State Champ Radio Business
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TikTok launched a new tool on Tuesday (June 3) to help artists understand the way their music percolates through the app’s ecosystem. TikTok for Artists will provide acts with daily information about how their songs are used and which tracks are driving the most engagement. On top of that, the dashboard furnishes artists with information […]
A Honduras-based hotel owner says he’s reviving the Fyre Festival brand alongside Billy McFarland as a pop-up experience at his island resort, marking the latest twist in a bizarre saga.
Heath Miller, a former New York concert promoter and one-time manager of Webster Hall in Manhattan, says he reached an agreement with McFarland to stage a 300-to-400-person Fyre Resort Pop-Up at his hotel, Coral Villa Utila, located on the island of Utila, one of Honduras’ famed Bay Islands in the Caribbean. The event will run from Sept. 3-10.
Tickets are cheap: Just book a room at Miller’s 25-room resort, and a pass for Fyre is included. Rooms start at $198 per night for singles, $329 for couples, $399 for triples and $449 for the hotel’s four-bed room.
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Miller is quick to point out that the September event is not being billed as Fyre Festival II, adding that tickets from that event won’t get you access to the Fyre Resort Pop-Up, which he says will be more low key than what had been planned for Fyre’s comeback festival in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. There will be live entertainment, although Miller notes that he hasn’t secured any talent yet and says the festival won’t have a large budget or a splashy lineup.
“This event isn’t for an artist looking for a $100,000 fee,” he says. “Honestly, for me, this is a promotional vehicle for my hotel and it plays into my grand plan — I’m working on writing a book on my music career, and the book was supposed to end last June [with a story about] Jack Antonoff in Asbury Park. But instead, I guess Fyre is going to be the final chapter of the book.”
In Miller’s estimation, the controversy around the disastrous 2018 festival — which garnered international headlines when ticketholders arrived on a Bahamian island to find that the promised luxury event had not been realized — may ultimately be the biggest draw.
“Fyre Festival is a tainted brand that obviously has a horrible reputation, but at the end of the day, this brand can create press and awareness better than Coachella can,” he says.
Miller has been managing the hotel since 2019 for his late father, who bought the island resort in the 1990s. He says his idea for the Fyre pop-up is partially inspired by Sixthman, the concert and cruise ships company owned by Norwegian Cruise Lines that stages music-themed cruises for artists like Lindsay Stirling, Joe Bonamassa and comedian Nate Bargatze.
“Originally, I wanted to do fan club and events here,” on Utila, says Miller, who hoped to match music with scuba diving and water excursions. He adds, “Fans want to engage with the artist in unique and different ways and see them play in unique settings,” noting that the Fyre pop-up presented a rare opportunity to build proof of concept.
Under the terms of their agreement, McFarland maintains full ownership of Fyre, and Miller will serve as venue manager and site host.
Miller says he’s already secured permits and local approval for the Fyre Resort Pop-Up and said he hopes the famed festival brand creates some positive buzz for Utila. The island is popular year-round with scuba divers and snorkelers who visit the island to swim with sharks and explore the 600-mile-long Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, but it isn’t as well-known as other Caribbean destinations like Barbados, St. Lucia, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Miller adds he’s well aware of McFarland’s past failures with Fyre Festival, most famously with the disastrous first edition in 2018, which left hundreds of fans temporarily trapped on Grand Exuma island. McFarland masterminded the event, according to the FBI, convincing fans to shell out thousands for luxury accommodations that turned out to be emergency tents and gourmet meals that were little more than cheese sandwiches.
McFarland went to prison after admitting to stealing $26 million from investors for the event and has been working to repay them since being released from prison in 2022 after serving four years of his six-year sentence. While serving in solitary confinement, McFarland came up with the idea for a sequel to Fyre, which he had hoped would repair his image, and bounced around different sites in the Bahamas and Mexico before landing on Playa del Carmen near Cancun. McFarland ultimately hired Mexican firm Lost Nights to produce the event and staged a press conference on March 27 with local officials to highlight it.
However, things went south in April when city leaders from Playa del Carmen announced that no permits for Fyre Festival had been issued in the seaside town. McFarland responded by releasing images of permits that he said proved Fyre was happening, but he later pulled the plug on the event and refunded ticket holders. On April 24, McFarland announced he was selling Fyre’s assets and intellectual property and had reached an agreement with a streaming service to license the name.
Miller says McFarland retains the name for Fyre and has a core team of a half-dozen individuals working with him, including his long-time partner, Michael Falb.
“I’m well aware of Billy’s past and I think it’s important that we are transparent about what happened. I personally met with the mayor of Utila when securing the permits for this event and even showed him the documentaries about Fyre Festival,” Miller said of the films FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened and Fyre Fraud, both of which were released in 2019 and chronicled the festival’s rise and fall.
“Billy has issues and one of his biggest flaws is that he tends to trust people more than he should,” Miller says, noting that McFarland reminds him of himself when he was a young promoter working New York’s nightlife circuit as an independent concert promoter, both for himself and for John Scher’s Metropolitan Concerts and later Webster Hall. Miller notes he worked with McFarland prior to Fyre Festival, when McFarland was running millennial VIP company Magnises.
“He never stiffed me on a bill — we always got paid what we were owed,” Miller says. “I look at Billy’s mistakes and I ask myself what I would have done if I was controlling millions of dollars for a huge party. I don’t know. What I can tell you about Billy is that he a big kid at heart that really just wants to throw the world’s greatest party.”
To buy tickets and learn more visit fyrehotels.com.
MusiCares announced that it launched its 2025 Wellness in Music Survey on Monday (June 2). The study, which MusiCares first introduced in October 2020, includes questions on such sensitive topics as sexual harassment, sexual assault, suicide, mental health and substance use. The anonymous survey is limited to music professionals who are 18 and older. Responses are due by Friday (June 13) at 5 p.m. PT.
MusiCares seeks to get participants to answer dozens of detailed questions about their health and well-being by saying, “The survey allows MusiCares to understand how music professionals are doing on a large scale, and to then tailor our services to the community’s most pressing needs. Your participation isn’t just valuable — it’s vital for making real, positive changes for everyone in the music community.”
Key updates this year include additional questions around family/caregiving and the experiences of music professionals with disabilities.
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MusiCares reports that nearly 2,800 music professionals responded to last year’s survey. Based in part on their responses, MusiCares expanded telehealth support for addiction recovery, introduced financial coaching, covered childcare costs and increased access to preventive care services, including mammograms and cervical screenings.
In its letter asking people to participate in the survey, MusiCares ticks off several ways in which music careers can be especially challenging in terms of health and well-being: “Unpredictable, gig-based income. High out-of-pocket healthcare costs. Long hours on the road, often in a new city each day. These challenges don’t just affect performers — they affect touring crews, engineers, stagehands, and every behind-the-scenes worker who keeps the music going.
“The truth is: life in music isn’t just challenging — it’s often destabilizing in ways that most traditional workers never encounter. From a lack of benefits and paid leave to the mental toll of creative burnout, the risks are real — and they’re widespread.
Go here to access the survey in English. Go here to access the survey in Spanish. Go here to access the social media toolkit in both English and Spanish.
Last year’s survey results were sobering — and that was before wildfires in Los Angeles and hurricanes across the Southeast disrupted thousands of lives, including many who work in music.
Here are some of the key findings from last year’s survey:
78% earned $100,000 or less — lower than national household averages.
69% couldn’t comfortably cover expenses through music work alone.
53% said their income hadn’t stabilized post-pandemic.
47% and 44% cited financial concerns as a direct cause of stress and anxiety, respectively.
65% were not confident about the trajectory of the music industry.
87% had health insurance, but only 54% had dental.
78% skipped hearing screenings, despite working in high-decibel environments.
70% of those 45+ missed colonoscopy screenings.
62% of women 24+ missed cervical cancer screenings.
60% of those under 45 skipped vision screenings.
8.3% had serious thoughts of suicide, compared to 5% nationally. Of those, 15.1% made a plan and 3.5% attempted — far above national rates.
36% reported using marijuana or marijuana-derived products in the past month. Among those users, 36% reported daily use.
Offering preventive, emergency and recovery programs, MusiCares is a safety net supporting the health and welfare of the music community. Founded by the Recording Academy in 1989 as a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) charity, MusiCares safeguards the well-being of music workers through direct financial grant programs, networks of support resources and tailored crisis relief efforts. For more information visit www.musicares.org.
The home of the University of Connecticut’s storied men’s and women’s basketball teams has a new name: PeoplesBank Arena.
Headquartered in Holyoke, Mass., PeoplesBank is a community bank company with 20 branches and about $4.5 billion in assets; it is referred to as a mutual bank and is owned by its depositors.
The naming rights agreement, announced by the arena’s co-manager Oak View Group (OVG) on Monday (June 2), aligns PeoplesBank with one of Connecticut’s busiest concert venues. Originally known as the Hartford Civic Center when it first opened in 1976, the city-owned facility changed its name to the XL Center in 2007 as part of a naming rights agreement with the XL Group insurance company. In 2013, Global Spectrum won the management contract for the 16,000-seat building. In late 2021, Global Spectrum’s parent company, Spectra, was purchased by OVG, which manages the arena with the Capital Region Development Authority under a lease with the city of Hartford, Conn.
PeoplesBank Arena has hosted a number of major concerts in recent years, including Bad Bunny‘s Apr. 20, 2024, stop at the arena on his Most Wanted Tour. The building hosted legendary Norteño band Los Tigres del Norte on Apr. 27, 2024; bachata icons Aventura on May 27; Sabrina Carpenter‘s Short n’ Sweet tour on Oct. 2; and Chris Tomlin and CAIN‘s Holy Forever World Tour on Oct. 23.
PeoplesBank Arena is also home to the American Hockey League’s Hartford Wolf Pack, the 12-time National Champion UConn Women’s Basketball team, the six-time National Champion UConn Men’s Basketball team and UConn Men’s Ice Hockey.
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“PeoplesBank’s deep-rooted commitment to putting people and communities first perfectly aligns with our purpose-driven mindset that fuels everything we do at Oak View Group,” said Peter Luukko, co-chairman of OVG, in a statement. “This partnership is more than naming rights—it’s a shared vision to deliver dynamic experiences, elevate the fan journey, and create lasting impact where it matters most: in the communities we serve.”Renovations are ongoing at the arena. The next phase of construction includes “upgrades to the seating area, the addition of new lower-level luxury suites, and the development of enhanced concession areas designed to elevate the overall guest experience,” according to a press release from OVG.
“From upgraded seating and premium hospitality to world-class food and beverage, enhanced concert rigging, and top-tier amenities for performers and athletes, every detail is getting an overhaul,” the release continues. “PeoplesBank Arena’s $145 million transformation is set to be completed this fall as it will re-establish Hartford as a must-play destination on everyone’s touring schedule.”
More at PeoplesBankArena.com.
Universal Music, Warner Music and Sony Music are in talks with Udio and Suno to license their music to the artificial intelligence startups, Billboard has confirmed, in deals that could help settle blockbuster lawsuits over AI music.
A year after the labels filed billion-dollar copyright cases against Udio and Suno, all three majors are discussing deals in which they would collect fees and receive equity in return for allowing the startups to use music to train their AI models, according to sources with knowledge of the talks. Bloomberg first reported the news on Sunday (June 1).
If reached, such deals would help settle the litigation and establish an influential precedent for how AI companies pay artists and music companies going forward, according to the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss the talks freely.
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Such an agreement would mark an abrupt end to a dispute that each side has framed as an existential clash over the future of music. The labels say the startups have stolen music on an “unimaginable scale” to build their models and are “trampling the rights of copyright owners”; Suno and Udio argue back that the music giants are abusing intellectual property to crush upstart competition from firms they see as a “threat to their market share.”
Settlement talks are a common and continuous feature of almost any litigation and do not necessarily indicate that any kind of deal is imminent. It’s unclear how advanced such negotiations are, or what exactly each side would be getting. And striking an actual deal will require sorting out many complex and novel issues relating to brand-new technologies and business models.
Reps for all three majors declined to comment. Suno and Udio did not immediately return requests for comment. A rep for the RIAA, which helped coordinate the lawsuits, declined to comment.
If Suno and Udio do grant equity to the majors in an eventual settlement, it will call to mind the deals struck by Spotify in the late 2000s, in which the upstart technology company gave the music industry a partial ownership stake in return for business-critical content. Those deals turned out to be massively lucrative for the labels and helped Spotify grow into a streaming behemoth.
The cases against Udio and Suno are two of many lawsuits filed against AI firms by book authors, visual artists, newspaper publishers and other creative industries, who have argued AI companies are violating copyrights on a massive scale by using copyrighted works to train their models. AI firms argue that it’s legal fair use, transforming all those old works into “outputs” that are entirely new.
That trillion-dollar question remains unanswered in the courts, where many of the lawsuits, including those against Suno and Udio, are still in the earliest stages. But last month, the U.S. Copyright Office came out against the AI firms, releasing a report that said training was likely not fair use.
“Making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries,” the office wrote in the report.
Even with the legal landscape unsettled, some content companies have struck deals with AI firms. Just last week, the New York Times — which is actively litigating one of the copyright cases — struck a deal to license its editorial content to Amazon for AI training. Last fall, Microsoft signed a deal with HarperCollins to use the book publisher’s nonfiction works for AI model training.
Music companies have not struck any such sweeping deals, and instead have preferred more limited partnerships with tech companies for “ethical” AI tools. UMG signed a deal last summer with SoundLabs for an AI-powered voice tool for artists and another one in November with an AI music company called KLAY. Sony made an early-stage investment in March in a licensed AI platform called Vermillio.
Four years before Taylor Swift began her crusade to re-record new versions of her early albums so she could own the valuable master recordings, Bowling for Soup did the same. The pop-punk band put out Songs People Actually Liked — Volume 1, note-for-note copies of early quasi-hits such as “Girl All the Bad Guys Want” and “Punk Rock 101,” and justified it by telling fans they were more mature, better musicians and sought to “add some luster” to the originals.
The band conspicuously did not say the 2015 project’s main purpose was to secure the rights to those songs, boost streaming royalties and be able to license them to movies, ads and TV shows. At the time, that seemed crass. “We had to be very careful about never making our audience feel like we were taking advantage of them,” says Jaret Reddick, the band’s frontman, by phone from a Disney cruise with his family in Juneau, Alaska. “Shortly after that, Taylor Swift literally educates the entire music population on song ownership. She made it OK for all of us to re-record our stuff and everybody will back us. It was such a blessing.”
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Swift announced Friday (May 30) that she purchased the master recordings to her first six albums, from 2006’s Taylor Swift to 2017’s Reputation, from investment firm Shamrock Capital, for an undisclosed price. The sale was the end of a six-year crusade, after music mogul Scooter Braun bought the Nashville record company, Big Machine Label Group, which had released Swift’s original recordings. Angered that control of her catalog went to Braun, who’d worked with her enemy Kanye West, Swift tried and failed to buy back the recordings from Braun, then Shamrock, which bought them from Braun for what sources say was around $360 million.
Swift’s strategy — re-recording all six of those albums with most of the original musicians as “Taylor’s Versions,” convincing top radio stations to air them and streaming services to emphasize them in playlists while promoting them on her massive tours — has been influential, directly or indirectly, on other artists. It has also led to major labels overhauling their contracts to avoid anybody else replicating “Taylor’s Versions.” In part because Swift’s re-recordings have muted sales, streaming and licensing for the originals, all three major labels have recently overhauled their contracts to force artists to wait 10, 15 or even 30 years to re-record after departing their labels. “You try to put the shortest re-recording restriction you can get in the record contract — it used to be five years after release, but now I’ve found they’ve extended it to 10 years,” says Ben McLane, another music attorney.
Nonetheless, artists in the post-“Taylor’s Versions” age persist in following Swift’s lead: Pop-punk band Cartel recently announced it would release a re-recording of its 2005 album Chroma this September. “Artists are re-recording their masters more frequently than they were,” says Josh Karp, a lawyer who represents Cartel and other artists. “Part of that is definitely that Taylor shined a big bright light on it and showed it could be done successfully.”
Long before Swift, Frank Sinatra, Little Richard, Chuck Berry and many others re-recorded their hits to claim financial control, and the process still happens today, with or without Swift’s influence. Switchfoot put out a new version of its 2003 breakthrough The Beautiful Letdown 20 years later; TLC, Wheatus and Paris Hilton have done the same in recent years; and Ashanti announced in 2022 that Swift inspired her to begin a similar project. “It’s also a technological issue,” Karp says. “It’s simply easier to record now than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago.”
Swift’s crusade, according to Gandhar Savur, a music attorney, has helped young artists better understand the benefits of signing label licensing deals rather than ownership deals. In the former, artists retain control of their recordings, although they’re unlikely to get an advance payment from a label to fund an expensive recording project; in the latter, the label pays out that advance money in exchange for ownership of the recordings for as long as several decades. “Historically, artists have said, ‘Don’t give away your publishing,’ and that message has gotten across. Now I feel like artists are starting to feel that way about their recordings as well,” Savur says. “Part of that is a result of big stories and big headlines and Taylor Swift and whoever else talking about the importance of owning their recordings.”
After Wheatus finished re-recording its 1999 alt-rock hit “Teenage Dirtbag” in April 2020, and it went viral on TikTok and Instagram during the pandemic lockdown, the new master generated nearly $25,000 for singer-songwriter Brendan Brown, according to Billboard estimates in 2023. Although Swift did not inspire the new version — that would have been original label Sony Music’s losing the master recordings, according to Brown — the singer-songwriter has praised Swift for raising the issue. “I would love to see the contract,” Brown said by phone from a tour bus en route to New Jersey after Swift’s announcement Friday. “But generally the answer is, ‘Yeah. Nice job. Get ’em.’”
When Chappell Roan called on the music industry to pay artists a living wage and give them health insurance during her Grammys acceptance speech in February, she sparked a debate about labels’ responsibility to the acts they sign, including the artist’s potential — and the label’s investment — that is put at risk if mental health struggles take center stage.
Nearly three-quarters of some 1,500 independent musicians reported struggling with mental illness, according to a 2019 survey by the digital distribution platform Record Union. Even among unionized musicians and performers, rates of mental health problems and substance use disorder are higher than among the general population, according to Sound Advice, a book written by music journalist Rhian Jones and performance coach Lucy Heyman.
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Over the past several months, Billboard asked more than a dozen artists, managers, financial planners, music executives and therapists about creatives’ single biggest out-of-pocket health care expense, and the answer was consistently the same: therapy.
Sobriety coaches, on-tour therapists and mental skills training offer potentially career-saving — even lifesaving — support for singers battling anxiety so intense it can rob them of their voices.
But they come with eight-to-10-figure medical bills, these sources say. And health insurance, for those fortunate enough to have it, often covers just a fraction of the cost.
“It’s $250 a session for someone who is good and qualified,” says Chief Zaruk, joint-CEO of The Core Entertainment, an entertainment company launched with Live Nation that represents Bailey Zimmerman, Nate Smith, Nickelback and others. “If you’re a beginner artist without a record deal, maybe a publishing deal, you’re making $2,500 a month, and you’re like, ‘Wait, I’m going to take more than a third of that and put it toward a therapist?’ They just can’t do it.”
Zaruk and Core co-founder and CEO Simon Tikhman provide their employees with 10 free sessions with a therapist, a life coach or business coach each year. Tikhman says they extend the service to many of their artists, including those just starting off, because, “If you help yourself now when you are playing in 200-300 person venues, it will give you the tools to help you manage [feelings of] overwhelm when you are in arenas.”
Ariana Grande, who has made millions of dollars of free counseling available to fans through a partnership with app-based therapy company Better Help, called on record labels in February to include therapy coverage in young artists’ contracts.
At least one major music company explored the cost of providing those services, according to a former executive from the company who spoke on condition of anonymity. That former executive, who advocated that the company offer therapy as a recoupable expense, says internal researchers determined around 2020 that coverage was ultimately too costly.
While therapy is expensive, the cost of foregoing needed mental health care is enormous, says Dr. Terry Clark, director of The Conservatory at Canada’s Mount Royal University.
For more than two decades, Clark has studied how mental skills training is used to equip classical musicians and dancers with tools to cope with stage fright and anxiety after failed auditions. Some of the lessons involve setting goals and picturing oneself achieving those goals on stage, like an imaginary rehearsal where the artist can make mistakes and envision how the show could go on.
“Careers can go on a long, long time,” Clark says. “But if you burn yourself out and there isn’t a later, the cost is enormous when you look at what you’ve lost.”
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Lorde described successfully treating her paralyzing stage fright with the psychoactive drugs MDMA and psilocybin, a therapy commonly used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, though that is still awaiting approval for use in the United States.
For others, substance use disorders can be part of their mental health struggles.
Kristin Lee, founder of the Los Angeles-based business management firm KLBM, says her musician clients’ biggest out-of-pocket health care expense is treatment for addiction and substance use disorders.
A number of organizations, including MusiCares, Music’s Mental Health Fund, Sweet Relief and Backline, provide financial assistance to help independent artists pay for mental health care. Lee estimates 35 percent to 40 percent of her clients get subsidized health insurance through SAG-AFTRA, and those who don’t qualify for it often pay $700 to several thousand every month for private insurance for themselves and employees.
“Touring is probably the absolute worst thing to do while you’re trying to be sober. It’s a rigorous way of life with no downtime, and it’s entertainment, so it’s supposed to be fun,” Lee says. She says some of her clients have hired sobriety coaches to go on tour with them at a cost of $70,000 a year.
Sobriety coaches are meant to be a resource a patient needs less over time, and so the cost eventually declines. Regardless, the investment for many is worth it.
“Rehab is expensive, too,” Lee says.
Gospel icon Kirk Franklin is joining forces with Insignia Assets, a new entertainment venture established by Norman Gyamfi and Jonathan Jay. This collaboration unites Franklin’s companies, Fo Yo Soul Recordings and CLTRE Lab, with Insignia Assets’ diverse portfolio, which includes recorded music and publishing, television, film, touring and events.
In addition to this partnership, Franklin will serve as Insignia Assets’ chief of creative services.
Franklin, who will be honored with the BET Ultimate Icon Award during the 2025 BET Awards next Monday night (June 9), shared: “This partnership with Insignia is bigger than business. It’s about building a platform where our stories, our faith, and our culture can live and breathe across every screen and stage. I’ve always believed in pushing Gospel beyond the margins and into spaces where it can challenge, inspire, and connect with the world in a real way. Joining forces with Insignia gives us the reach, the resources, and the creative freedom to do just that.”
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To kick off this exciting venture, Franklin will release a new single, “Do It Again,” on Friday (June 6). Additionally, his media production company, CLTRE Lab, will collaborate with Insignia Assets’ 3 Diamonds Entertainment division on Den of Kings, a new dinner conversation series hosted by Franklin. The first episode, focusing on “Fatherhood features guests D.C. Young Fly, Kountry Wayne, Lou Young and Devale Ellis, and premieres on Franklin’s YouTube channel on Father’s Day, June 15.
Under this deal, 3 Diamonds Entertainment will be the production partner on select scripted and non-scripted CLTRE Lab projects, providing production services and funding to showcase original storytelling across various formats.
“We’ve worked with Kirk for some time now—from the 2022 release of the multi-GRAMMY®-winning collaborative album, Kingdom, to producing sold-out arena tours with him consecutively over the past few years,” said Norman Gyamfi, co-founder and CEO, Insignia Assets. “Today, we’re thrilled to fortify and deepen our partnership by welcoming Kirk to our executive team, and by charting a course for the future with him from recorded music to touring, film/TV to digital media, and more. We are collectively very proud of this moment.”
A Black-owned and self-funded entertainment company, Insignia Assets’ music portfolio includes Christian and Gospel labels Tribl Records, Maverick City Music and Fo Yo Soul Recordings and R&B label Platform Sounds. Additional divisions include Undivided Entertainment for touring and event productions, 3 Diamonds Entertainment for television and film, as well as the Icho Group, the marketing engine of the diversified enterprise.
Insignia Assets aims to be a leading global entertainment company by delivering impactful to a diverse audience. At its core, Insignia Assets operates with a commitment to fostering collaborations with talented Black creators, visionary entrepreneurs and innovative professionals across all forms of entertainment.
Ron Hill, president of Recorded Music, TRIBL Music Group and head of touring, Undivided Entertainment said: “Kirk is not just an artist, he’s a cultural architect who has reshaped the landscape of faith and entertainment. This partnership with Insignia marks a new chapter, where shared vision and leadership come together to build lasting value, elevate culture, and shift the industry from within.”
Dr. Chelsey Green is the first Black woman elected as the Recording Academy’s chair of the board of trustees. She succeeds Tammy Hurt, who has served in that role since 2021. This marks the first time in Recording Academy history that two women have served back-to-back in the top post.
Dr. Green, 39, is also the youngest person ever elected chair. Dr. Green, who was vice chair last term under Hurt, was selected at this year’s annual board of trustees meeting. Her term officially began on Sunday (June 1). At the same time, Evan Bogart was elected vice chair; Jennifer Blakeman was elected secretary/treasurer; and Hurt was elected chair emeritus.
In Academy history, just two other women (besides Hurt and Green) have served as chair. Leslie Ann Jones was chairwoman (the title at the time) from 1999-2001. Christine Albert was chair from 2013-15.
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Green is the third Black officer to be elected chair, following Jimmy Jam (2007-09) and Harvey Mason jr. (2019-21). Mason went on to become the academy’s CEO.
“I am honored to welcome both our newly elected board and national officers to the Recording Academy, made up of passionate, talented leaders who care deeply about music and the people who create it,” Mason said in a statement. “Together, their extensive background in the industry will help us to continue to push the Academy forward and drive meaningful change.”
The Recording Academy’s elected officers dedicate their time in service to the academy and play an important role in helping to shape the organization’s strategic direction. They collaborate with the CEO and senior academy management, who work to fulfill the organization’s mission of serving music people through advocacy, education, and direct assistance and by shining a spotlight on musical excellence.
Here’s a closer look at the top four officers:
Dr. Chelsey Green is a recording artist, entrepreneur and educator. As the bandleader, violinist, violist, and vocalist behind her ensemble Chelsey Green and The Green Project, Dr. Green fuses her classical training with jazz, R&B, soul and funk. She has released five studio projects, with one (2022’s Chelsey Green & the Green Project) landing on Billboard‘s Contemporary Jazz Albums chart in 2014. Dr. Green has performed alongside artists such as Kirk Franklin, Lizzo, Samara Joy, Stevie Wonder, The War and Treaty, and Wu-Tang Clan, and has made orchestral debuts with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Alexandria Symphony, the United States Air Force Band, and more. An advocate for music education and equity, she leads educational concerts, artist residencies, and community workshops, and is an associate professor at Berklee College of Music.
Evan Bogart is a songwriter, producer and creative executive, who has had a hand in creating hits for Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Madonna, Rihanna and more. Son of legendary Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart (who died in 1982 when Evan was just four), Evan got his start in the music industry as a teenager in the Interscope Records A&R department, working on projects by 2Pac and Eminem, before moving into artist management and booking, representing such acts as Maroon 5 and OneRepublic. Currently, he is CEO of Seeker Music. Bogart has been named to Billboard’s 40 Under 40 list twice and to Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players list. Bogart recently served as the executive music producer and composer for Spinning Gold, an independent feature biopic based on his father, and for the musical-feature film, Juliet & Romeo, for which he co-wrote and produced all of the original music. Bogart also serves as chair of the academy’s Songwriters & Composers Wing.
Jennifer Blakeman is the chief rights and royalties officer at Seeker Music. For more than four decades, she has fostered the careers of some of the world’s most popular artists and songwriters. She has served in numerous senior executive and creative roles for major and indie publishers, record labels and film studios, including Atlantic Records, one77 Music, Universal Music Publishing, Universal Pictures, and Zomba Publishing. An accomplished musician and ASCAP songwriter and publisher, Blakeman was signed with her band to Warner Bros. Records and subsequently toured in the ‘80s as a keyboardist for Billy Idol, Brian Wilson and Savage Garden, among many others. For two decades she has been an adjunct professor at New York University and has taught more than 1,000 students in the music business degree program.
Tammy Hurt is a TV producer and drummer. She made history as the first openly LGBTQ+ officer in Recording Academy history. She serves on the boards of the Latin Recording Academy, the Grammy Museum and MusiCares. Hurt is the founder of Placement Music, a boutique entertainment firm specializing in custom music and scoring for high-profile clients including FOX Sports, Paramount Pictures, CBS and the NFL. Her passion project, Sonic Rebel, fuses high-fidelity soundscapes with mashups and live drum remixes. Hurt was honored in early 2025 by Billboard, Alicia Keys’ She Is the Music and the Atlanta City Council. Additional accolades include Catalyst Magazine’s Top 25 Entrepreneurs and the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Most Admired CEO award.
Every two years, the voting and professional members of the academy’s 12 chapters vote in their respective chapter board elections to elect their chapter’s governors. Of the trustees that serve on the national board, eight are elected by voting or by professional (non-voting) members of the academy and 30 are elected by the chapter boards. The remaining four seats are composed of the national trustee officers serving the roles of chair, vice chair, secretary/treasurer, and chair emeritus, and are elected by the board of trustees once every two years. National officer positions on the board of trustees are subject to two, two-year term limits.
The academy also released the names of the members of its 2025-27 board of trustees, including 19 newly elected or re-elected members. The full body includes seven Grammy winners: artists Ledisi and Avery Sunshine; songwriter Jonathan Yip; arranger Sara Garzarek; music supervisor Julia Michels; producer Cheche Alara; and engineer/mixer Reto Peter.
2025-27 Board of Trustees
Here is the full list of the Recording Academy’s 2025-27 board of trustees in alphabetical order by first name. An asterisk signifies those who were elected or re-elected this year. Others are midterm.
Dr. Alex E. Chávez*
Armand Hutton*
Ashley Shabankareh
Avery*Sunshine*
Carl Nappa*
Cheche Alara
Dr. Chelsey Green
Dani Deahl
Dave Gross
Divinity Roxx*
Donn Thompson Morelli “Donn T”*
EJ Gaines
Evan Bogart
Fletcher Foster
HENNY
Jennifer Blakeman
Jessica Thompson
Jonathan Yip*
Julia Michels*
Julio Bagué*
Ken Shepherd
Lachi*
Ledisi*
Maggie Rose*
Marcella Araica*
Maria Egan
Matt Maher*
Ms. Meka Nism
Mike Knobloch
Nikisha Bailey
Reto Peter*
Sara Gazarek
Sue Ennis*
Tamara Wellons
Tami LaTrell*
Tammy Hurt
Taylor Hanson
Teresa LaBarbera*
Terry Jones
Torae Carr
Wayna*
Ticketing platform Seated is being re-acquired by its founders, David McKay and John Griffin, four years after it was acquired by intimate live experience producer Sofar Sounds. McKay will lead the company’s return to independence as CEO.
Seated — dubbed an artist-first ticketing platform — was launched in 2017 to empower artists to take more control of their ticketing by enhancing tour listings for artist websites; it has since evolved into a central pillar of many major tours’ marketing and ticketing efforts. The platform’s offerings have now expanded to include SMS-based presale registration, audience-building and pixeling for ad strategy, official waitlists for sold-out shows, and direct-to-fan ticketing. Seated has come to work with big-name artists including Billie Eilish, Post Malone, Olivia Rodrigo, Lizzo, Eric Church, John Mayer, Morgan Wallen, Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars and Gracie Abrams in recent years.
“When we sold the company in February 2021, it was a very different time [for live events], and our vision of what a combined Seated and Sofar would become drastically changed once the vaccines came out. Our business was clearly moving in a different direction than Sofar,” says McKay. “To their credit, [Sofar] continued to support us and we stayed a fully independent operating team inside of Sofar for those four years, which actually made this a very clean split.”
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The two entities began discussing a split when former Sofar Sounds CEO Jim Lucchese departed the company in 2024 to become the president of Berklee College of Music. Lucchese was replaced by former Atlas Obscura CEO Warren Webster, who McKay says is a “breath of fresh air for Sofar” but diverges from Seated’s goals of working with arena and stadium touring artists.
“Seated has achieved remarkable growth under Sofar Sounds’ ownership these last four years, becoming a vital partner to some of the biggest artists in the world,” Webster said in a statement. “We’re proud to have been part of that story, and as Sofar focuses on the increasing demand in our communities for live experiences, we’re thrilled that Seated will continue to grow with its founders at the helm.”
For the founders, the reacquisition is about doubling down on building tools for artists to sell tickets directly and develop stronger connections with their fans. The platform has recently done direct-to-fan ticketing for Noah Kahan, Shawn Mendes and Goose, while artists like Brandi Carlile, John Legend and Nathaniel Rateliff have used Seated to sell their own presale tickets, giving them more control over the ticketing experience and fan data. Seated has also helped artists use identity verification for resale and waitlist ticketing, reducing the number of tickets that end up with brokers.
Over the past year, the biggest residencies at Sphere in Las Vegas — including Eagles, Dead & Company and Kenny Chesney — also used Seated for data capture, demand insights and SMS presale registrations.
With ticketing being a hot-button issue in the last few years, McKay says he is excited to be independent again so that Seated can focus more on helping artists capture their fan data. Rather than spending all of their tour marketing on directing fans to ticketing platforms where they have to wait for a specific time for an onsale, McKay wants artists to be able to give their fans actionable items that get them closer to securing tickets.
“When tickets are not on sale yet, fans can sign up for reminders to get tickets, and when tickets sell out, we open up the fan waitlist,” McKay says, and all that fan data goes back to the artist.
“All the ticketing companies that you know and love — or don’t — are built with the tools to service their customers, which are the venues,” McKay says, adding that major ticketing companies are investing in box office computers, scanners and season ticket technology for sports teams. “Ticketing companies as a whole, the artist isn’t their customer.”
After playing Fenway Park in Boston, Kahan was set to perform at a local Vermont venue with only 5,00 tickets available. Instead of making fans rush to an onsale (where bots are the quickest to the tickets), the company had fans sign up with their information and their price range, and Seated was able to sort through to make sure all buyers were authentic fans. If fans needed a refund, they could click a button to return the ticket, and it would go to another fan on the waitlist. Fans who did not want a refund for their ticket could donate the money they spent to Kahan’s charity, with McKay stating that 15% of those who wanted a refund did so.
“That’s the biggest difference between an artist-led ticketing platform and a venue-led ticketing platform,” says McKay.
