State Champ Radio Business
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Billy Jones, a longtime figure in New York’s live music scene, has died at age 45. A statement provided to multiple outlets by a spokesman for the club says Jones died on Saturday morning (June 7) due to “a highly aggressive case of glioblastoma,” a form of brain cancer. Jones was the co-founder/owner of Brooklyn’s […]
Jonathan Mayers, co-founder of Superfly Entertainment and the co-creator of iconic festivals including Bonnaroo and Outside Lands, has died. His age and cause of death are unknown at this time.
Mayers grew up an hour outside New York City and attended Tulane University in New Orleans, graduating in 1995. He was first introduced to the music business through his work with famed New Orleans venue Tipitina’s and the long-running Jazz Fest celebration. He co-founded promotion company Superfly in 1996 with Rick Farman, Richard Goodstone and Kerry Black and staged its first concert during Mardi Gras with the Meters, Maceo Parker and Rebirth Brass Band. In 2002, the four men launched and sold out the first Bonnaroo after discovering the perfect festival site an hour outside of Nashville in Manchester, Tenn. Partnering with promoter Ashley Capps of AC Entertainment, agent Chip Hooper of Paradigm and manager Coran Capshaw of Red Light — and securing headliners like Trey Anastasio from Phish and Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh and Bob Weir — the men created a 70,000-person festival that would become the blueprint for hundreds of other music festivals across the country.
In 2005, Mayers’ Superfly launched Vegoose in Las Vegas with programming at multiplevenues throughout the city. The first festival brought in approximately 37,000 visitors, and Mayers and his team ran the festival for three seasons before opting to shut it down. Mayers would also partner with Another Planet Entertainment in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2008 to launch Outside Lands in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. In 2017, Mayers led efforts to partner with Viacom and Comedy Central to produce a large-scale indoor/outdoor comedy festival in San Francisco called Clusterfest that included performances by Kevin Hart, Amy Schumer, Jon Stewart and Trevor Noah.
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While working on Clusterfest, Mayers began interfacing with major film and TV rights holders and created a new experience concept allowing fans to “step inside” some of their favorite TV shows on recreated TV sets. Mayers and team licensed rights from shows like Seinfeld, The Office, South Park, Arrested Development, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The Daily Show to create immersive fan experiences visited by hundreds of thousands of fans. For the show Friends, Mayers led efforts to create pop-up experiences in multiple cities, including New York, Boston and Atlanta.
Despite his success, Mayers’ relationships with his co-founders at Superfly began deteriorating during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in August 2021, he was terminated from his position at the company. In early 2022, Mayers sued Farman, Goodstone and Black and accused them of civil misrepresentation, breach of contract and fraud for allegedly lowballing him for the value of his shares in Superfly. Also named in the complaint was Virgo Investment Group, a California private equity fund; Mayers alleged that its top executive, Jesse Watson, strung him along for months, promising $5 million in financing before firing him last summer. On Jan. 20, 2023, a New York judge dismissed the lawsuit.
After leaving Superfly, Mayers began work on a new project called Core City Detroit which sought to raise money to invest in a “culturally rich neighborhood anchored by a music campus providing world- class services, infrastructure, and housing for local/national artists & industry along with entertainment experiences for the public,” according to an investment deck on the project. Phase 1 of the Core City Detroit project included a drive-in diner by celebrity chef Kiki Louya and the renovation of an old pickle factory into a music production complex.
Mayers’ longtime friend Peter Shapiro, founder of Dayglo Presents and the Brooklyn Bowl, described him as a creative mastermind who had a deep love for live music and a vision for how it would evolve over the next two decades.
“Jonathan was one of the true real visionaries of the modern concert world and one of the core minds behind Bonnaroo,” Shapiro tells Billboard. “Modern-day festivals are all in some way built off of his vision.”
Company officials at Another Planet Entertainment issued a statement to Billboard following Mayers’ passing. “Jonathan was a bright light, always pushing new and creative ideas in the entertainment space,” they said. “He was a visionary who was integral in the founding and the spirit of Outside Lands. Everyone in the Another Planet family will miss him dearly.”
Music rights and media investment company HarbourView Equity Partners raised $500 million through the sale of a private asset-backed securitization (ABS), backed by royalties generated from its music catalog, to insurance vehicles managed by global investment firm KKR, HarbourView announced on Monday (June 9). The news comes a little more than a year after HarbourView […]
Now that Taylor Swift has bought back the masters to her first six albums, Scooter Braun is reflecting on his part in the yearslong back-and-forth he ignited by purchasing the singer’s catalog from Scott Borchetta back in 2019.
While speaking about the feud during an episode of The Diary of a CEO posted Monday (June 9), the music mogul began by sharing how he’d originally had high hopes for his relationship with the “Fortnight” singer after he bought Big Machine Label Group from Borchetta for a reported $300 million six years ago, gaining ownership of Swift’s back catalog in the process. Shortly afterward, the pop star shared a Tumblr post calling the sale her “worst case scenario,” accusing Braun of “incessant, manipulative bullying” over the years and including a screenshot of a post from Justin Bieber featuring Braun and Kanye West with the caption, “Taylor swift what’s up.”
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Braun says that he was “shocked” when he read Swift’s post. “When I bought Big Machine, I thought I was going to work with all the artists on Big Machine,” Braun recalled on the podcast. “[Taylor] and I had only met three or four times. One of the times, it was years earlier, it was really a great engagement. She invited me to her party. We respected each other.”
“In between that time since I’d seen her last, I started managing Kanye West,” he continued. “I managed Justin Bieber. I knew she didn’t get along with them. This is where my arrogance came in. I had a feeling she probably didn’t like me because I managed them, but I thought once this announcement happened, she’d talk to me, see who I am, and we’d work together. Then this Tumblr comes out, and it says all of this stuff, and I was just shocked.”
The involved parties would spend the next few weeks disputing details of how the deal went down — including whether or not Swift found out about the purchase only as it was publicly announced, which she claimed in her post — with Braun later writing in an open letter of his own that he was “disappointed” in the 14-time Grammy winner for having “remained silent” despite his family receiving “numerous death threats” amid the debacle. Swift would later announce plans to re-record her old albums, while the retired manager eventually sold her catalog again to Shamrock Holdings.
“I couldn’t fix the relationship that I didn’t have, but then I was able to figure out, ‘You know what? We’ll sell it,’” Braun said of selling to Shamrock on The Diary of a CEO. “In the world of streaming, the re-records will only help the old catalog as much as they help the new catalog. Both will get a bump. I showed how everyone can be a winner here, and I was able to sell the catalog and — I don’t want to go into too much detail, but it’s now come out very factually that I did offer it [to Taylor] … multiple times in that process. They said no, I sold to someone else, washed my hands of it and moved on.”
Swift has also previously addressed Braun’s alleged offers to sell her catalog back to her, though she recalls it much differently. According to the “Karma” artist, his team had asked her to sign a non-disclosure agreement before she could even “bid on [her] own work.”
“He would never even quote my team a price,” Swift wrote in a post on X at the time. “These master recordings were not for sale to me.”
Billboard has reached out to Swift’s rep for comment.
In any case, the musician walked away from negotiations and hammered away at her Taylor’s Version re-recording project, releasing highly successful new versions of Fearless, Speak Now, Red and 1989 between 2021 and 2023. Everything came full circle at the end of May 2025, when Swift announced that she’d finally been able to acquire her old catalog from Shamrock, about which Braun told Billboard at the time, “I am happy for her.”
On the podcast, Braun reiterated that he only hopes for the best for Swift. “I can’t worry about everyone’s niece being mad at me,” he quipped. “What I gotta do is show up for my niece, and I gotta show up for my friends and my family. I wish everyone involved, across the board, whether I know them or not, good wishes.”
Even so, the businessman confessed that the fallout was hard on his mental health and personal life, especially as he was going through a tough time with then-wife Yael Cohen that would eventually lead to a divorce. “When something happens to you that feels deeply unfair, and you can’t fix it, then you’ve really got to look at everything and realize the role you played in this or that, who you want to be,” Braun said of his disagreement with Swift.
“Everything in life is a gift,” he added. “Having that experience allows me to have empathy for people I worked with. I never knew what it was like to be on the global stage like that. I never knew what criticism like that felt like.”
Watch Braun’s full interview on The Diary of a CEO above.
Taylor Swift has won a temporary restraining order against an alleged stalker who the pop superstar claims showed up at her Los Angeles home numerous times over the past year to falsely claim she’s the mother of his child.
The order requires Brian Jason Wagner, a 45-year-old Colorado man, to stay at least 100 yards away from Swift and her residence. Judge Debra R. Archuleta signed the directive on Monday (June 9), three days after Swift petitioned the court for help.
In the restraining order request filed Friday (June 6), Swift said Wagner is a stalker who first showed up at her Los Angeles residence in July 2024. Wagner allegedly returned multiple times that month, at one point “carrying a glass bottle that could have been used as a weapon.”
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“During each of these visits, I am informed that Mr. Wagner made various statements about living at my property (not true), being in a relationship with me (not true), believing I am the mother of his son (not true), and needing to see me in person, all of which are untrue and disconnected from reality,” wrote Swift.
Swift said Wagner returned to the house again twice this past May, prompting her security team to run a background report. At this point, Swift’s staff discovered that Wagner had a criminal record and had sent “lengthy communications” from jail discussing a nonexistent romantic relationship with the singer.
According to the restraining order request, Swift’s team also discovered that Wagner had attempted to steal her mail and illegally obtained a California driver’s license that listed her Los Angeles address as his own.
“I do not share publicly where I reside and have never shared my address or the location of my Los Angeles residence with Mr. Wagner,” wrote Swift in the filing. “Therefore, the fact that Mr. Wagner has determined where I reside and visited the property several times, refusing to leave and claiming to need access, makes me fear for my safety and the safety of my family. The fact that both of these recent visits and Mr. Wagner’s inappropriate and threatening communications to my staff about me have escalated in recent weeks creates a fear of imminent harm.”
The temporary restraining order is set to expire on June 30, when Judge Archuleta will hold a hearing to determine whether a more permanent restraining order should be put in place.
Swift’s reps did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday. Wagner could not be reached for comment.
This is just the latest in a string of disturbing incidents that have landed Swift’s alleged stalkers in legal trouble over the past few years. Florida man Roger Alvarado was sentenced to six months in jail in 2019 for breaking into Swift’s New York home and taking a nap in her bed, and Texas resident Eric Swarbrick was sentenced to two and a half years in federal prison in 2020 for sending violent and threatening letters to her former label, Big Machine Records.
In January 2024, a man named David Crowe was charged with stalking after showing up outside Swift’s New York apartment dozens of times in just a few months. The charges were ultimately dropped, as Crowe was declared mentally unfit for trial and transferred to a mental health facility.
More than three years after Young Thug, Gunna and dozens of others were indicted in Atlanta on gang charges, Thug’s last co-defendant has pleaded guilty.
A trial had been set to start Monday (June 9) in Fulton County court for Christian Eppinger, who stood accused of attempted murder for allegedly shooting an Atlanta police officer in 2022. But he instead entered a so-called Alford plea, allowing him to technically plead guilty while maintaining that he is innocent; he was later sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Eppinger was the last remaining defendant of 28 men indicted in May 2022 by Fulton County prosecutors, who claimed that Thug’s “YSL” — nominally a record label — was also a violent gang called “Young Slime Life” that had wrought “havoc” on Atlanta for years. Thug was released from jail in October after a judge sentenced him to just probation, a stunning defeat for District Attorney Fani Willis after her office had labeled him a dangerous gang boss.
Asked Friday (June 6) if the massive prosecution had been a “waste of taxpayer money,” Willis vehemently defended the case and stressed that it had resulted in 19 convictions: “What my constituents say, who just voted me by 68 percent, is she’s doing an amazing job,” Willis told Atlanta’s NBC affiliate. “We are making sure that this community is safe.”
A representative for the DA’s office did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday.
Pitting prosecutors in America’s rap capital against a chart-topping rapper who helped shape the sound of hip-hop in the 2010s, the YSL case captivated the music business for years. Most notably, it relied heavily on song lyrics as evidence, a controversial practice that has drawn backlash from the music industry and efforts by lawmakers to stop it.
The case also saw Thug sit in jail for years while the messy proceedings — the longest in state history — played out in court, turning his charges into a cause célèbre and raising big questions about procedural fairness. Gunna, a frequent collaborator and protégé of Thug, was also initially charged, though he quickly pleaded out.
The charges against Thug and the other YSL members were built on Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, a state-level version of the federal RICO law used against the Mafia, drug cartels and other large criminal enterprises. Prosecutors alleged that members of the YSL enterprise had committed murders, carjackings, drug dealing and many other crimes — and that Thug was the “King Slime” crime boss running the operation from the top.
But when the trial kicked off in January 2023, that sweeping narrative proved difficult to litigate in court.
After an unprecedented 10-month jury selection process, prosecutors slowly worked through a vast list of witnesses that included more than 100 names. Last summer, the case was delayed for weeks due to a bizarre episode over a secret meeting between the judge, prosecutors and a witness — an incident that saw the judge removed from the case. Things got worse for the DA’s office in October, when botched testimony from a state’s witness sparked talk of a mistrial and prompted a wave of plea deals.
Prosecutors offered such a deal to Thug, but it would have seen him spend 25 years in prison. Thug’s attorneys rejected that offer and instead opted to simply plead guilty — a gamble that paid off spectacularly when Judge Paige Reese Whitaker sentenced him to just probation with no time served in prison.
“I know you’re talented, and if you choose to continue to rap, you need to try to use your influence to let kids know that is not the way to go and that there are ways out of poverty besides hooking up with the powerful guy at the end of the street selling drugs,” Whitaker said.
After that, just two key defendants — Deamonte “Yak Gotti” Kendrick and Shannon Stillwell — remained in the trial, facing some of the most serious charges in the case, including carrying out the 2015 murder of rival gang leader Donovan Thomas that played a central role in the prosecution’s case. But a jury largely acquitted them on those counts in December, and both were released immediately after the verdicts.
Those verdicts ended the trial, but not the case. Eppinger and several others had been separated from the case early in the proceedings to face their own trials on charges related to YSL.
Eppinger, an aspiring rapper who used the performing name “Big Bhris,” pleaded guilty to a slew of charges on Monday, including armed robbery and RICO conspiracy. Though he was sentenced to 40 years, it will be served concurrently with an existing 45-year sentence on an earlier crime, meaning he did not receive any additional prison time.
Though the Thomas killing formed a core part of the YSL case — Young Thug was alleged to have helped rent the car that was used in the drive-by shooting — no defendants were ever convicted of the murder. The last defendant alleged to have been involved, Damekion Garlington, took a plea deal last month that saw him sentenced to five years in prison for aggravated assault.
In the Friday interview, Willis argued that crime had dropped in Fulton County “because of the efforts I have done against gangs.” And she harshly criticized others — media outlets for “glorifying violence,” defense attorneys who “don’t care about the African American community,” and even Judge Whitaker — for how the YSL case has been portrayed.
“It was an amazing time. We had 19 convictions. The community is safer,” Willis said. “We made sure that we got the resolutions that we want. If they’re unhappy with sentencing, they should elect other judges.”
Gracie Abrams, Thomas Rhett, Aaron Dessner and Leon Bridges are performing at this year’s National Music Publishers’ Association annual meeting on Wednesday (June 11) at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. The event, which acts as a state-of-the-union for music publishers, has continued to integrate more songwriters into the event in recent years to honor the talents that publishers serve every day.
Abrams and Dessner are part of a special segment of the meeting, dedicated to the Billboard Songwriters Awards, a collaboration between Billboard and the NMPA which was rescheduled from GRAMMY week due to the Los Angeles wildfires. Abrams is set to receive the Breakthrough Songwriter Award to account for her fast-growing career as an artist, and Dessner will be given Billboard‘s Triple Threat Award for his success as a songwriter, producer and musician. Though to pop fans Dessner might be best known for his work producing and writing with Taylor Swift, Bon Iver, Ed Sheeran and Abrams, he is also lauded in the indie rock space as a longtime member of the band The National. Both are set to perform.
Additionally, the NMPA is giving out awards of its own. It’s Non-Performing Songwriter Award this year is going to Rhett Akins, and as part of that honor, his son, Thomas Rhett, will perform a medley of his father’s vast country catalog, which includes songs like “Dirt On My Boots” by Jon Pardi, “Honeybee” by Blake Shelton, “I Don’t Want This Night To End” by Luke Bryan, “Small Town Boy” by Dustin Lynch, “Look What God Gave Her” by Rhett, and many more.
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The NMPA’s Songwriter Icon this year is Kacey Musgraves, and Bridges is flying in to pay tribute to Musgraves by performing a rendition of two of her songs.
The NMPA Annual Meeting, which is attended by a who’s who of the music publishing business, will also feature a keynote conversation with Oliver Schusser from Apple Music, and an address from the organization’s CEO/president David Israelite this year. Typically, Israelite’s speech includes a major announcement about new action the NMPA is taking to protect publishers and their writers. Last year, Israelite took on Spotify for cutting payments to publishers by about 40% that year through a multi-faceted attack plan, which is still on-going. He has also used the stage to announce lawsuits against Roblox, Twitter and more for using publishers’ copyrights without a license in previous years.
In 2024, the NMPA gave the Songwriter Icon award to Lana Del Rey and the Non-Performing Songwriter Icon award to Savan Kotecha, who has written hits like “Azizam” by Ed Sheeran, “God Is A Woman,” “Break Free” and “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored” by Ariana Grande, “I Can’t Feel My Face” by The Weeknd, “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction and more.
In a stylish, cozy office in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, a dozen or so Ninja Tune employees sit around a conference table, everyone locked in on their laptops.
There’s a quiet hum of productivity as staffers work on the daily tasks that add up to the label’s prolific output — work that has helped define and expand electronic and indie music culture since Ninja Tune’s creation 35 years ago.
Founded in London by Matt Black and Jonathan More, who together made music as Coldcut, Ninja Tune now employs a staff of roughly 100 that primarily works in London and L.A. Given that geographic reach, Marie Clausen, Ninja Tune’s managing director of North America since 2022, calls 7:30 a.m. PT — which is 3:30 p.m. in London — the hallowed “golden hour” of each day.
“That’s the time for us to connect,” Clausen says while sitting in the office’s upstairs lounge area, where the walls are hung with album covers from Bonobo, Thundercat, Bicep, ODESZA and many of the other acts who’ve helped define the label’s roster and creative ethos since 1990.
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Originally from northern Germany, Clausen cut her teeth in the Berlin rave scene before eventually relocating to L.A. She now oversees an operation that includes the label, publishing company Just Isn’t Music and Ninja Tune Production Music, a library of stock music whose year-over-year revenue recently rose by 20%.
These latter two entities help subsidize the still fully independent Ninja Tune label. Recent synchs include music by the rising Brooklyn electronic outfit Fcukers featured in an Apple Keynote presentation; label artists TSHA, Logic1000, Machinedrum and many more having their music placed in projects spanning video games, film and TV; and a recent contract that secured the largest individual synch deal in the company’s history. While the track and brand are confidential, the campaign generated over $1 million — highlighting, Clausen says, “the scale and potential of our synch business.”
Ninja Tune also encompasses a collection of sublabels and partners including Flying Lotus’ influential Brainfeeder imprint, ODESZA’s Foreign Family Collective, Counter Records and Big Dada, with the team thus altogether touching a wide swath of artists and genres.
“Music and culture are the fires that keep us all going,” Clausen says. “That’s the real essence; that’s the texture; that’s what sticks, and then you build the business around it to amplify it.”
As Ninja Tune marks its 35th anniversary, Clausen reflects on the label’s recent successes, competing with the majors and more.
What are some of Ninja Tune’s biggest successes from the last few years?
One of the biggest milestones is continuing to work with team ODESZA on everything we’ve achieved over the years. I started working with them about 10 years ago, and obviously, we landed a No. 3 Billboard 200 album [with A Moment Apart in 2017]. Last year, they sold out three Madison Square Garden shows, which was an amazing milestone for them. Then we had several Grammy Award [nominations] and several gold and platinum records. [In 2021], we also brought their label, Foreign Family Collective, into Ninja Tune. That whole relationship just continues to be really strong, and it’s an amazing team. They’re very ambitious, very forward-thinking and very fan-first.
Then during COVID, we released Thundercat’s It Is What It Is album on Brainfeeder. That was another massive milestone. The record came out in April 2020 during the height of COVID, and we had to pivot many, many times throughout the campaign. He’s an incredible artist to work with — very, very talented. Ultimately, it also led to a lot of great chart success and a [best progressive R&B album] Grammy win for Thundercat.
What about on the broader business side?
Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen continued growth across the business, specifically in streaming. We went from the streaming revolution to the social media revolution, and now we head on into AI [artificial intelligence]. With Ninja Tune, we’re always trying to face this with a really open mind and keep an eye on where consumption is going and lead the business into that.
How does this approach extend the ethos of the label’s earlier days?
Back in the day, Matt Black and Jonathan More already had a very innovative, forward-thinking approach. They played with CD-ROMs, they had video mashups. They did something called Pirate TV, which is like what Instagram Live is now. It’s ingrained in the DNA of the company to really lean into new technologies and innovation.
Marie Clausen
Sarah Golonka
Tell me about the current state of your roster.
We have a very stylistic, diverse roster. We already talked about ODESZA and Thundercat, who are incredible and who we continue to work with. Black Country, New Road just released a new album called Forever Howlong that reached top three in the U.K. and sold [11,000] physical copies in the U.S. in its first week alone, after we set up over 150 listening parties and had a very bespoke campaign and an artist who really leaned in.
Then there’s Barry Can’t Swim. He’s amazing. He’s releasing his sophomore album, Loner, this summer, and his career has exploded since he launched his artist career three years ago. He had record attendance at Glastonbury last year and already received a Mercury Prize and a BRIT Award nomination. Here in Los Angeles, in April of last year, he played the El Rey, which is just under 1,000 capacity. Then last weekend, he sold out two shows at the Shrine with a combined 10,000 capacity.
It’s a wonderful team to work with, really forward-thinking, and the sound is incredibly warm and also very clubby and really sticks. There’s also amazing art that goes with it, and he’s an artist that has a fantastic sense of humor and keeps it fresh.
An artist like Barry Can’t Swim could presumably sign with a lot of different labels. What brings him to Ninja Tune?
We have a very ambitious team that, if they get a no, [they] turn it into a yes. We’re really dedicatedto building artist careers. We also handle every campaign and every artist we work with [gets] a very bespoke, white-glove treatment.
Someone like Barry is receiving full attention from the team. We have several offices across the world. There are just under 100 worldwide Ninja Tune employees. We are experts in physical and digital marketing. We know how to run e-commerce. We are really good at [customer relationship management] strategies.
We also know how to market toward different niches and then bring [those niches] into the mainstream. That’s one of the areas we’ve been successful in over the last couple of years.
Whether you look at Maribou State or some of the other artists we work with, it’s not necessarily music you would say is made for the mainstream, but [we can help guide] its way into the mainstream. Having that sort of superpower to know how to drive that forward and drive artist careers is one of our strongest selling points.
Your artist nimino had a big moment last year when his track “I Only Smoke When I Drink” went viral. As a label, how do you capitalize on that virality and harness it into something long-lasting?
We were really able to break him in the sense that when his single started going viral on TikTok, nobody really knew of him yet. We worked very closely with his management team and really leaned in on all the different aspects of the marketing campaign and were very ambitious in all areas.
[The result] has been just incredible to see. He played Coachella this year. His profile on Spotify went from roughly 500,000 monthly plays to 5 million within something like 50 days. It was really fun to work with a moment like that and then lean in and drive it forward.
What competitive advantage does being independent give you?
We’re quick to adapt. In some ways, we’re like the mailman; we are delivering one record after the next, but technology is changing so fast that we need to continue to rethink all the time. We have this very fresh, innovative mindset, and that allows us to pivot really quickly.
Do you feel you’re competing with the majors?
One hundred percent we are competing with the majors. It’s not our goal to compete with the majors. Our goal is to just be the best service to our artists and drive the company forward, but obviously, if you’re working at the forefront of the market, then you are competing. There are always majors around that are equally trying to sign our records, but that’s great. It keeps us on our toes, and it means we can deliver really good results. We’re challenged by that and that’s wonderful.
What are the keys to building a strong team?
It sounds cheesy, but I feel very blessed to work with the team that I do. I find that I’m learning a lot from everyone all the time, especially the younger generations, because they have such different views. The key is nurturing really talented people. We have some [employees] that were coming out of college that now have thriving careers. We’re empowering them, and there’s so much we can learn from them.
It’s also about being fluid while also offering structure. To increase our productivity, we set a rule that meetings are ideally not longer than 15 minutes. We call those micro meetings, and it really has changed the way we work. It helps everyone to really stay on track while we are also supporting hybrid work and all the different things it takes to work together in 2025.
In 2025, is there one thing that’s moving the needle for artists more than any other?
Obviously, we are working in an environment that’s very oversaturated. We see a massive amount of content. One challenge we have is the stickiness of content because there’s so much that’s competing.
One of the main things we see that works really well is to have a proper superfan strategy and to make sure that every time a music lover comes across your music one way or the other, whether it’s via TikTok or a streaming platform, Bandcamp, whatever it is, there is a strategy to get that fan or potential fan into your funnel.
Then it’s being very original with your art and your creativity and being easily identifiable for what you stand for and giving the fan a reason to fall in love with you and put your poster up on the wall. From that superfan strategy, the key points are to then look at [having] great social media, great live shows and great art that ideally is non AI-able.
This story originally appeared in the June 7 issue of Billboard magazine.
Exceleration Music has announced an agreement to acquire Cooking Vinyl, a key independent music company in the U.K. market (Jun. 9).
The move is the latest by Exceleration, lead by former Concorde CEO Glen Barros alongside influential executives John Burk, Amy Dietz, Charles Caldas and Dave Hansen, to consolidate its standing in the independent music space, offering distribution, investment and label support services.
In 2023, Exceleration also acquired distribution company Redeye Worldwide, joining existing labels such as +1 Records, Alligator, Azadi, Bloodshot, Candid, Kill Rock Stars, Mom+Pop, Redeye Worldwide, SideOneDummy, The Ray Charles Foundation/Tangerine Records and Yep Roc Records in Exceleration’s portfolio.
Cooking Vinyl originated in 1993 with its signing of folk troubadour and activist Billy Bragg, and over its 32-year history, has worked with acts such as Shed Seven, Suzanne Vega, Passenger, The Prodigy, The Cranberries, The Darkness, Deacon Blue, 47 Soul, Roger Waters and The Jesus and Mary Chain.
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In 2024, Cooking Vinyl enjoyed a pair of No. 1 albums with two separate LPs by Shed Seven hitting the top spot on the U.K.’s Official Albums Chart: January’s A Matter of Time and September’s Liquid Gold. In February 2025, The Darkness hit No. 2 with Dreams on Toast.
A press release adds that Cooking Vinyl will operate independently and continue to be led by managing director Rob Collins, with founder Martin Goldschmidt remaining in his position as chairman. Cooking Vinyl Publishing UK, Cooking Vinyl Publishing Australia and Motus Music, the statement continues, are not included within the acquisition.
“At Cooking Vinyl, we’ve worked tirelessly to help our artists achieve both artistic and commercial success — without ever compromising their uniqueness or creative control. This deal enhances that mission,” says Collins in a statement.
“Our artists will still benefit from our close-knit, highly personalised team that combines deep industry expertise with old-fashioned hard graft. But now, with the expanded U.S. capabilities, enhanced resources, and the broader global reach of the Exceleration structure, we’re able to offer even stronger support to our current and future roster. I look forward to working with their team to spearhead this next phase for Cooking Vinyl!”
Sony Music Publishing has acquired Hipgnosis Songs Group, multiple sources confirmed to Billboard. Emails obtained by Billboard under the subject line “Update from Sony Music Publishing” said that the company “has entered into an agreement with Recognition Music Group (‘RMG’) to acquire its subsidiary Hipgnosis Songs Group (‘HSG’), effective immediately.”
Hipgnosis Songs Group is one of the companies considered to be under the umbrella of Recognition Music, formerly known as Hipgnosis — which also included Hipgnosis Songs Fund and Hipgnosis Song Management — and is the subsidiary that has housed Big Deal Music and its administration business since the company acquired Big Deal in 2020.
The HSG catalog includes the 4,400 copyrights originally from Big Deal, including songs recorded by Shawn Mendes, Panic! At the Disco and One Direction. According to HSG’s Instagram page, their repertoire also includes publishing shares of songs like “Taste,” “Espresso” and “Feather” by Sabrina Carpenter; “Ordinary” by Alex Warren; “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims; and many more current hits.
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“With this agreement, Sony Music Publishing now owns and administers the Hipgnosis Songs Group catalog, serving as the full-service publisher for its clients and roster of songwriters globally,” the email to HSG songwriters, composers and clients reads.
The news of this deal arrives just three months after Hipgnosis rebranded under the new name Recognition Music Group, bringing the bundle of related Hipgnosis titles under one name and one roof. As part of that previous news, it was noted that Hipgnosis Songs Group was still under the ownership of Blackstone and that the company said the division was under strategic review. Billboard reported that Recognition was looking to partner with publishers and music companies for the administration of their assets.
Over the years, Hipgnosis has largely driven the movement to treat music as an attractive asset class for Wall Street investors, bidding sky-high prices for catalogs by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Neil Young, Lindsey Buckingham, Blondie, Justin Bieber and Journey, among others. But Hipgnosis Songs Fund, which was publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange since 2018, has had a rocky last few years. By 2023, HSF ultimately left its investors frustrated as its stock price fell and its dividend was cancelled. Eventually, in July 2024, HSF was sold to private equity giant Blackstone for $1.6 billion.
A rep for Recognition Music declined to comment. Reps for Sony Music Publishing did not immediately respond to Billboard’s requests for comment at press time.
The email notes that “over the next few months, we will be transitioning the company to SMP’s services and systems. We are working closely with HSG to ensure that all clients will receive the high level of service that you have come to expect.”
By acquiring hits owned or administered by HSG, Sony Music Publishing — which often ranks as the largest publisher by market share on the Hot 100 and Pop Radio Airplay charts on Billboard’s Publishers Quarterly — has become an even more dominant player in popular music.
Read an excerpt of the email below:
Dear Hipgnosis Songs Group Songwriters, Composers and Clients:
On behalf of Sony Music Publishing (“SMP”), we are pleased to inform you that Sony Music Publishing has entered into an agreement with Recognition Music Group (“RMG”) to acquire its subsidiary Hipgnosis Songs Group (“HSG”), effective immediately.
With this agreement, Sony Music Publishing now owns and administers the Hipgnosis Songs Group catalog, serving as the full-service publisher for its clients and roster of songwriters globally.
With a unique roster of contemporary songwriters and timeless classics, HSG aligns with SMP’s mission to elevate and support the work of the world’s most impactful songwriters, and we are honored to represent you and your songs.
Over the next few months, we will be transitioning the company to SMP’s services and systems. We are working closely with HSG to ensure that all clients will receive the high level of service that you have come to expect. No further action is required from you at this time.
In the meantime, your current HSG team remains available to address questions or creative inquiries. You can also reach HSG at HSGcreativeteam@hipgnosissongs.com. For the time being, your royalty payments will continue to be processed and distributed through HSG’s system and your current account access remains unchanged. We will reach out to you directly with important transition updates as they come.
Thank you. We look forward to working with you in this next chapter.
Sincerely,
The Sony Music Publishing Team
