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The long ordeal for Kanye West’s former lawyers is finally over — and they didn’t need to run those newspaper ads after all.
A month after attorneys from the law firm Greenberg Traurig asked a judge to let them to run notices in Los Angeles newspapers announcing they had dropped Ye as a client because they had “exhausted all methods” of contacting him, they told a federal judge Friday (Feb. 3) that they had finally gotten a hold of him.
“The address at which Ye was personally served is not one that is publicly affiliated with Ye or his businesses, but one that Ye nonetheless frequents,” the lawyers wrote in a court filing. “The location also appears to be primarily used by persons and entities not affiliated with Ye or his businesses.”
According to court papers, the notification process was finally accomplished after the firm was contacted by an unnamed attorney who said he would be representing Ye “on some of his legal matters.” A signed document shows that West was formally served on Jan. 27.
Greenberg, one of many law firms to cut ties with Ye in the wake of his antisemitic statements last year, had been trying for months to legally notify the rapper that its lawyers will no longer be representing him. The firm had previously repped West in a copyright lawsuit filed over one of the tracks off his album Donda 2.
Judge Analisa Torres already approved the firm’s withdrawal last year, but federal litigation rules and legal ethics require lawyers to personally serve clients with formal notice that they’ve been dropped as a client. And last month, the Greenberg lawyers notified Judge Torres that West was making it impossible for them to do so. They said he had engaged in “deliberate avoidance and obstruction,” including ditching his previous representatives and changing his phone number.
Faced with that obstinance, the firm asked the judge to permit an extraordinary alternative: printing a formal public notice in Los Angeles newspapers.
“Given Ye’s public status, publication of the Withdrawal Order will likely garner significant media attention, resulting in broader publication and provide an even greater likelihood of apprising Ye of the Order,” the Greenberg lawyers wrote at the time.
Such steps will now not be necessary. In a declaration, Greenberg attorney Nina D. Boyajian detailed how the firm finally got the formal notification to their disgraced former client.
“On January 18, 2023, an attorney based in California contacted my firm advising that he would be representing ‘Ye on some of his legal matters,’” she wrote. “During the course of several emails and a phone call with this attorney, I requested that he coordinate personal service of the Order on Ye. On February 1, 2023, the attorney referenced above emailed me the executed Certificate of Service.”
The name of Kanye’s new attorney and the location where the star was finally located were not disclosed in public documents. Kanye could not immediately be located for comment.
The 65th annual Grammy Awards took place Sunday night (Feb. 5) in Los Angeles and included plenty of shockers in the top categories, as Harry Styles, Lizzo and Bonnie Raitt took home album, record and song of the year honors, respectively. But the fourth major category, best new artist, also served up a surprise, as Bronx-born, 23-year-old jazz singer Samara Joy took home the honor following the breakthrough success of her debut album for Verve Records, Linger Awhile.
Joy was understandably thrilled when taking the podium to accept the honor from last year’s recipient Olivia Rodrigo, thanking her family, fans and fellow nominees when making her speech. “To be here because of who I am — all of you have inspired me because of who you are, you express yourself for exactly who you are authentically,” she said. “So to be here by just being myself, by just being who I was born as, I’m so thankful.”
After the ceremony, Joy also sent a statement to Billboard. “Music has been in my family for generations. Singing has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember,” she said. “So to be able to represent a genre as rich as jazz while honoring the musical legacy in my family is a true blessing. I’m so thankful to everyone for their support and I hope I continue to make my family proud.”
For Verve, Impulse! and Verve Forecast president Jamie Krents, the moment was the culmination of another huge year at the Grammys, coming on the heels of the massive success of Verve artist Jon Batiste last year, who took home a surprise album of the year honor. “I won’t say I couldn’t believe it, but it did feel like a dream, because she’s been working really hard,” says Krents on Monday. “Even for a 23-year-old who has a lot more energy than me, she’s worked incredibly hard and she does it the right way. She’s gracious and she’s really appreciating the ride.”
Joy’s win for best new artist also continues a strong recent track record for Verve in the highly-competitive best new artist category, with Arooj Aftab nominated last year and Tank and the Bangas receiving a nod in 2020, giving it three nominees in four years — not bad for a label that rarely dips a toe in the mainstream. And Verve’s other wins were spread across several genres as well: Samara Joy also won for best jazz vocal album, while Madison Cunningham took home best folk album, Renée Fleming And Yannick Nézet-Séguin earned best classical solo vocal album, Time for Three won best classical instrumental solo and Kevin Puts was awarded best contemporary classical composition. And it’s those wins across the board of which Krents is most proud. “This is what it’s all about for us,” he says. “Getting this kind of recognition and seeing these artists be called out for doing superb work. I’m really pleased.”
Congrats on these wins. What did you think of the evening?
It was kind of like a dream. As deserving as these artists are, it’s really competitive. We’re a label that’s extremely artist-development focused, and we had a great year last year with Jon Batiste, who was very nominated going into it, and we were optimistic — certainly in the case of Samara, in the jazz category in which she was nominated, we felt like she had a great shot, and we were pleased that she won, and same with Madison. But you just never know. These are high integrity categories, where every artist — I mean, in folk, you had Judy Collins, and she’s a legend. So you just never know.
I left the pre-telecast already feeling elated that Madison and Samara had both won. And then with best new artist, there were so many nominees and it was such a disparate group of acts, it was sort of hard to know which way the voting would go — indie rock, to Wet Leg, who are amazing? Would it go R&B? I just think Samara’s had a very very fast rise to prominence, and she really deserves it. I think people connect with her voice, but I also think people connect with her, and I think she articulated that well in her speech. She really emphasized the fact that this means a lot to her because she’s putting herself out there. She’s not a construct, she’s somebody who’s gone to school for this, she spent half of her life last year on the road and is really doing this organically, and I think that’s really gratifying, to be part of that, when you know you’re making music that isn’t chasing trends, that is about letting these artists evolve. We were thrilled.
What was going through your head when Samara won best new artist?
It was so reminiscent to me of when Jon Batiste won album of the year last year, where it was like, “Wow, this artist shocks the world, I don’t think the Vegas odds were saying this would happen.” But at the same time, it was just like, all of this talk about making these awards more transparent and fair and reflecting what our world looks like now, this is a great, affirming moment. And also, this should be a snapshot of an artist at the beginning of a great career, and that fits her. That’s exactly where she is. Best new artist should be that — someone who’s really breaking through on their own terms and with authenticity, and she is. I’ve worked at Verve for over two decades, and a voice like this just does not come along [often]. When you have artists in the catalog like Ella [Fitzgerald] and Billie Holliday and Nina [Simone], you can’t just sign a jazz artist lightly, because those comparisons are going to come. There’s nothing we can do about it, and she’s risen to it.
So what was going through my head was, if there was any 23-year-old in the world who deserves it, it’s this woman. She’s putting in the work and she respects her audience and she really deserves this. She’s been a really good partner. She absolutely appreciates why we ask her to do all of the things that we do. And that’s part of it, too. She’s been really open to strategy and to opportunities. And she’s a huge focus. It’s self-fulfilling.
People are comparing Samara’s win to Esperanza Spalding, who surprised everyone by winning the category in 2011.
I think that’s kind of reductive, in the sense that these are both female jazz artists coming from the jazz space. I mean, I get that, but it’s also very different. In Samara’s case, she’s so young, and this happened, I think, faster for her than the cadence of Esperanza’s journey to best new artist. But I can understand it — the surprise to many people, and any time a jazz artist — whether it’s Herbie Hancock winning album of the year in the 2000s or Stan Getz winning album of the year in 1965 — there’s always a gasp in the theater.
But musically, she and Esperanza are very, very different. At that point, you might as well compare her to Muni Long or some of these other nominees. She loves TikTok and she loves Beyoncé, and as much as she loves jazz, she’s also a very normal 23-year-old woman. She’s not just one thing. So I get the comparison — and she loves Esperanza — but I just don’t think we’re following any sort of Esperanza template. I think those comparisons happen because they’re both jazz, or jazz-adjacent, artists winning that award. But it’s like how [Samara] gets a lot of comparisons to Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald — I also understand why those come, but I feel confident saying that she’s got her own voice and her own road here.
You guys had a great year last year with Jon, but Verve has had a pretty great run in recent years in the best new artist category, with Samara, Arooj Aftab last year and Tank and the Bangas a few years before that all getting nominated. What do you attribute that to?
This is the thing that I’m most proud of. All of the awards are wonderful, but best new artist, when you’re a record label with a legacy like Verve, whether you’re talking about Ella or the Velvet Underground, this is about artist development, being a place for artists who are maybe a bit left of center, or who aren’t on what the current trend is, and then giving them the chance and supporting them to really evolve and develop. And that takes patience and resources and it’s very international, because we live in that world and all of these artists do really well outside the U.S. But the fact that we have had these nominations and Samara’s win in the best new artist category is the most validating thing, I think, for Verve. Because every label talks about artist development — if you sat in on any A&R pitch to sign any artist, no one’s gonna say, “Well, you’ve got one chance and that’s it.” Everyone says it, but I feel like this is a little bit of proof of concept that we mean it, that we’re good at it and that we bring that value. Ultimately, it’s the artists who achieve it, but we’re there to amplify what they do with a strategy that does get that kind of recognition.
I wish Madison had won it earlier in her career — I don’t want to leave her out of the story, because winning her first Grammy and doing an incredible performance, she just released a song with Remi Wolf — Madison’s also on this trajectory where everyone who owns an instrument knows she’s incredible, but she’s now starting to transcend that and people are starting to realize what a good songwriter she is, and her music is really connecting with an audience outside of the choir she’s been preaching to. So she’s also someone who’s got a different future than she maybe had two years ago. But to get back to your question, the best new artist story for Verve, and having three nominations in the last four years, if someone were to ask me what I feel best about at Verve, I would probably cite that.
Madison won for best folk album, Samara won also for best jazz vocal album and you had winners in three different classical categories. What do these wins say about what you guys are doing at the label?
I’ve been at Verve for a long time, and there have been different iterations of Verve, and I’m really grateful that at this point we’re so supported. Universal’s a big company, the number one music company quantitatively. But you don’t need Verve to compete with our sister labels who are signing the [biggest] artists. Verve is the home for eclectic music at Universal. And I think these wins across a disparate group of categories shows we have a fluency and a value in all of those areas, but mostly it’s about the fact that there’s no template. Whether you’re a classical artist coming through Decca or Deutsche Gramophone, or a singer/songwriter or indie type of artist like Kurt Vile or Madison coming through that side, or you’re Samara Joy and in my opinion the greatest jazz singer out there, we bring you some value and we can help you and support you and help amplify your vision. And if you’re more mainstream or more in that game, Universal has lots of great options for you there, too, with places like Capitol and Interscope and Republic.
But Verve exists to serve a different agenda. It’s a business — we still have to keep the lights on, and these artists all have careers and a commercial aspect to what they do — but I think something like the Grammys showing that yesterday, it highlights that. That’s what we’ve built this company to be. We’ve staffed the company so that we have the right people to help these real, generational artists, artists that make timeless music, not making records that only sound topical today. It’s artists making records like those that we’re proud to have in our catalog, from Coltrane to Oscar Peterson to Nina Simone to the Velvet Underground. We’re still making records that will be resonant long after I work there.
Taylor Swift‘s attorneys are asking a federal judge to dismiss a copyright lawsuit claiming the star stole aspects of a self-published book of poetry when she created a companion book for her album Lover, calling the case “legally and factually baseless.”
A woman named Teresa La Dart sued Swift last year, claiming that “a number of creative elements” from her 2010 book (also called Lover) were copied into Swift’s book. But in a motion filed Friday in Tennessee federal court, Swift’s lawyers said the copyright lawsuit should be dismissed immediately because it failed in every way possible.
“This is a lawsuit that never should have been filed,” attorney Doug Baldridge wrote for the superstar.
La Dart sued Swift in August over the star’s Lover book – an extra bundled with the special-edition of her Lover CD that the New York Times called a “must-read companion” for Swifties. Released in four different versions, Swift’s book included a total of 120 pages of personal diary entries, accompanied by photos selected by the singer.
La Dart’s lawsuit claims the book’s outer design borrowed a number of visual elements, including its “pastel pinks and blues” and an image of the author “photographed in a downward pose,” as well as the book’s overall format: “a recollection of past years memorialized in a combination of written and pictorial components.” La Dart also says the inner book design – specifically that it’s composed of “interspersed photographs and writings” – infringed her copyrights.
But in Friday’s response, Swift’s lawyers said those elements were just commonplace features of almost any book, meaning they fall well-short of being unique enough to qualify for copyright protection.
“These allegedly-infringing elements, each a generic design format, are not subject to copyright protection,” Baldridge wrote. “Thus, defendants could not possibly have infringed plaintiff’s copyright.”
And even if La Dart had valid copyrights to her book, Swift’s lawyers argued that the accuser has no proof that Swift ever even saw the earlier book, nor that the two books are legally similar to constitute copyright infringement.
“When compared, it is undeniable that the book formats and inner book designs are not similar in the slightest,” Baldridge wrote.
Friday’s arguments closely track what legal experts have told Billboard about the potential weaknesses of La Dart’s case. In an interview last year, copyright expert Aaron Moss said that such a simple book format cannot not be monopolized by any one author: “If it were, this person might as well sue anyone who’s ever written a diary or made a scrap book.”
At the time, La Dart’s attorney William S. Parks defended bringing the case: “My client feels strongly about her position and the full comparison of both books side-by-side would provide a clearer view. This filing was not taken lightly.”
Parks did not return a request for comment on Swift’s motion to dismiss the case.
Clio Music announced a collaboration with Billboard on Monday (Feb. 6) that will move the annual Clio Music Awards to Los Angeles during Grammy Week 2024. The Clios will additionally introduce a new specialty award offering music fans the opportunity to select the winner of the Favorite Music From a Commercial Award, to be presented by Billboard during the ceremony.
Clio Music will also develop an honorary Clio Music Executive Award, honoring an executive whose creative approach to advertising is shaping the future of the industry. This award will be presented at the 2024 Billboard Power 100 event the evening prior to the Clio Music Awards, at the same venue.
“As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Clio Music program, I am so proud of how much it has grown,” Clio CEO Nicole Purcell said in a statement. “What began as a dedicated act in our legacy Clio Awards show has grown into a powerful force for celebrating creativity in the music business. And now, we’re hosting a standalone show in Los Angeles and collaborating with Billboard, one of the industry’s most prominent outlets for recognizing the industry.
“It’s been incredibly fulfilling to see our competition evolve alongside the music industry, which has developed so many new avenues for brands and musicians to collaborate in the years since Clio Music launched,” she added.
Clio Music opens for entries today. The 2023/24 entry cycle will feature two new mediums: music supervision and fan engagement. The program, which recognizes creative excellence in music marketing and the use of music in advertising, also includes mediums for branded entertainment & content, creative effectiveness, design, digital/mobile, experience/activation, film & video, public relations, social good, social media, sonic branding and use of music in audio/film & video advertising and in teasers/trailers. For more information, go here.
On the evening prior to the awards, Billboard will host its annual Billboard Power 100 event, which celebrates the industry’s most influential executives and will feature the Executive of the Year, Label of the Year and the Clive Davis Award, in addition to the newly created honorary Clio music executive award.
“Our Power 100 list recognizes the influential executives that move the music business forward each year and it’s always a delight to bring everyone together during Grammy week for an evening that celebrates the best in the biz,” said Billboard chief brand officer Dana Droppo. “We’re excited to get started on planning next year’s event and to be introducing a new award in collaboration with Clio Music that will honor a top executive with a demonstrated talent for music marketing and advertising.”
Nominations for the Billboard Power 100 list will open this summer. Lucian Grainge, chairman/CEO of Universal Music Group, topped this year’s list.
Clio Music celebrates the power of music to connect consumers and brands around the world. The program was introduced in 2014 to recognize the creative contributions of the marketers and communicators that propel the industry forward, inspire a competitive marketplace of ideas, and foster meaningful connections within the creative community.
“We’re back!” Universal Music Group chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge said to a round of applause, opening the first UMG Grammy week artist showcase in three years due to the pandemic. “A lot has happened in these last three years, but today is about the music.”
UMG’s pre-Grammy artist showcase at Milk Studios has always been about the emerging artists that are coming through the ranks at Universal Music Group in a given year, and the performances are a highly-anticipated event each year. But the pandemic meant that this year’s was the first since 2020, and this edition also included highlights from a series of forthcoming docu-films that the company is set to release.
Grainge spent a few moments in his opening remarks shouting out the artists who were set to perform, as well as those in attendance, which included Elton John, Jon Batiste, Sabrina Carpenter, Yo Gotti, Niall Horan, Fletcher, Ice Spice, Queen Naija and Natalie Jane. “We all know the extraordinary power of music; it touches each of us,” he said. “Music’s power increases in a socially conscious way whenever artists use their talents to promote positive change in our community. When we at UMG employ the vast reach and resources of our company to support our artists in their efforts to promote change, the power of music blossoms even more.”
He then introduced a video that focused on Billie Eilish and her mother’s efforts to address climate change and promote sustainability with her tours and the way she lives her life, as well as UMG’s own efforts to promote sustainability and limit their carbon footprint and waste. Then Grainge introduced Eilish herself, who came out and accepted UMG’s Amplifier Award for her efforts.
“I do as much as I can — I feel like I can always do more — but I feel very impressed and excited that you guys are actually making this a priority and thinking about it and doing your part to support me,” Eilish said while accepting the award. “I would just say I’m really thankful — I feel really seen right now. I spend a lot of my time feeling really anxious because I don’t feel like a lot of people, and especially people in the business, care very much, and it’s really nice to see that this is happening and that you guys do. And I just wanted to say, everyone in this room, we can all do our part. I know a lot of you got some money in your f—in’ pocket, so you can use it for good things and not stupid things,” she added, laughing. She then thanked her mother, and continued, “I’m always trying to think of how to do things in the least wasteful ways possible, and it’s shocking how little I feel that gets reciprocated, and it makes me feel like nobody’s doing anything. So it’s nice to see that you are, and I’m really thankful.”
Then the performances got underway, beginning with Kim Petras, who sang her song “brrr” before bringing out Sam Smith for their chart-topping collaboration “Unholy.” Verve Records artist — and best new artist nominee at this year’s Grammys — Samara Joy then came out to perform a beautifully jazzy “Sweet Pumpkin,” with her vocals taking things to the next level with her trio on stage, and GloRilla hit the stage with highly energetic performances of her songs “Tomorrow” and “FNF.”
Elton John then emerged from the crowd to introduce Stephen Sanchez, a young singer and guitarist signed to Republic Records. John thanked the Universal staff — the label group that he’s been with his entire career — before noting how when he was a young artist he benefited from and valued the support he got from established artists who reached out to him and encouraged him. He then turned his attention to Sanchez, who he compared to Roy Orbison and Ricky Nelson. “I am so thrilled to see this boy, at 20 years of age, taking the reins and writing this great song — he’s gonna be a big, big star,” John said. “I really think he’s the bee’s knees.”
Sanchez then played “Evangeline” and “Until I Found You,” two songs with his retro feel, adding that he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to talk on stage instead of just performing — “It feels like I broke into a party I’m not supposed to be at,” he joked — and thanking Elton before walking off to a big ovation. Singer-songwriter Lauren Spencer-Smith got a huge ovation as well, with the crowd audibly gasping at her vocal performances of brand-new, unreleased track “Best Friend Breakup” and her breakout hit “Fingers Crossed.” And Universal Music Latino signee Feid brought a Latin presence to the afternoon, with guitar-rocking performances of “Tengo Fe” — “the song that changed my life while we were in lockdown,” he noted — and “Porfa.”
Def Jam signee Muni Long showcased her powerful vocals and impressive range with the new, unreleased song “Made for Me,” a gorgeous ballad that will be included on her upcoming debut album, which she added she’s still working on, before shimmering on her own breakout hit from last year, the sultry “Hrs and Hrs.” And TDE/Capitol artist Doechii wowed those in attendance with a breathlessly insistence dance set of “Persuasive” and “Crazy” that packed raw energy into every second of her performance.
The show didn’t just contain performances, but was also an opportunity for Universal to preview three new documentaries that it will be releasing in the coming months, including Love to Love You, a Donna Summer doc directed by her daughter, Brooklyn Sudano, as well as Roger Ross Williams, that will arrive on HBO in May, and a Paul McCartney documentary directed by Morgan Neville focusing on his post-Beatles career in the 1970s, when he had to reinvent himself with his solo work and his band Wings, that is called Man on the Run and will be released in 2024.
Batiste was also on hand to speak about an upcoming documentary that follows his life for the past year, called American Symphony, that explores the emotional highs of his big Grammy wins last year, when he took home album of the year, and the devastating lows of his wife’s cancer battle, a film that he says became about a lot more than he originally envisioned while he worked on his next musical project.
“Making things is difficult. Being an artist is vulnerable process, it’s a vulnerable existence. It takes so much to express the truth of how you feel, where you’re from, to connect to the universal humanism, humanity, that everyone has from the beginning of time until now,” Batiste said, also praising director Matthew Heineman. “It’s like you’re connected to a source that exists on a plane that you can’t see but we can all feel. It’s just as real as this table, just as real as anything. And I really believe the process of that is a messy process. You gotta scrap with it a little bit. You gotta roll around. You gotta get a handle on it. I wanted to make a film that captured the process of it all — a lot of unprecedented moments in my life over this year, highs and lows, intense highs and very intense, near tragic, lows.”
The showcase ended with a surprise set from Shania Twain, whose new album Queen of Me came out this past week. The Canadian icon performed a stripped down “You’re Still the One” and an abbreviated honky tonk “That Don’t Impress Me Much” — complete with a tweak of a lyric to “OK, so you’re Lucian Grainge” — before grabbing an acoustic guitar for “Honey I’m Home.” Twain’s appearance capped an afternoon of star-studded performances, showcasing that UMG has another new crop of young stars with bright futures ahead.
The United Kingdom-based Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG) is expanding its San Antonio venue portfolio from two facilities to three with the opening of The Espee, a 3,175-capacity outdoor boutique amphitheater and special event venue located in the city’s historic St. Paul Square entertainment district.
ATG’s GM, Emily Smith, says the venue will service “musical performances to community gatherings and everything in between,” noting that the name Espee originates from the initials S.P., short for Southern Pacific Railroad Network. The Espee is located on the site of San Antonio’s Sunset Station, the city’s first train station and one of five stops on the Sunset Limited passenger train route that began in 1894, connecting Los Angeles to New Orleans.
The Spanish Mission Revival-style complex first opened in 1905 and was purchased and redeveloped in 2019 by two private ownership groups that operated a nightclub on the Espee site for about a year. In 2022, ATG signed on to renovate and operate the space. Improvements include enhanced in-house sound and lighting, renovated artist accommodations and refreshed restroom facilities.
Paying tribute to its past, the Espee will open March 4 with the daylong All Aboard festival featuring Head and the Heart, Danielle Ponder, Grupo Fantasma and more.
ATG also operates San Antonios Majestic and Empire theatres as part of its 58-venue worldwide portfolio across the U.K., the United States and Germany, including the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, the Playhouse Theatre in London’s West End and the Capitol Theater in Düsseldorf.
For more information and to buy tickets for All Aboard festival, visit www.theespee.com.
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Spotify finished 2022 with more than 100 million tracks in its catalog, according to the company’s annual report filed Thursday (Feb. 2). That’s 18 million more than the 82 million tracks streaming service had the year prior — which averages to about 49,000 new songs per day.
By most measures, 49,000 tracks a day is a huge amount of music. At three minutes per track, it would take about three and a half months to listen to a single day’s worth of new music from start to finish.
But 49,000 is only half the number that’s been cited in recent months. Universal Music Group chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge said in September 2022 that 100,000 tracks were being “added to music platforms every day.” Earlier that month, former Warner Music Group CEO Stephen Cooper said “roughly 100,000” tracks were uploaded “to SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple” and other platforms “on any given day of the week.”
Not that self-reported numbers have always been in sync with executives’ statements. In April 2019, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said “nearly 40,000” new tracks were being uploaded daily. Based on Spotify’s own disclosures, however, the daily average that year was 27,000. In Feb. 2021, Ek said the number of daily tracks added to its catalog had surpassed 60,000. Spotify’s disclosures showed the daily average was 55,000 in 2020 — perhaps a function of artists staying home during the early days of the pandemic — but fell to 33,000 in 2021.
But there certainly could be 100,000 new tracks uploaded daily in aggregate. There’s more music on the internet than Spotify adds to its catalog. SoundCloud, for example, adds tracks at a faster rate than other platforms because it licenses music from record labels and distributors while also accepting direct uploads from independent musicians. The service currently boasts 40 million artists on the platform who are unlikely to be found elsewhere. When I wrote about the size of music catalogs in April 2022, SoundCloud had added 50 million tracks in about 12 months, or about 137,000 per day. It appears to have largely maintained that growth rate. From Feb. 2022 through Jan. 2023, SoundCloud added 45 million tracks — an average of 123,000 per day — according to numbers found in the company’s press releases.
Whether the number of new tracks being uploaded daily is 49,000 (17.9 million annually) or 100,000 (36.5 million annually) matters. Anybody following trends, making forecasts or deciding on M&A strategies should understand the size of the market and where the opportunities lay. The lower number is the amount of music landing on the world’s most popular audio streaming platform. The higher number better represents the size of what’s called “the creator economy,” or the universe of music being produced by novices, professionals and everybody in between.
The future of music is more music. People will still flock to chart-topping artists and congregate around a small number of superstars. But the barriers to entry are now so low that virtually anybody can commercially release music, and music streaming services increasingly serve every music niche in existence. The music creator tools market was worth $4.1 billion in 2022, according to MIDiA Research, and MIDiA forecast that the number of people paying for music software, skills sharing and learning will grow from 30 million in 2021 to nearly 100 million by 2030.
The technology to get that music online is well-established. Decades ago, Apple’s GarageBand opened the doors to self-produced music. Today, making music is far easier. BandLab, an online music creation platform, has 60 million users. Spotify-owned Soundtrap is another online music creation and collaboration tool. Any number of low-cost distributors, such as DistroKid and TuneCore, will get creators’ music to download and streaming sites around the world. LANDR cuts out the middleman and acts as both digital audio workstation and distributor.
That glut of music is good for some, bad for others. It’s great for distributors and developers of music creation tools. It’s bad for record labels that must fight harder to get their tracks heard and risk ceding market share. It’s a mixed bag for consumers who have unlimited access yet face a paradox of choice. How the industry will deal with all this music is unclear. What’s certain is there’s a lot of music out there — and the pace of new releases is only going to accelerate.
BMG signed a Senegalese rapper from Paris that Universal Music Group had dropped because of Holocaust-denying and antisemitic lyrics — but executives in Berlin ultimately pulled the plug on releasing his music at the last minute, according to a report in The New York Times published Friday (Feb. 3).
In internal documents obtained by The Times, in 2021 BMG’s French division weighed the financial benefits of signing the rapper, Freeze Corleone, against his history of hate speech, and decided to sign him so long as his connection to the German label would remain secret. In previous songs, the rapper had questioned the Holocaust and compared himself to Adolf Hitler. In one 2018 song featuring Corleone, “KKK,” he raps about “Nazi vehicles” and says he’s “determined with lotta ambitions nigga, like the young Adolf.”
In 2020, Universal Music France released Corleone’s La Menace Fantôme (The Phantom Menace), which went double platinum in France and included lyrics in songs like “Tarkov” that mention a “fraternity like Aryans” (though with no explicit mention of Jews). Despite the album’s success, a week after it began distributing LMF, in September 2020 the label said it was cutting all ties with him because the album had “revealed and amplified unacceptable racist statements.”
After UMG dropped him, the 30-year-old rapper, whose real name is Issa Lorenzo Diakhate, Tweeted “finally free.”
Then in 2021, BMG’s French team proposed signing Freeze Corleone, who was becoming increasingly popular in the Parisian hip-hop scene. In internal emails and memos reviewed by The Times, French label executives at BMG noted the artist was “France’s fastest growing artist in the last 2 years” and would thus “really help us meet our revenue target.” But the executives, Sylvain Gazaignes, the French operation’s managing director, and Ronan Fiacre, the head of A&R, also noted the controversy around the 2020 UMG release.
“In order to mitigate the risk of possible controversy,” BMG executives wrote in an internal memo reviewed by The Times, their contract would ensure the label had the right to approve his lyrics. The memo also said the contract should keep BMG’s involvement with the rapper’s career hidden. There should be “no BMG logo anywhere on the release,” Dominique Casimir, BMG’s chief content officer, said in an email she sent to a BMG lawyer and other executives, according to The Times.
BMG signed a one-album deal with Freeze Corleone worth about $1 million in October 2021, according to The Times. About three weeks after signing the deal, Casimir decided to cancel the contract the day before the release of “Scellé part. 4,” Corleone’s first single from the album, titled Riyad Sadio. The decision came after Casimir’s German team had completed a review of Freeze Corleone’s past lyrics and told the French team they needed to end the relationship with the artist, a person familiar with the matter confirms to Billboard. (An undisclosed settlement was paid to Freeze, the source says.)
Freeze Corleone has two entries on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart — “Freeze Rael,” which spent one week on the chart in September of 2020 at No. 176, and “Mannschaft,” billed as SCH featuring Freeze Corleone, which landed at No. 167 in April of 2021.
In a statement sent to Billboard, BMG says “today’s New York Times story confirms that as soon as senior BMG executives became aware of the historic allegations against the artist, it ended their relationship. No record was released. BMG stands firm against anti-Semitism and hate.”
For Berlin-based BMG, the incident is the second such situation in the past five years involving an artist known to have music containing antisemitic lyrics. In 2018, a controversy exploded over an album BMG released by two German rappers, Kollegah and Farid Bang. The album, Jung Brutal Gutaussehend 3 (Young Brutal Good-Looking 3), contained lyrics like “make another Holocaust, show up with a Molotov,” but nevertheless became a hit.
Antisemitism is a particularly sensitive issue for the label’s parent company, media giant Bertelsmann, which in 2002 apologized for its past ties to the Nazi regime after an independent commission of academics the company hired found it had thrived during World War II by producing antisemitic material and Nazi propaganda. Bertelsmann previously had claimed to have played an active role in the Nazi resistance.
Casimir, who was promoted in May to the CCO post and given a seat on BMG’s board (and was recently named to Billboard’s 2023 Power 100 list), also oversaw the signing of the controversial German rappers as managing director for Germany at that time.
After BMG decided to drop him, Freeze Corleone released his album independently. Two employees in France involved in the Freeze Corleone signing — who “believed in the artist” – have since left the company but were not fired, the source familiar tells Billboard. Gazaignes remains a top executive in the French division.
After months of fighting in court, Jay-Z and Bacardi have decided it’s all cognac — er — water under the bridge.
The superstar rapper and the spirits giant said Friday they had reached an agreement to end bitter litigation over their D’Ussé Cognac brand. Under the deal, Bacardi will take over a “majority interest” in the company, which was previously split 50-50 between the two stakeholders.
The exact terms — what percentage Bacardi bought and how much Jay-Z was paid for it — were not disclosed, beyond a statement that the star would “retain a significant ownership stake” after the deal. Earlier filings in the case suggested the privately-held company could be worth as much as $5 billion.
In a statement, Jay-Z (real name Shawn Carter) said he was “excited to renew this partnership with Bacardi.”
“Growing D’Ussé over the past decade from an idea to one of the fastest-selling spirits in history has been a blessing,” the rapper wrote. “The next phase of this journey will further cement D’Ussé’s legacy as one of the world’s most respected brands.”
Until recently, Jay-Z was not at all excited to renew his D’Ussé deal with Bacardi. The rapper has spent the last year in a sprawling legal battle aimed at exiting the partnership, spanning at least four lawsuits in two states as well as private arbitration cases.
The dispute centered on Jay-Z’s exercise of a so-called “put option” — a legal mechanism in the joint venture’s operating agreement that, when triggered, required Bacardi to buy out his half of the business. Once invoked, the two sides were supposed to negotiate in “good faith,” exchange information and agree on a fair price for Bacardi to pay.
The rapper triggered the put option in September 2021, but the two sides quickly came to loggerheads over how much his half of the company was worth. The rapper suggested his half of the business was worth $2.5 billion; Bacardi said the number was just $460 million.
That core dispute eventually led to two private arbitrations, as well as lawsuits in both New York and Delaware courts. The two sides battled over what information should be used to fairly value Jay-Z’s stake, and he later accused Bacardi of “lowballing” and “stonewalling” him to get a cheaper price.
In November, unsealed court documents revealed key details of the months that had led up to the dispute.
For instance, when Bacardi offered $460 million for Jay’s half of the business, the hip-hop magnate’s attorneys said he responded by flipping the script. Rather than continue to invoke his put option requiring Bacardi to buy him out, they said he offered to go vice-versa and buy out Bacardi’s share for $1.5 billion — far more than the figure Bacardi had just cited as the fair value of half the company.
When Bacardi turned down that offer, the legal battle kicked off.
JKBX, a start-up offering retail investors fractional shares in thousands of hit songs, is partnering with electronic market-making firm GTS Securities for U.S. equity trading, the companies said in a joint statement Friday (Feb. 3).
The partnership is a sign that investing in songs and catalogs rights — a burgeoning asset class so far open to only the biggest, most monied music fans — is taking another step toward the mainstream. By teaming up with the electronic market maker GTS, JKBX is positioning itself to have one of the most prominent platforms when it launches its public offerings in late 2023.
Pronounced “jukebox,” chief executive Scott Cohen says JKBX has acquired $1.7 billion in music rights and is aiming to acquire $4 billion in rights before their LLC offerings go live. Once those regulation a+ initial filings are registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, everyday investors will be able to buy bite-sized investment stakes in songs by current artists and back catalogs belonging to rock legends for a price starting at around $10.
“A handful of private equity firms, multinational corporations and major labels control the most valuable music rights in the world,” Cohen said in the statement. “JKBX’s platform will allow these entities and other significant rights holders to unlock the true value of these assets by offering them to retail investors to buy and sell in a regulated marketplace.”
Cohen, who co-founded The Orchard and was previously Warner Music Group’s chief innovation officer, last year named Matt Brown, formerly of Citadel and Ripple, as JKBX’s chief technology officer tasked with building out the tech powering the platform. With a high-frequency quantitative trading firm, GTS is responsible for nearly $13 trillion of market capitalization — or 3-5% of the daily cash equities volume in U.S. stock markets — making it a designated market maker. Through the partnership, JKBX will gain access to GTS’s technology, a competitive digital advantage in accessing U.S. public markets.
“GTS excels in making markets for every major financial asset class and providing enhanced liquidity through sophisticated, real-time pricing,” said GTS Securities co-founder/CEO Ari Rubenstein in a statement. “This same expertise can be applied to music royalties, which represent the next exciting tradeable asset class.”