run, that’s a better world, if we just have more art being created and people being happy doing what they do.
Cooper: I think Lin’s point is well taken. And I think that what will separate, whether it be at a small scale or a large scale, whether or not there’s really talent there versus just noise. And you may recall that a year or two or three ago when Spotify began to mess with their playlists and push things that they wanted to push, versus what music fans wanted to hear, they got a lot of backlash because they were pushing stuff that people just didn’t want to listen to. And people generally can differentiate what they believe is really good stuff from really bad stuff.
[Spotify CEO Daniel] Ek said, I don’t know 5, 6, 7, 8 years ago, he said you wanted a million artists to be able to make a living on Spotify. And he kind of defined that as being able to make $100,000 a year at the time. Well, it was pretty easy to do the math and figure out what that would mean by way of Spotify’s size and subscriptions and streams. Three or four months later, they quietly abandon that idea because they really don’t know how to market and promote. They know algorithms. But when you’re promoting music, an algorithm is a poor substitute for marketing and promotion to build traction. So, I think that when he abandoned that idea, it was kind of an acknowledgment that while algorithms could feed things up to people, the handoff to Web3, is that that artist may be able — to Lin’s point — [to] rally 100, 200, 300 people to make a living.
Even on TikTok, which is kind of a democratic community, even though it is Web2, all the money is being made by 1/10 of 1% at the top of the pyramid, and everybody else is just having fun. And then they end up with 1,000 or 2,000 followers, but without that talent, it’s hard to be in these environments and make a living. Web3 will actually enhance that possibility. And God bless the accordion players.
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between.
This week: A song-theft copyright lawsuit against the Rolling Stones over a rare release of new music in 2020; a one-year-later update on Morris Day’s dispute with the Prince estate over his band name and music rights; a ruling for the Offspring against an ex-drummer who wanted a bigger cut of the band’s $35 million catalog sale; and much more.
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THE BIG STORY: Rolling Stones Headed To Court
More than 60 years into their legendary history, the Rolling Stones are facing a new copyright lawsuit claiming their 2020 single “Living in a Ghost Town” — a rare new song from the band — lifted material from a pair of little-known earlier tracks.
The case was filed by songwriter Sergio Garcia Fernandez (stage name Angelslang), who claims that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards “misappropriated many of the recognizable and key protected elements” from his 2006 song “So Sorry” as well as his 2007 tune “Seed of God.”
In any copyright lawsuit, an accuser needs to show that the alleged infringer had “access” to their work in order to copy it. Oftentimes, they can show that a song was simply so widely-available – millions of streams, constant airplay, etc. – that the defendant obviously heard it.
But in Angelslang’s case, the two songs each list fewer than 1000 listens on Spotify. So what does he claim? That he directly gave a demo CD to “an immediate family member” of Jagger, who then allegedly confirmed in writing that the songs had “a sound The Rolling Stones would be interested in using.”
To get Billboard’s entire breakdown of the new lawsuit – including the actual legal complaint filed in court against the Stones – read the full story here.
Other top stories this week…
PRINCE ESTATE v. MORRIS DAY UPDATE – One year after Morris Day accused the Prince estate of trying to “rewrite history” by “taking my name away,” I took a deep dive into the current status of the dispute. The results: The trademark dispute over “Morris Day & The Time” has seemingly been worked out, but key issues about Day’s copyrights in two of The Time’s biggest songs remain unresolved.
OFFSPRING OFF THE HOOK – A Los Angeles judge handed The Offspring a victory in its long legal battle with former drummer Ron Welty, who claimed he was owed millions more in profits from the veteran punk band’s $35 million catalog sale.
EARTH, WIND, FIRE & LITIGATION – The famed R&B act filed a trademark lawsuit against a rival group that’s been performing under the name “Earth Wind & Fire Legacy Reunion,” calling them imposters who are infringing the band’s trademarks to “mislead the ticket-buying public.”
SHEERAN SHOWDOWN LOOMS – With a trial set for next month over whether Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” infringed Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” a federal judge weighed in on two key pre-trial questions – whether a live performance of Gaye’s song will occur in the courtroom, and whether an infamous YouTube clip could be played for jurors.
FALLOUT FROM ROCHESTER DISASTER – Authorities in Rochester revoked the operating license from the Main Street Armory, the western New York concert venue in which a deadly stampede occurred last week after a performance by GloRilla and Finesse2tymes. No civil lawsuits have yet been filed by victims or their families, but criminal and regulatory investigations are already under way.
XXXTENTACION VERDICT WATCH – Jury deliberations are continuing in the trial of three men accused of murdering rising rap star XXXTentacion during a 2018 robbery outside a Florida motorcycle shop. The trial, which wrapped up on March 10, was sometimes overshadowed by efforts by defense attorneys to involve Drake in the proceedings. All three defendants face mandatory life sentences if convicted.
Superstar Pride’s breakout hit “Painting Pictures” has been one of music’s early success stories so far in 2023, as the song — part of the Mississippi MC’s 5 LBs of Pressure EP that was originally released last October — stormed onto the Hot 100, debuting at No. 99 in the week ending Feb. 25, before leaping to No. 35 the following week and No. 25 last week, reaching No. 7 on the Streaming Songs chart.
The song’s viral success — fueled in part by TikTok — caused a stir, with multiple labels coming in with offers to sign the rising rapper, who had originally uploaded the EP through independent distributor and services company UnitedMasters, launched five years ago by industry entrepreneur and Translation founder/CEO Steve Stoute.
But then, just as the song was beginning to reach new heights and seemingly poised to soar into the upper echelon of the charts, its momentum was briefly halted: The song’s production — which samples the Faith Evans song “Soon As I Get Home,” released in 1995 by Bad Boy/Arista Records — was flagged by Sony Music Publishing for not being properly cleared, the song was removed from Spotify for two days and some versions were also taken down from YouTube, though it remained available on Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music. The issue in part contributed to a 29% drop in U.S. streams over the prior week, from 14 million to 10 million, and “Painting Pictures” came in at No. 62 on the Hot 100 this week. (While the drop in placement on the Hot 100 is partially due to the streaming hiccup, the strong performance of Morgan Wallen’s new album One Thing At a Time saw its songs flood the Hot 100, meaning a placement jump would have been difficult regardless.)
That sample issue has now been cleared up, Stoute told Billboard this weekend. According to Stoute, Bad Boy chief Sean “Diddy” Combs, who also co-wrote and co-produced “Soon As I Get Home,” met Superstar Pride and “loved him,” and subsequently cleared the Faith Evans sample, paving the way for the song’s return to Spotify. Additionally, Stoute confirmed that Superstar Pride has decided to stick with UnitedMasters and remain independent for now, despite strong interest from major labels to sign him.
Now, Stoute and his UnitedMasters team are focused on re-starting the song’s momentum, with a video to be shot this week and a radio campaign that is now underway. In the past week, sales increased a modest 15% and radio airplay jumped significantly, up 270% week over week to 3.1 million in audience, according to Luminate.
“This video, more playlisting support, radio, that’s the next step to making a top 10 record,” Stoute told Billboard in a conversation last week. “It’s a phenomenal song that has been growing like wildfire. This seismic growth, I haven’t seen anything like this since Lil Nas X’s ‘Old Town Road,’ or something like that. It’s been pretty crazy when you look at the steep, hockey stick growth curve. But I give credit to the platform for being able to allow artists like Superstar Pride the opportunity to put music out, be able to track his performance and have the confidence that he’s distributing music and it’s in good hands.”
Superstar Pride originally uploaded the song on his own through UnitedMasters, before the company started to track its growth and reached out to offer support with playlisting and the TikTok campaign that eventually pushed it onto the Billboard charts. But Stoute sees the song’s success as stemming from its inherent quality — and as further evidence as to how the industry is changing.
“I think the artist should always own their music, because the biggest lift in all of this is the work that they did, which is making the song,” Stoute says. “There’s nothing a record company or anyone can do to make a non-hit a hit. And if the artist has a hit, in today’s music business, it’s less about what a record company can do and more about, how can you support the artist and what they want to do? It’s not like we have this magic silver-bullet idea that the artist doesn’t understand. What are your marketing ideas? What do you believe in? We’ll give you money and support to help accentuate what you believe in. And that’s why [artists] also get a lion’s share of the revenue — because it’s you. With the old record business, they didn’t respect that. The old record business was, ‘You make the song, and we’ll take it from here.’”
Since Stoute launched UnitedMasters in 2018, the music business at large has seen a shift as more services-oriented companies have come into the industry, and some established players shifted their business models toward a more distribution-and-services offering, giving artists more choices to chart their paths than the traditional record label model, while even the majors have increased their distribution offerings to reflect the reality of the marketplace. UnitedMasters, through Stoute’s sister company Translation, has marketed itself as an option with more brand services offerings to artists than its competitors; Translation represents clients such as the NFL, NBA, AT&T and State Farm, among others. But its path towards success also lies within the broader shifts in the industry.
“[The indie path] is much bigger than a cottage industry that is an alternative for people who can’t get a record deal; this is actually a solution that empowers the artist,” Stoute says. “[Superstar Pride’s success] is just another example of an independent artist finding tremendous success without the need to give up his rights, and ownership of his rights, to a record company. And the more successes that are happening like this much more frequently, the more people are seeing that the record companies are nothing more than just banks.”