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LONDON — As the world’s first purpose-built recording complex, Abbey Road Studios has a long and storied history of pioneering technological innovation.
Opened in 1931, No. 3 Abbey Road is indelibly associated with The Beatles, who recorded most of their catalog there and named their 1969 album after the tree-lined road in London where the studios are located. The first ever stereo music recording also happened there, in 1934, and artificial double tracking was invented in the studios three decades later. Pink Floyd, Aretha Franklin, Amy Winehouse and Adele have laid down tracks at Abbey Road, which has also recorded movie scores for blockbusters such as Return of the Jedi, Raiders of The Lost Ark and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Today, the studios remain a popular destination for recording artists, composers and orchestras, and thousands of tourists make the pilgrimage to the English Heritage-listed site every year to recreate the image of John, Paul, George and Ringo striding on the nearby pedestrian crossing, immortalized on the Abbey Road album cover.
Abbey Road’s illustrious history is profiled in a new documentary, If These Walls Could Sing, directed by Paul McCartney’s daughter Mary McCartney, which premiered globally on Disney+ on Friday (Dec. 16).
But it’s no longer only musicians making noise inside the famous facility.
Since being acquired by Universal Music Group in 2012 as part of its £1.2 billion (then equivalent to $1.9 billion) deal for EMI, a steady flow of tech entrepreneurs, researchers and developers have also been interfacing with Abbey Road, enticed less by its cutting-edge recording facilities than by its burgeoning success as a technology hub through its Abbey Road Red program.
Launched in 2015 and billed by the studio as Europe’s first music-focused technology incubator, Abbey Road Red — named after the studios’ REDD mixing consoles used by The Beatles — is now building momentum in the hyper competitive music tech space. In February, Apple acquired London-based AI Music, which was part of Abbey Road Red’s 2017 intake, for an undisclosed sum.
Other Red alumni include music video licensing platform Lickd, which has signed deals with Universal, Warner Music Group and Merlin to provide their catalogs to online content creators — and last year secured around $7 million in funding with Warner Music and Fortnite creator Epic Games among the investors.
In March, AI-augmented adaptive music platform LifeScore Music, which was part of Abbey Road Red’s 2019 cohort, raised £11 million ($14 million) in Series A funding, with Warner again providing financial backing. Another graduate of the program, London-based Audoo, which tracks music played across public performance locations, counts among its investors ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus and Paul McCartney’s MPL Group.
Of the 19 businesses that have been enrolled on the incubator so far, two have folded while 17 have raised over $80 million among them. Collectively, the 17 companies are valued at more than $325 million based on their investment rounds, says Abbey Road Studios.
At the time UMG took over the facility, Abbey Road had been losing money for years. Like many other prestige recording studios, it was finding its business under threat from bedroom producers and micro-studios able to create professional-sounding songs at a fraction of the cost.
That prompted its new owners to begin diversifying the studio business to attract a wider range of clients. In 2017, UMG opened two smaller, less-expensive-to-hire studios, the Gatehouse and the Front Room. Abbey Road Institute, a specialist music production school, opened the same year as Red. In addition to running a start-up incubator program, Red is carrying out research around immersive spatial audio listening.
Isabel Garvey, managing director of Abbey Road Studios, says the Red program has transformed how the facility is perceived by executives both inside and outside the music business. It’s “not just a room for hire,” she says.
The Beatles pose outside Abbey Road Studios in London.
Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/GI
“There’s a wonderful halo effect from Red in terms of being at the forefront of technology and being able to share that with the artists in the studios and share that with our parent company,” says Garvey.
Like other tech incubators, Abbey Road Red provides early-stage companies with access to the studio’s experts and facilities, including mentorship advice around business development, brand partnerships, securing finance and commercial strategy. It also enables start-ups to tap into UMG’s global network and consult with senior management and label execs, as well as with other major and independent labels and publishers.
In return, Universal receives a 2% equity stake in each business it backs and a participation right to invest in the company’s future financing rounds. By comparison, Y Combinator, a successful Silicon Valley start-up accelerator that gave early backing to Airbnb, Dropbox and Twitch, invests $500,000 in every company that enrolls in its three-month program in return for 7% equity. LA-based TechStars’ music tech accelerator program, which counts Warner Music, Sony Music Entertainment and Concord among its partners, offers start-ups up to $120,000 of investment for 6% equity.
James Shannon, co-founder of metaverse platform XONE, which joined the Red program in July, says the incubator’s close integration with the world’s biggest music company distinguishes it from other accelerators and provides a “fast-track towards getting a product into market.”
Neither UMG nor Abbey Road Studios gives start-ups any capital investment as part of the incubation process, although Garvey says it is an idea under consideration to grow the division.
Abbey Road Red currently takes on between four and eight businesses each year with each intake lasting six months. Last month, DAACI, a tool that uses AI to assist composers, became the 19th start-up to join Red. Start-ups can apply to Abbey Road for consideration, although the majority are scouted through the team’s technology network and connections.
“We set out to find the best quality start-ups that bring value back to the music industry, whether that’s [a platform] that helps artists get paid or new technology that empowers them to create,” says Karim Fanous, innovation manager at Abbey Road Red.
Following Abbey Road Red’s lead, other music companies, as well as UMG, have ramped up their presence in the tech incubator space.
In 2017, Universal launched a tech incubator program, Accelerator Engagement Network, followed a year later by the Capitol Innovation Center, which is housed in Hollywood’s historic Capitol Studios. In 2018, Warner Music Group announced a multi-million-dollar seed stage investment fund called WMG Boost, while Sony Music Brasil recently launched a digital accelerator program to drive artificial intelligence innovations.
“We are meaningfully thinking about where the music business is going in the future,” says Garvey. “That really excites artists, the industry and the people that come through the doors every day.”
The Recording Academy is celebrating a “major global victory” for music as the PEACE For Music Diplomacy Act passes through the House and the Senate as part of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The Senate voted Thursday (Dec. 15) to approve the massive defense bill, which includes The PEACE (Promoting Peace, Education, and Cultural Exchange) Act. This follows the House’s bipartisan passage of the paperwork last week.
The Recording Academy has thrown its advocacy efforts behind the bill since it was first introduced January in the House by 2022 Grammys on the Hill honorees Rep. Michael McCaul and former Rep. Ted Deutch.
The act, it has been said, would use music and music-related global exchange programs as a tool to build cross-cultural understanding.
Specifically, the Recording Academy notes, the bill leverages partnerships with the private sector when designing and implementing its music-related exchange programs, and authorizes music-related exchanges that “advance peace abroad.”
At October’s District Advocate Day, almost 2,000 Recording Academy members met with Congressional reps to discuss pending legislation affecting creators, including the PEACE Through Music Diplomacy Act.
The behind-the-scenes advocacy work and passage of the bipartisan $858 billion defense bill is a reminder of “the power of music and its capacity to increase understanding between diverse cultures and people around the world,” comments Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr.
The legislation is now on President Joe Biden’s desk awaiting his signature.
“The Recording Academy is grateful to Rep. McCaul, former Rep. Deutch, and Senators Leahy and Tillis for their support of this important legislation, and we look forward to championing future cross-sector partnerships that will allow music creators to promote peace across the globe.”
Read more here on the NDAA.
JKBX, a start-up offering retail investors fractional shares in thousands of hit songs, said Friday (Dec. 16) it has hired executives from Spotify, NTWRK, Comcast and others as it builds out its executive team and aims for a mid-2023 launch.
Pronounced “jukebox,” the new investment platform founded and led by former Warner Music Group chief innovation officer Scott Cohen hired Whitney-Gayle Benta to be its chief music officer from Spotify, where she was global head of artist & talent relations, and Jason Brown as chief marketing officer from the livestream commerce platform NTWRK. Brown previously held top marketing roles at Foot Locker and PepsiCo.
JKBX is part Robinhood, the popular online brokerage, and part Spotify. Cohen says it will offer bite-sized investment stakes in hundreds of thousands of No. 1 songs by current artists and back catalogs belonging to rock legends for a price starting at around $10.
While several start-ups offering fractional share investing in music copyrights have launched in recent years, JKBX aims to differentiate itself with its scale, as well as by packaging the investments in SEC-registered entities and creating a platform welcoming of investors confused by blockchain and NFT jargon, says Cohen.
“This is about the interest in owning a real asset that is something you love, a piece of music,” he says. “This is a wide-open market now because retail investors have never had an opportunity to get involved. We’re creating a new asset class, building something at scale and … I think it’s going to explode.”
Cohen declined to name any of the artists or songs to which JKBX has acquired rights. But Benta, who was featured on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players list this year, brings numerous artist relationships with her. In her previous role, Benta curated events including Spotify’s presence at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, which featured Kendrick Lamar, Dua Lipa and Post Malone.
Building out the technology supporting the platform will be Matt Brown, JKBX’s new chief technology officer, who previously co-founded the web3 startup Arthur, and worked at the hedge fund Citadel and the Blockchain company Ripple; and Madhav Gopal, who worked in cybersecurity operations at Comcast Cable and now serves as JKBX’s chief information security officer. Jacqueline Ortiz Ramsay joins JKBX as its chief communications and public affairs officer, having previously helmed public policy communications at Robinhood.
JKBX is structuring its offerings by putting the rights it buys into special purpose vehicles — such as an LLC — and registering them with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, a step that adds an extra layer of protection for rights holders, investors and the company.
Investors can then buy and trade stakes in those entities, with the share price being determined by the song’s valuation. The entities will gain value as they are streamed, synched and played, with that revenue being paid out intermittently to investors and other JKBX partners.
JKBX is still hammering out the technology and mechanisms that will be used for its public offerings, but the company is following all existing securities laws, Cohen says.
“We believe that everything should have this regulatory wrapper because this isn’t the first time for me,” says Cohen, who founded The Orchard with Richard Gottehrer in 1997, just a few years before the dotcom bubble burst in early 2000. “There were a lot of companies that IPO’d with these silly business models and they all disappeared. But what remained was people doing business by the fundamentals leveraging the technology of the day.”
“We will use blockchain technology, but as far as the consumer knows you want to buy royalty streams, click buy, enter how much and it goes into your account,” Cohen adds.
The company has not yet picked a date for its 2023 launch, but it is “fully capitalized,” says Cohen, who is bullish about the promise of the fractional shares market.
“This is the only area where I see explosive growth. I don’t see explosive growth from VR, AR, blockchain and NFTs, gaming,” Cohen says. “We’re not substituting anything the way albums replaced singles, or cassettes replaced albums. We’re not replacing anything. We are building an entire asset on top of it. We [fractional shares investing platforms] can add billions and billions of dollars to the ecosystem.”
Kelsey Harris, Megan Thee Stallion‘s former friend and assistant, returned to court Thursday (Dec. 15) to complete her testimony on the fourth day of the high-profile trial over whether Tory Lanez shot Megan in the foot on July 12, 2020 — and like on Wednesday, the witness raised the ire of attorneys on both sides of the case with incomplete and often contradictory testimony.
During Harris’ previous turn on the stand on Wednesday, Megan’s former friend and assistant failed to recall much of a September 2022 interview she did with Deputy District Attorneys Kathy Ta and Alexander Bott and another investigator. Ultimately, she testified that parts of that interview, during which she gave a detailed account of what happened the night of the shooting more than two years prior, “weren’t accurate,” marking one of the day’s most surprising turns.
After grilling Harris on Wednesday about her contention that she hadn’t seen Lanez shoot Megan on the night of the incident, prosecutor Ta tried again, asking Harris directly if Megan had been shot. “Her team told me she stepped on glass,” replied Harris, who wore a black mock turtleneck dress and black stilettos with the same updo she wore the day prior. Ta then followed up with an even more direct question — “Who shot Meg?” — leading Harris to reply, “I don’t know.”
Harris and Megan’s now-estranged friendship has been one of the focal points of the closely-watched trial, and its dissolution following the shooting was covered extensively during both days of Harris’ testimony. On day 1, Harris (who became the Grammy-winning rapper’s assistant in 2019) described the origins of the Los Angeles chapter of their friendship, noting that she left her native Houston in 2020 to live with Megan in an Airbnb in Los Angeles. But in the wake of the shooting, she said she became “confused” when Megan’s team booked her a flight back to Texas. “I was in a hotel for about two weeks,” she explained. “I made a point that I had nowhere to go.” Megan then set her up with a new living situation, Harris said, noting it was the only time they’d been in contact since the incident. Harris testified on Thursday that the two women haven’t seen each other in person since the night of the shooting, something Megan also confirmed during her previous testimony.
Also on Thursday, Harris testified she was the subject of “harassment” following Megan’s July 15, 2020, Instagram post — just three days after the shooting — in which the “Savage” rapper wrote that she’d “suffered gunshot wounds, as a result of a crime that was committed against me and done with the intention to physically harm me.” Harris claimed that the harassment came about because Megan suggested that Harris “took hush money” from Lanez.
“I believe she needs to be held accountable for spreading false information,” Harris said.
During Thursday’s testimony, Ta continued to press Harris on whether Lanez had threatened her or paid her money prior to the trial, leading Harris to visibly shrink in her seat. This line of questioning drew a reaction from the “Luv” singer, dressed in a burgundy suit and black turtleneck with black velvet loafers, who rubbed his goatee and leaned in as Ta grilled Harris.
On this point — whether Lanez either intimidated or paid her off — Harris was inconsistent. At one point during cross-examination by Lanez’s lead attorney George Mgdesyan, Harris said forcefully, “I would like to make [it] very clear” that Lanez never bribed nor threatened her. However, when Mgdesyan later asked, “Did my client offer you $1 million?”, Harris replied, “I can’t remember.”
“Are you being truthful right now?” Mgdesyan responded.
“Yes,” said Harris.
What did become clear during Mgdesyan’s cross-examination was that Harris didn’t fully understand the scope of her “use immunity” — meaning nothing derived from her testimony may be used against her in a criminal proceeding — that was offered to her by prosecutors ahead of her testimony on Wednesday. When the defense questioned whether she genuinely understood that, even with use immunity, she could face serious legal consequences if she perjured herself in court, Harris took a break, stepping out into the hallway with her attorney David A. Nardoni to discuss the issue.
Throughout Harris’ testimony on Thursday, defense attorneys grew visibly annoyed at her failure to recall much of the night of the shooting incident, with the witness continuously blaming the alcohol she consumed at Kylie Jenner‘s house — where she, Megan and Lanez had been hanging out prior to the shooting — for her fuzzy memory. When asked if she had ever heard anyone shout, “Dance, bi—!” — a phrase Megan says Lanez yelled at her just before shooting her in the foot — Harris replied, “I don’t know where that came from, so no.”
During the prosecutors’ redirect, Harris also claimed to be unfamiliar with an alleged text exchange between her and Megan, screenshots of which were shown in court. In that exchange, someone asks the other if they should go to urgent care. “My chest is hurting / pressure I have a heart murmur idk it’s being triggered. My left side, back and neck hurt But that’s from the fighting and him dragging me out the car by my hair,” the messages read. When Ta asked Harris if she had sent these texts to Megan, Harris replied, “I don’t believe [so].”
One line Harris did confirm came from her was the phrase, “I’m taking shots at you bi—, I’m busting you!” That’s a lyric from Harris’ song “Bussin Back” (released under her performing name Kelsey Nicole), recited by Mgdesyan during his re-cross examination. Harris answered that the song was a response to Megan’s own diss track (“Shots Fired”), before smirking, “I’m sure you’re aware of how rap lyrics go.”
Notably, the controversial practice of using rap lyrics in court has grown more common over the years, most prominently with Young Thug and Gunna‘s indictment in a sweeping criminal case from May that heavily cited their own lyrics. In September 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a first-in-the-nation statute that aims to restrict when prosecutors can cite rap lyrics as criminal evidence against the artists who wrote them — though since Harris is not being prosecuted in the case given her “use immunity,” Mgdesyan’s citation of her lyrics cannot be used against her in court.
Lanez faces three felony charges in the case: assault with a semiautomatic firearm; carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle; and discharging a firearm with gross negligence, the latter of which was added to the list of charges ahead of the trial last week. If convicted on all three counts, he faces 22 years in prison.
The trial will resume Friday (Dec. 16).
Just two weeks after Spotify CEO Daniel Ek ripped Apple for “bullying” app owners in a Nov. 30 tweet thread, the executive doubled down on his comments during an interview that aired Thursday (Dec. 15) on the streamer’s For The Record podcast. During the appearance, Ek said Apple’s controls over payments and data on its app store create an anticompetitive environment that is “harmful for the economy and consumers.”
“They continue to give themselves unfair advantages really at every turn and setting themselves up as both the referee and player in this game,” stifling competition and hurting competitors and consumers, Ek said.
A vocal critic of the iPhone maker over the years, Ek has ramped up calls against Apple’s policies in recent months. The U.S. Senate has just weeks left in its current term to pass a bill that would rein in the control Apple and Alphabet Inc.’s Google exert over their apps marketplaces.
Introduced last year by Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar and Richard Blumenthal along with Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn, the Open App Markets Act would block app store owners from requiring app developers to use its payments platform. The bill would also ban app stores from pushing their own products over competitors’ products and permit app developers to communicate more freely with customers and open the door to apps being downloadable from more platforms.
Speaking on the podcast, Senator Blackburn said the bill is gaining support daily.
“The reason we need this is to open up the marketplace to allow more competition, to allow developers to be able to take their product directly to the consumer,” which would lower some costs for developers at a time of high inflation in the U.S., Blackburn said.
App stores run by Apple and Google have traditionally taken a cut of in-app purchases. Prior to 2016, Spotify charged users 30% more if customers upgraded to a premium subscription inside Apple’s App Store to offset Apple’s 30% fee. To save on fees, Spotify has not allowed in-app purchasing on its Apple app since 2016.
Ek threw the weight of his company behind Blackburn’s bill on the podcast, saying that Spotify believes there needs to be regulation in this space to make clear that developers or companies can interact with consumers.
“There is an enormous concentration of power where one company here [is] dictating the rules for how millions of companies should be able to conduct business,” Ek said on the podcast.
This is not the first time Ek has taken on Apple’s App Store in the regulatory arena. In 2019, Spotify filed a complaint with the European Commission against Apple, alleging that rules governing its App Store “purposely limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience — essentially acting as both a player and referee to deliberately disadvantage other app developers.”
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
After massive technical problems marred the Nov 15. pre-sale for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, forcing some fans to queue for several hours to buy tickets or fail to buy them entirely, Ticketmaster is changing tactics to sell the remaining 170,000 seats for the artist’s 52 shows. The company, hoping to avoid long fan wait times and site crushing web traffic from bots and Swifties, is going back to an older technology: The 20-year-old Ticketstoday platform, modeled after The Grateful Dead’s own fan club system and still used by jam bands like Phish and Ween. The system has been updated in recent years and even deployed for artists like Ed Sheeran and Madonna, although it’s never handled 170,000 tickets for a single sale.
The move, coupled with Ticketmaster’s agreement to not participate in secondary ticket sales for the Eras tour, shows how eager ticketing companies are to work with a mega earner like Swift while avoiding the crush of traffic that disastrously caused widespread disruptions to her Nov. 15 presale. The record-breaking sale is now the subject of multiple congressional inquires around the Live Nation-owned company. These include a request from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) to Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate the crash and a call from her counterpart on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), to hold a hearing on the “lack of competition in ticketing markets.”
The decision to use Ticketstoday — originally built for Dave Mathews Band’s fanclub platform MusicToday by manager and Red Light Management founder Coran Capshaw in the early 2000s and sold to Live Nation in 2008 — would significantly reduce fan wait times and the potential for another site crash by gating off the most vulnerable parts of the ticketing platform to uninvited fans and bot attacks thought to be responsible for the disruption issues. Instead of making fans queue up again to order their tickets, this will essentially assign tickets to them based on their preferences.
Despite receiving an unprecedented level of negative publicity, Billboard estimates Swift’s Nov. 15 presale generated approximately $554 million in sales for Ticketmaster (which ticketed 47 dates on the Eras tour) and Seat Geek (which ticketed five dates as the primary ticketing company for the Arizona Cardinals and Dallas Cowboys).
The 170,000 remaining tickets not sold during the presale have a cumulative face value worth $37 million, Billboard estimates. Once Swift completes the sale of her remaining tickets for the Eras Tour, Billboard estimates that she will have generated $591 million in the U.S. alone. Based on projection, Taylor would easily capture the title of Billboard Boxscore’s highest-grossing female touring artist of all time, topping the current title holder Madonna who’s Sticky & Sweet Tour (2008-09) currently holds the No. 1 slot grossing $407 million, and the number four slot on the all-times tour chart, currently topped by Ed Sheeran, whose Divide tour from 2017-2019 grossed $776.2 million.
Typically, Ticketstoday helps artists sell a small portion of their available tickets – usually about 8% per show — directly to their most loyal fans, much like a lottery system. Fans receive an email about a limited number of VIP or high demand tickets available for sale for an upcoming show, and then those who want to buy the tickets select a pricing option and provide their credit card information in advance. If there are more fans wanting tickets than tickets available, a digital lottery is held and the fans selected have their credit cards automatically charged.
While Ticketmaster stayed online during the attack and sold a record 2.2 million tickets in 12 hours, the site could barely handle the traffic created by 14 million fans and billions of bots the company claimed hit the site. This system using Ticketstoday will pace out the sales, and they will be processed away from the public, avoiding any similar potential issues. To determine which fans would get to participate in the upcoming sale, Ticketmaster used its Verified Fan platform . Fans who bought tickets to the 2020 Lover Festival, canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, have been prioritized, as well as those who bought select Taylor Swift merchandise, like a “F— the Patriachy” keychain that went on sale in August. Participating fans will be sent an email requesting their credit card number and choice of tour seating options representing various price ranges and seat locations. Ticketmaster will then work to match fans with their purchase request and charge their card on file. The entire process will take about four weeks and is expected to be completed by Dec. 23.
It’s a Wednesday afternoon in early December, and Monte Lipman is running late, but with good reason: Journalist, activist and feminist icon Gloria Steinem has been in the Republic Records offices in midtown Manhattan for the past two hours, speaking to the staff about equal rights. “It’s amazing — the woman is 88 years old, sharper than ever, and she was just kind of sharing her thoughts,” Lipman says when he comes to the phone. “The Q&A was dynamite and everyone was just geeking out about her.”
Lipman has had plenty of reasons to be in a great mood of late. The chairman/CEO of Republic saw his label land the No. 1 spot on each of Billboard’s year-end label rankings: Top Labels, Billboard 200 Labels and Billboard Hot 100 Labels, the second year in a row the company has topped the trio of charts, and the sixth time in the last eight years it has finished at No. 1 on the Top Labels ranking. Republic ended 2022 with five of the top 10 albums of the year — the second year in a row it has done so — and with 23 albums having reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200, including five No. 1s: Taylor Swift’s Red (Taylor’s Version) and Midnights, Drake’s Honestly, Nevermind (released via OVO Sound/Republic) and Stray Kids’ ODDINARY and MAXIDENT (JYP/Imperial/Republic). (This week, it added a sixth: Metro Boomin’s Heroes & Villains.)
But Republic has also spent the past year in expansion mode, having either launched or strengthened several new initiatives. One was the new independent distribution subsidiary Imperial, which quietly opened last year and quickly caught fire with the release of Bo Burnham’s Inside (The Songs), but then landed two No. 1s through its distribution of Stray Kids, under the leadership of executive vp/president Glenn Mendlinger. Another was the relaunch of both Mercury Records, with A&R execs Tyler Arnold as president and Ben Adelson as GM, and Uptown Records with co-presidents Saint Harraway (executive vp A&R at Republic) and Marleny Reyes (executive vp marketing strategy at Republic) and Republic senior vp of business and legal affairs Khelia Johnson at the helm. There is also a new Kids division, overseen by vp of marketing and operations Bree Bowles, announced in August; and Federal Films, a new film and TV division that will allow the label to expand into Hollywood beyond soundtracks and music licensing, run by Republic executive vp Danielle Price, executive vp of film & television Dana Sano and senior vp visual content and production Devon Libran. And finally, Republic opened a new recording studio in Manhattan this fall, run by senior vp A&R Ken “Duro” Ifill as operations manager and executive vp of brand partnerships Kerri Mackar.
With another year of honors in the books, Lipman spoke to Billboard about Republic’s expansion into new areas of late, the reasons why the label is moving into film, children’s content and distribution, and the benefits of relaunching an iconic label brand rather than starting anew. “We’re not in the business of good or bad, we’re in the business of whether or not we can make a difference, whether it’s working with a new artist or an established artist,” he says. “We’re thrilled with the artists we work with, with the projects and campaigns, and I could bore you with all the milestones that we’ve reached and the impact that they’ve made. But it’s about what’s next.”
How would you describe the past year for Republic?Listen, when you have certain releases by the biggest artists in the world — including Taylor Swift, Drake, Post Malone, The Weeknd — what’s there not to be excited about? And then this past week we just dropped Metro Boomin, which is tracking to be No. 1. [Ed. Note: Metro Boomin’s Heroes & Villains debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 this week.] And through Imperial we had two No. 1s this year with Stray Kids, which is a K-Pop act. For us, I always say that if we don’t win the pennant, we’re not having a good year. And metaphorically, we won the pennant here. So that part of it feels good. But it’s really about what’s next, what does 2023 look like, what are we preparing for, etc. A part of myself and this company and our DNA is we’re never satisfied. And that’s what keeps us going and grinding as hard as we can.
You mentioned Imperial. Why did you want to launch a distribution company?It’s another option, another alternative. There is a community of artists, DIY or independent, who have chosen not to align themselves with a major label because for whatever reason they feel more comfortable staying independent. And this is an option that we created for them. Because Republic came from the independent marketplace, and for a long period of time we were fiercely independent and just liked the idea of operating with a certain amount of autonomy. You know, it’s smaller, historically, but from time to time, a band like the Stray Kids, through our alliance with JYP, there are opportunities where you can land at No. 1 on the charts.
How do you decide what makes an act right for Imperial as opposed to Republic itself?It really starts with the artist and it’s based on conversation, the artist proposition, what they hope to accomplish, their expectations, how much input they want and what kind of partnership they want. So it’s just another option, another dynamic to the relationship. But Imperial is independent; it operates with full autonomy and the idea is to align ourselves with those entrepreneurs and artists that have proven to be resourceful. In our business, resourcefulness is an incredible, valuable trait among the artist community. That doesn’t mean you have to run it through Imperial and be independent, because with the biggest artists in the world, my feeling when I met them and started working with them was just how resourceful they are, which is a large part of their success.
Was launching Imperial a response to how the industry has shifted in the past several years, towards a distribution model for some artists?Well, I think the difference is there has always been independent distributors — in fact, that’s the core of our business. The difference now though is I think the point of entry into the music industry is with a lot less friction than there’s ever been, because when you think about it, an artist can basically wake up in their pajamas, flip open their laptop, record a vocal, cut a beat and in the same 24-hour period make the music available to the world. So technically, in that moment, they have become an independent artist. But things these days just move so much quicker, and I tend to believe there’s more companies out there now that are responsible and supporting ingestion. Glenn Mendlinger, who is leading the initiative, is somebody who is a forward-thinker and constantly challenging the status quo. He’s a remarkable executive and someone we really appreciate working with.
You mentioned that artists now can record music in their bedrooms. Why did you want to open a new recording studio in New York City?That’s the magic — that’s where it all happens. We’ve had a studio in Los Angeles for many years now and it’s incredibly successful, and it’s not just about dollars and cents and financial reasons, it’s also culture and our home, so to speak, because that’s where we have a lot of our meetings and social gatherings and listening sessions. And it just reminds us that it all starts and ends with the music. With that in mind, we saw a great opportunity here in New York City, a studio became available, and it was the perfect time and we went for it. It was a bummer that COVID held us back from a grand opening and moving on it quickly, but where it stands now it’s officially opened, we’ve got an Atmos room that is world class, we’ve had some of the most important artists in the world come in there for Atmos mixes. That room’s going nearly 24/7. And what’s also neat with a lot of artists or potential partners, or even our mentorship program in bringing kids to the studio is, it’s just the vibe. You’re physically surrounded by the music and the production facilities and it makes a difference.
Did you see a need for that in the city? There have been a lot of studio closures in recent years, and COVID-19 did nobody any favors there, either.Well first of all, you’re talking to one of the strongest advocates of New York City; it’s something that’s near and dear to my heart. I grew up here. The world headquarters of Republic Records is in Midtown, and it’s something that I feel very strong about. Investing in the community, investing in the city — New York City, for a long period of time, had been the epicenter of the music industry around the world, and one can argue that no longer exists. And the point is, we want to bring it back.
I talk to the artist community, and what I can tell you is, right now, if you go downtown where a lot of the studios are, most of the studios are filled, are at capacity. There’s a certain energy, there’s a certain vibe that has returned to New York City, and that’s something we’re excited about. There’s a fellow by the name of Duro who runs the studio for us in New York, and a woman named Kerri Mackar, who also works for us, and she’s very involved in the operations, some of the social gatherings, events, staging things at the studio. But it’s a world class operation down there.
You guys also launched Federal Films. Why did you want to get into film and TV?The writing is on the wall of where all things are heading. And so much of what we do involves visual content, and it just makes perfect sense given that, we’re one of the market leaders in the world of soundtracks. And from time to time I find myself getting a bit frustrated, just because I felt like there may be more opportunity for us to participate in the creative process and not just be the soundtrack company or the music label. So we’ve done some amazing alliances with some of the artists, with some of the studios, producing a documentary, or a feature in certain cases, or even a series.
We have program called A2K, which stands for America to Korea. That’s something we’re doing with JYP, and we’re in the middle of production, and there will be more announced at the top of the year in terms of releases. We’re also doing a series with Nick Cannon called Classics in Session. Nick came into my office and the conversation started with a band that he was excited about, and ended with us coming up with the idea of Classics in Session. It’s a high-level interview with legacy artists just having a conversation about their classic album, or in some cases the catalyst album that launched the biggest artist in the world. It’s shot live at HBCU schools around the country. We did that intentionally because we wanted to have a dynamic of being in a room together vs. a Zoom or podcast or Webinar. It’s really about going deep in the process of making the music and the point of view and where the artist’s head was at the time, the lyrical content, and so on and so forth.
Is running that a different type of skill set for you guys, or do you see it as another outlet for creative expression?It’s a great question, because when you talk about creative expression, that’s an easy aspect of it. When you think about the amount of music videos we’ve made over the years, and the production, none of it is necessarily difficult and none of it is anything we haven’t done before. The difference, though, is in the world of Hollywood we are sailing in uncharted waters. The positive in that, and what I love about it, is we don’t necessarily know the rules. So with that in mind, we’re willing to take certain chances that others may not want to take.
Do you see Federal as producing a lot of music-related programming, or do you want to go beyond that?Everything associated with Federal Films, there’s a music connectivity to it. So are we gonna do a horror film? Unless it’s a musical, no. [Laughs] But right now, we’ve invested in a brand new film with Billy Porter called Our Son, and it’s something we feel very strong about, and music is part of the narrative and is critical to the film. Documentaries, obviously, make perfect sense, whether it’s Reggaeton, which highlights Daddy Yankee’s career, or the documentary about Donna Summer. Those are simple enough. But we’ll also get involves as producer for a feature like They Cloned Tyrone, which right now is with MACRO and Netflix, and we are the music partner in that. Same thing with Marlowe, which features Liam Neeson and is with Open Road Pictures. So we’re open.
You guys also this summer launched Republic Kids & Family. Why did you want to get into that?Our saying with Republic Kids is very simple: “We don’t make kids music, we make great music.” It’s run by a woman named Bree Bowles, who has been here now for a little over a year, and she’s incredible — her energy, her excitement, her dedication to kids music. The focus is zero to 12, obviously with their moms and dads; any opportunity to engage in educational or exploratory type of content, we’re all about. We’ve made some great partnerships, including Nickelodeon. We launched in August of this past year, and right now we’re tracking more than 100 songs per month, and that’s only going to grow. But again, it’s different properties like Blue’s Clues, Nickelodeon, Jojo Siwa we’re in talks with right now. Can’t forget The Bubble Guppies. [Laughs] I’ve got three kids, two are much older but I’ve still got an eight-year-old in the house. His new thing is SpongeBob — we’re not involved in SpongeBob necessarily, but there’s more to come. It’s early days, but we’re excited.
Did the recent successes of Encanto and Frozen inspire that?Oh, yeah. The success ratio in the music industry is a single digit or so; I heard the riskiest business out there apparently is kids toys, which I understand is over a 99% failure rate, because you never know what kids are going to respond to. You just don’t know. But when it hits, it hits big. The two you just mentioned, more than just a movie or a soundtrack, those are rides at theme parks now, and then there’s the merch and the rest of it. But more importantly, it’s giving back to the rest of the community and supporting our community. Educational [content] is a lightning-rod of interest for us. And it’s just about working to make the world a better place.
You also relaunched two iconic record label imprints this past year, in Mercury Records and Uptown Records. Why?Uptown, going back to our commitment to New York, they were the premier New York label, the label that inspired me and made an impact. You can’t talk about Uptown Records without talking about the founder, Andre Harrell. He was showbiz, and I remember early in my career watching him operate, the narrative, what Uptown stood for, it was the coolest, hippest label, and the acts that came from there, including Mary J. Blige, continue to make an impact in popular culture. And we had the opportunity to relaunch Uptown, working with Andre’s estate and being incredibly respectful of the legacy. To his credit, it was Saint Harraway who came to me and said this is something that’s near and dear to his heart, and he’s also New York born and bred. We recruited Marleny Reyes, who runs it with Saint, and there’s a third wheel in there, Khelia Johnson, and between the three of them they’ve done an incredible job and they’re off and running.
There’s tremendous passion in this initiative, and it’s still early days, but we’re very proud of what we’ve already accomplished with Coi Leray, who is a premier act on Uptown; we made a deal with Ciara, who we love and we’re very excited about the new music, and we’ve got a hit song on the radio right now. And there’s a band that’s coming over from the U.K. and I’m telling you right now they’re going to blow up big, and that’s a band called FLO. That’s where Uptown is now, and it’s very recent — we just flipped the switch, so there’s a lot more to come in 2023.
And then Mercury, again another legacy label, and one that I as a kid grew up with some of my favorite acts coming through Mercury. And when I took the idea to Tyler Arnold and Ben Adelson, they jumped at it. When we spoke about the idea, their first question was, “Tell me more about Mercury.” It wasn’t a vanity play or anything like that, they took a real interest in the legacy of Mercury and did the research and we had many conversations about what Mercury stood for and what they’re known for. But what I explained to them was, by reactivating this, this is now within your vision. This is a company under your watch. And you can make it whatever it needs to be.
And to their credit, they’ve come out of the blocks hot because of pre-existing relationships: Tyler Arnold signed Post Malone, he made a strategic alliance with Morgan Wallen and Big Loud Records; and Ben Adelson signed Stephen Sanchez and Noah Kahan, two of the biggest breakouts of ’22. And it’s still early days; we’ve got a lot of work to do. But Elton John called me himself to lend his support to Stephen Sanchez, and the last time he did that was with Amy Winehouse. So that’s what’s happening with Mercury. They also signed AJR, and we’ll have new music from them in 2023, but that’s a multi-platinum, arena-size act coming off a monster smash, and if the new music is any indication, they’re going to have a great year.
What do you see as the value of relaunching some of these iconic brands vs. starting a new label or imprint?It’s two things. It’s embracing the entrepreneurial spirit, and it’s essentially encouraging ownership. Because again, now there’s a sense of responsibility with Saint, Marleny and Khelia on behalf of Uptown. There’s a sense of responsibility and ownership with Tyler and Ben. And that’s where you get the best out of people, when you empower them and give them this ownership and encourage a sense of autonomy and independence and free-thinking. Because I don’t want to find myself in a position of micro-managing people. If that happens, we all lose. We can’t do it. So you need people to really take on these added responsibilities and know that at the end of the day, they’ve got to do the job. You could say the same thing about Federal Films, and the Republic Kids initiative.
How do all these new initiatives enrich what you are doing at Republic?Well, Republic started as an independent. And I report to somebody named Sir Lucian Grainge, who empowers me and allows me to operate with an entrepreneurial spirit, with a sense of autonomy. And that’s how you get the best out of Monte Lipman. So just applying that rulebook is something that, culturally, is important. We want to house and align ourselves and partner with true entrepreneurs. And when you look at the success of this company and what we’ve accomplished and achieved, much of it comes from these strategic alliances: Cash Money Records and all the success we’ve had with them over the years, and XO Records with The Weeknd, or OVO Records with Drake — you can go down the line. That’s the nature of our industry, it’s built on the entrepreneurial spirit. So the idea is to celebrate it, enhance it, support it and just make sure that people have that spark of excitement and opportunity.
What are you looking forward to in 2023?I think about that every day when I wake up. The short answer is we want to make the world a better place. How do you do that? We are very fortunate because we represent the biggest, most important artists in the world and we help provide a platform, we provide incredibly valuable label services so their voice can be heard in every corner of the world, so to speak. And we want to make a difference with every artist we work with, and we want to be able to make an impact.
A California judge says Metallica’s insurance company doesn’t need to pay for six South American concerts that were canceled when COVID-19 struck, thanks to an exclusion in the policy for “communicable diseases.”
The band earlier sued a unit of Lloyd’s of London after it refused to cover their losses stemming from a South American tour, which had been set to kick off on April 15, 2020, but was postponed when the governments of Argentina, Chile and Brazil imposed strict restrictions amid the worsening pandemic.
Though Metallica’s insurance policy expressly excluded any coverage for events canceled by “communicable diseases,” Metallica’s lawyers argued that COVID-19 itself wasn’t clearly the most direct cause of the tour cancellation.
But in a decision on Nov. 30 obtained by Billboard, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Holly J. Fujie said she didn’t buy it.
“The travel restrictions which caused the concert cancellations were a direct response to the burgeoning COVID-19 pandemic,” the judge wrote. “The evidence … demonstrates that the COVID-19 pandemic spurred the travel restrictions to South America and restrictions on public gatherings. The COVID-19 pandemic was therefore the efficient proximate cause of the concerts’ cancellations.”
Metallica’s lawyers had also argued that the “diseases” exclusion didn’t apply at all, since the exact wording of the policy said Lloyd’s wouldn’t pay coverage stemming from a disease “or fear or threat thereof.” Citing that language, the band said “none of its bandmembers felt threatened or fearful.”
But Judge Fujie was similarly unswayed, ruling that the Metallica policy’s language “does not require that the policyholders [themselves] feel fearful or threatened.”
The ruling granted Lloyd’s so-called summary judgment, meaning the case is dismissed. Metallica’s attorney did not immediately return a request for comment on the decision. The ruling was first reported by Law360.
Metallica’s case is one of many that have been filed by music venues, bars and other businesses seeking insurance coverage for harm caused by COVID-19. Like Metallica’s case, the majority of those lawsuits have thus far been won by insurers. Many policies include express carveouts for problems caused by diseases, like the one in the band’s contract; other policies for brick-and-mortar businesses often require “physical damage” that’s tricky to show with a pandemic shutdown.
The biggest such case in the music industry is a sweeping lawsuit filed by Live Nation, seeking coverage from Factory Mutual Insurance Co. for more than 10,000 shows (encompassing a whopping 15 million tickets) that were canceled or postponed during the pandemic.
Factory Mutual tried to end the case by arguing that virus shutdowns are not the kind of “physical loss or damage” that would be covered under the wording of Live Nation’s policy, but a federal judge ruled in February that Live Nation might have a valid case: “The complaint sufficiently alleges that infectious respiratory droplets, which transmit COVID-19, are physical objects that may alter the property on which they land and remain.”
The lawsuit remains pending.
In 2019 and 2020, promoting music on TikTok often meant paying prominent influencers to use a song in their videos. The concept was straightforward — cash for exposure — and on a good day, the results were easy to notice: Streams shot up. “All you needed was those [popular] people to post and a song flew,” one digital marketer reminisced earlier this year.
If this strategy once helped a track fly, it is now more likely to flop. “Bigger influencers actually don’t move the needle on music consumption” anymore, another digital marketer told Billboard in April. Lately worry has been spreading in the music industry that the link between song usage on TikTok more generally and consumption on streaming platforms appears to be losing potency. “For a while it was like, ‘All you gotta do is get a song going on TikTok, and it’s outta here!’” one major label executive says. “It’s not a guarantee anymore” that a song will become a hit.
This sentiment was reflected in a year-end report that TikTok published last week outlining the most popular songs and artists on the app. The top 10 TikTok tracks in the U.S. were streamed far less in 2022 than they were in 2021, according to data from Luminate. And the winners in 2021 were streamed far less than they were in 2020.
This indicates that the correlation between TikTok usage and U.S. streams is weakening. And it offers supports for a growing chorus of marketers who whisper that TikTok video usage isn’t “translating” as well to streams as it did in years past.
In 2020, being a top TikTok track in the U.S. practically ensured streaming success: Luminate data shows that nearly every song in TikTok’s top 10 earned more than 250 million on-demand plays Stateside. Just two years later, that no longer appears to be the case: See Luclover’s “L$d” (20.4 million, No. 2 on TikTok in the U.S.), Yung Lean’s “Ginseng Strip 2002” (71.1 million, No. 3), and Duke & Jones and Louis Theroux’s “Jiggle Jiggle” (82.5 million streams, No. 8). Now “There’s a bunch of stuff going off [on TikTok] that’s not even a hit,” says one A&R.
The overall streaming totals for TikTok’s biggest songs show a sharp decline year over year. Back in 2020, the top 10 singles on TikTok in the U.S. — from Doja Cat’s “Say So” to Roddy Ricch’s “The Box” — collectively amassed more than 4.9 billion Stateside streams. The top 10 songs on TikTok in the U.S. in 2021 — think back to Doja Cat’s “Kiss Me More” and Cardi B’s “Up” — garnered only a little more than 3 billion streams between them in America. And the top 10 TikTok songs in the U.S. in 2022, ranging from Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” to Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God),” amassed just 1.9 billion Stateside streams combined. That’s a drop of roughly 3 billion streams, or 61%, in two years.
A representative for TikTok declined to comment for this story. In the platform’s year-end report, Ole Obermann, Global Head of Music, said that “13 out of 14 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1’s were supported by viral trends on TikTok.” “Our platform continues to unlock real-world opportunities for artists and labels,” Obermann added, “helping talent to secure record deals, brand collaborations, chart success, or be re-discovered decades later.”
But TikTok has changed markedly in the last few years, making it harder to turn success on the app into those opportunities — at least in the world of streaming. The first challenge for the music industry is saturation. “There’s so much noise; it’s harder to cut through,” says one manager whose acts have been at the center of multiple bidding wars following viral moments. “Once upon a time there wasn’t a lot of money pouring into TikTok. Now the music business, Hollywood, fashion, retail, beverage, everybody is trying to use TikTok to drive their product.” Music is competing for attention not only with other music, the huge amount of new songs and user-generated remixes that pop up each day, but with Marvel movies and canned cocktails.
And as TikTok’s user-base has swelled, it’s splintered into smaller communities that share the same interests, meaning that capturing everyone’s eyeballs — and ears — is increasingly difficult. “More users means TikTok’s ‘For You’ page algorithm has more content to offer, and it also means more data that allows it to be more targeted with its content recommendations,” one digital marketer told Billboard earlier this year. “People are less likely to see the same thing, like Charli D’Amelio dancing, and are more likely to see content from niches the algorithm recommends specifically for them.” As a result, “trends are siloed when they used to be community-wide,” a digital marketing company owner explained recently.
In addition, a handful of executives posit that TikTok is addictive enough that some users, especially younger ones, are starting to “use it as their music service,” according to one indie label-head, rather than leaving the app to go stream music elsewhere. Obermann hit back against this idea in November: “Our community comes to TikTok to watch videos,” he told Billboard, “not to listen to full-length tracks.”
It’s not clear that everyone wants to listen to full-length tracks these days. What is clear is that the interactivity that users find so compelling on TikTok threatens to undermine the traditional streaming experience. When music encountered on the app in a goofy or galvanizing video “is listened to [later] on streaming, it is stripped of all that creative and cultural context,” Mark Mulligan, managing director for music consultancy MIDiA Research, wrote recently. “It is like only listening to the soundtrack of a movie.” Some users may prefer to hear the music along with the video clips, even if it comes in short bursts.
The music industry views TikTok as a means to an end, and the equation has always been simple: More videos on the app using our music = more streams for our music. If the connection between the two weakens, it will have notable implications for A&R and marketing strategy. “There’s very little predictability now,” says one A&R. “You just can’t know how long something will sustain anymore.”
Warner Music Group signed a multi-year partnership with blockchain companies LGND.io and Polygon Companies to launch LGND Music, a new collaborative project set to debut in January 2023. Through the partnership, select WMG artists will launch digital collectibles on LGND Music’s app and desktop platform, which will be built on Polygon, a blockchain development network. WMG’s Spinnin’ Records is one of the first label collaborations under the deal.
The Bojangles restaurant franchise signed a franchise development agreement with Melanbo, a group partly owned by music execs Mel Carter and Kevin “Coach K” Lee. Melanbo will develop 14 new Bojangles locations in greater Atlanta, building upon their acquisition of 18 existing Bojangles restaurants in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina — making Melanbo the largest Black-controlled Bojangles franchise. In the music sphere, Carter recently signed a joint venture deal with Warner Music for his label, Second Estate Records. Lee currently serves as COO at Quality Control Music, which he co-founded in 2013.
UMG-owned rock label Spinefarm Records (Bullet for My Valentine, Atreyu, Killing Joke) joins the [PIAS] Group‘s roster, effective Jan. 1; Spinefarm will be distributed on a global basis through the [PIAS] services division [Integral]. The deal marks the first significant repertoire partnership following UMG’s purchase of a 49% stake in [PIAS] last month. Spinefarm will continue to operate as a standalone label from its New York headquarters under the leadership of GM Jonas Nachsin. Existing Spinefarm teams across the world will continue to handle all A&R, marketing and promotion activities for the label.
TSX Entertainment — owner of a 74,000 square foot space in New York that includes recording studios, a supper club, galleries, restaurants, bars, rooftop terraces and immersive experiences integrated with the TSX Metaverse — signed a long-term partnership with Roc Nation. Under the deal, the companies will collaborate on tentpole performances and annual events out of the TSX space — which also includes a massive digital billboard connected to the TSX app — spanning music, fashion, film, sports, gaming and lifestyle.
Warner Music Group’s WMX is launching three FAST channels exclusively on The Roku Channel: WMX Pop, XMW Rock and WMX Hip-Hop. All three will feature music videos and concerts from WMG’s global catalog, as well as original programming from WMG media brands including UPROXX, HipHopDX, Songkick, Cover Nation, The Pit and Lasso Nation.
Warner Music India (WMI) signed popular Indian singer King. The label recently released King’s third studio album, Champagne Talk.
Connect Music, which provides distribution and publishing administration services, acquired London-based artist and label services provider MTX Music. Connect co-founder Askia Fountain will lead MTX Music’s operations as managing director, focusing its services on the hip-hop and R&B community in the U.K. Under the agreement, Connect is granting MTX Music access to its $10 million credit facility (backed by Preserver Partners) to support the development of emerging U.K. talent, with up to $1 million available per artist. Fountain will look to grow MTX Music’s A&R and marketing teams over the coming months. MTX Music’s roster includes Judith Owen, Lost Society and Jonathan Antoine.
Downtown Music Services signed several new artists out of Los Angeles: Colbie Caillat, Francis Karel, Lily Meola, Loren Gray, Rebecca Black and Yung Bae. All will utilize Downtown’s suite of services including global distribution, creative marketing and synch licensing.
B2B distributor FUGA partnered with U.S. indie label Polyvinyl Record Co. (Alvvays, of Montreal, American Football). Through the deal, Polyvinyl will utilize FUGA’s suite of distribution and marketing services. Polyvinyl is also entering a partnership with Downtown Neighbouring Rights, a recently-launched division of Downtown Music that brings Downtown Music Services,Downtown Neighbouring Rights and FUGA together into a single offering that aligns, tech solutions, label & artist services and distribution.
Merlin signed two new partnerships: one with Supernatural, a VR fitness app for Meta Quest headsets, and the second with STYNGR, a B2B technology platform that offers a turnkey music licensing solution for video games and the metaverse. Under the deals, both Supernatural and STYNGR will be provided with music released by Merlin members.
NOFX founding member Fat Mike launched a new record label, Bottles To The Ground. According to a press release, the label will serve as a “halfway house” for Fat Mike’s new band, Codefendants, and a home for British punk duo The Meffs and Melvinator, the EDM project from NOFX’s Eric Melvin. The label, a collective owned by all members of NOFX, is an imprint of Fat Wreck Chords and will house bands that don’t fit the traditional Fat sound.
Indie label Dirty Hit (The 1975, Wolf Alice, Rina Sawayama) extended its worldwide distribution deal with Ingrooves Music Group.
British-Nigerian rapper, MC, producer and label owner Skepta signed with Los Angeles-based Wasserman Music agent Brent Smith for global representation. Skepta launched his own label and creative agency, Big Smoke, in October.
Session, the developer behind music collaboration app Session Studio, signed a one-year partnership with Brazil’s largest collection society, the Brazilian Union of Composers (UBC). Under the deal, Session will offer UBC members free access to the Session Studio app, which allows creators to capture song and recording data at the point of creation and deliver it downstream to managers, labels, publishers, CMOs and digital service providers while ensuring all participants are properly credited.
B2B streaming company Tuned Global announced two MedTech clients, MediMusic and Nue Life Health, who will use Tuned’s music APIs to provide streaming music to patients in a variety of settings. MediMusic customizes therapeutic playlists for patients to reduce resting heart rate, anxiety and stress responses via biofeedback and machine learning. Nue Life Health offers ketamine therapy to people with PTSD and treatment-resistant depression; music is one component of an app-supported therapeutic experience that guides Nue Life patients through the ketamine sessions. Tuned Global will provide the companies with metadata, music content and streaming service functionality.
Oliver Sim, Romy and Jamie xx — collectively The xx — signed with Huxley‘s brand partnerships division. The company will represent the members of the band and support on-brand relationships for their individual and creative projects. Also signing with the division is Alastair McKimm — creative director, design consultant, i-D editor-in-chief and founder of creative agency MCKIMMCORP.