State Champ Radio Business
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TOKYO — The traditional path to financial independence through music creation has been evolving for years. While there was once a clear-cut approach that included labels, publishers, touring, and CD sales, now the vast majority of artists need to find a different way to make it. The world is bigger now, and the borders and boundaries of music are being torn down piece by piece. Not only are more and more people listening to music from outside their markets, even in once more locally focused countries like Japan, Korea and India, but more and more people are watching how other music pros operate and taking notes.
This means that new markets are opening up to creators in the United States and that, simultaneously, Asian artists are rethinking their whole approach to the business. Together, these dynamics are leading to new career paths and new sounds.
In Japan, we’ve witnessed a huge change in the incentive structure. I’ve worked for years in the Japanese market as a producer and have watched things change firsthand. One of the biggest sources of change came not from our market, but from South Korea. BTS broke the world charts and now everyone’s looking outside of Japan. Korea opened their eyes.
BTS, BLACKPINK, and other K-pop groups set a precedent and demonstrated what’s possible. Before, everyone assumed you had to change for export, to sing in English, to adjust your look and feel. But these young Korean stars didn’t initially feel a need to sing in English; instead their fans learned Korean. Korean artists and producers were able to prove that an Asian person who doesn’t know English or even have perfect pronunciation can top charts and win a Grammy. The most important factor is entertainment. Are you entertained? If so, that’s all you care about as a fan.
Watching BTS take the world by storm, Japanese artists began to expand their ambitions, and the industry has had to respond. Music professionals used to be focused on monetizing this island and that alone, but now younger artists are looking outside and considering their options. The entire ecosystem of labels and publishers has come into question, as young artists are asking why they should sign to a label. Talented musicians who sign to a major are a huge deal now. Artists know they have to pull through all their fanbase themselves.
As young Japanese creators think globally, the market is starting to open up more and more to new global talent. Yet creating the relationships to make this openness work has proven a slow evolution, not a quick pivot. The first and foremost reason that there’s a disconnect is the language barrier, as not everyone in the Japanese industry feels comfortable conducting business in English. They can’t communicate the way they’d like.
This further enhances local skepticism about working with foreign producers. Instead of a set deal, things change as the project evolves, terms change, as, say, three more writers start asking for advances out of the blue, all problems that I’ve heard about from A&Rs I’ve talked to. Relationships with people in Japan make project management easy. Because of the way publishing works in Japan, local producers cost less and everyone knows the terms of a standard contract. No negotiation is required. It’s safe and administratively simple, by comparison.
Yet if a Japanese A&R exec turns to a producer who isn’t big in Japan, they can feel shocked by higher prices and more complex terms, with international publishers and other parties involved. They have to put out their neck personally and that’s a major risk. As things change at home, however, and Japanese creators rethink their strategies, this risk can feel worth taking, and more and more tools and services are working to enable better communication and collaboration.
This has implications for artists far from our corner of the world. Artists in the United States are fighting for attention for percentages of pennies—this is not new information to anyone. In Japan, however, one play of an artist’s track in a karaoke booth can generate a hundred times as much revenue as a Spotify stream. Write, produce, or perform a hit that gets played regularly in karaoke rooms across Tokyo, especially if it’s a song that works for weddings, birthdays, or graduation, and you could receive a comfortable check for life. Yet even as artists continue to search for new ways to stand out from their peers, opportunities in East Asia often get overlooked as viable options. I see this changing, as both Japanese and non-Japanese players understand one another better, and it’s thrilling.
We’ve entered a space without borders, where business practices as well as sounds cross and blend. We can look at each other, communicate and share information any time, even across languages. The quicker that moves, the quicker the trends flow. We don’t go through decades of rock; it’s a one-month period of rock, until someone comes up with a new crazy sound. This is often happening on platforms with global reach, key gateways to new music and to what kids are making right now. How the next steps unfold–how labels, publishers, and established players react to this new global exchange–are still being determined. But once distant markets are growing closer, and the entire business stands to benefit.
Kenneth Kobori, CEO of SURF Music, is a songwriter and producer in Japan as 2SOUL. He achieved early success with “Story” by AI in 2005, which charted in Oricon’s top 10 for 73 weeks. He’s worked with Earth, Wind & Fire and Little Glee Monster, among others, and is also a former executive and startup member of Breaker, Inc.
Colombian star J Balvin has officially joined Roc Nation as a management client, where he will be overseen directly by Jay Brown and Chris Knight.
Balvin was previously managed by Fabio Acosta and Scooter Braun’s SB projects. He parted ways with the latter on June 30, 2022, after nearly three years together. He continued working with Acosta and his company, Akela Family Music, through March. Acosta had managed or co-managed Balvin in some capacity for the past decade. Sources say the two parted on amicable terms.
Balvin, one of the biggest Latin stars in the world, has had a series of management shifts over the past five years. In 2019, he parted ways with manager Rebeca León, who had managed him since the onset of his career in the United States, and signed with Braun. Throughout both deals, Acosta remained part of his management team and worked in partnership with SB Project, helping bring in groundbreaking deals and partnerships. These included his celebrity menu collaboration with McDonald’s — a first for a Latin act. Balvin was also the first Latin artist to collaborate with Nike and Michael Jordan on an Air Jordan collaboration, and in November of 2020, he performed in Fortnite, marking the first performance ever by a Latin act for a gaming company.
Last year, Balvin also briefly split with his longtime agency, WME, and went to UTA, after postponing his 25-date José tour. But after four months, he returned to WME.
Balvin is currently featured on the Fast X soundtrack with the track “Toretto.” He’s also announced a series of European tour dates, mostly festivals, beginning with a June 24 performance at the Solydays festival in Paris.
Balvin’s full touring schedule is below.
6/24 – Paris – Solydays 25th Anniversary Festival6/26 – Ibiza – Pacha Nightclub6/30 – Seville – Puro Latino Fest7/1 – Madrid – Puro Latino Fest7/3 – Ibiza – Pacha Nightclub7/8 – Liege, Belgium – Les Ardentes Festival7/9 – Constanta, Romania – Neversea Festival7/11 – Milan – Milano Latin Festival7/12 – Bern, Switzerland – Gurten Park7/14 – Tenerife – Ritmo del Mundo7/15 – Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal – Meo Mares Vivas Festival7/21 – Byron Bay, Australia – Splendour in the Grass7/23 – Melbourne – Margaret Court7/25 – Sydney – Hordern Pavillion
Is there another $1 billion in global publishing royalties that rights holders can gain by using better technology? That’s what Kobalt CEO Laurent Hubert says.
When Kobalt was bought by Francisco Partners last September, the disruptive innovator known for its publishing administration clients like Karol G, Phoebe Bridgers and Max Martin said that a primary goal of this next chapter would be growing its little known and even less understood global digital rights collections society for compositions, the American Music Rights Association.
In the months since, Kobalt and its new owners have refined their strategy for scaling this “unpolished gem,” as Francisco Partners and Kobalt board director Matt Spetzler calls AMRA. Their first hurdle? Explaining what exactly the global mechanical and performance rights society focused on collecting digital-specific income can accomplish. “Too few people know what AMRA does,” says Hubert.
In an industry where, according to CISAC’s 2021 annual report, over 36% of global music publishing revenue royalties come from digital sources — a figure AMRA says will grow to 80% within five years — Kobalt believes AMRA can better leverage its technology and its direct agreements with digital service providers to streamline digital royalty collection across 212 countries, cutting out the friction or delays of a traditional performing rights organization (PRO). Their biggest licensees include some of the largest DSPs, like Spotify and Apple Music, but they are also working with promising new brands like China-based TikTok rival Kuaishou and others.
AMRA says it is a one-of-a-kind service, providing clients faster turnarounds for royalty collection (in six to nine months), more precise accounting for digital royalties and audit rights, and greater transparency that its executives say make AMRA clients and the wider industry a lot more money.
How much? AMRA CEO Tomas Ericsson estimates that clients can gain “as much as 30%” more royalties in certain regions. Hubert contends that if his companies can reduce the percentage of money that leaks from the $8 billion to $9 billion of royalties collected by the global music industry on the publishing side, excluding writer’s share — “leakage” that stems from high intermediary costs, poor matching, undercollection and underlicensing — AMRA and other players in the industry could grow the pie by another $1 billion for collection and distribution. AMRA could be a tool to help accomplish that, Hubert says.
Ericsson explains that AMRA can go to streaming services and “offer the entire catalog for Kobalt music publishing and an additional three publishers and an additional 180 writers to these streaming services, and we can give them those rights globally under one license. [The streaming services] report to us directly, and they pay us directly.
“In doing so, we can avoid a lot of noise, high fees, inefficiencies, poor technology and local issues,” Ericsson says.
Since its acquisition by Kobalt in 2015, AMRA has distributed almost $500 million in digital royalties on behalf of songwriters and rights holders. Managed as a separate entity under the Kobalt umbrella, AMRA generated $117.3 million in revenue in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2022, and the company currently expects AMRA will generate $150 million in revenue during this fiscal year. Hubert declines to provide specific financial targets but says he expects double-digit revenue growth this year from AMRA, and that its growth rate will substantially exceed Kobalt’s.
Apart from its DSP licensees, AMRA works with songwriters such as Julia Michaels, Lindsey Buckingham, Sam Hollander and independent publishers like Sundae Music Publishing, Anthem and Spirit. It’s also partnering with functional or mood-music companies, such as Strange Fruits, Vanity Snare Music, Lullify Music and Acrylic Records, whose music is popular on passive-listening playlists. Kobalt remains AMRA’s largest licensee, Ericsson says.
Kobalt, AMRA and its new owners are aligned on their aim to massively scale AMRA. Those owners are Francisco Partners, a California-based private equity firm that favors tech-forward music companies; MUSIC, the firm of music industry veteran and investor Matt Pincus; and Dundee Partners, the quietly influential family office of Stephen and Sam Hendel whose investments range from The Knitting Factory to the Fela! musical to music investing platform JKBX. Kobalt founder and chairman Willard Ahdritz and Hubert also have equity stakes in the company and have signed long-term contracts to remain in their roles.
Through interviews with all those stakeholders, AMRA’s emerging growth strategy has three prongs. The first is to expand its list of publishing clients, looking for small, medium and large indie publishers.
At a faster and larger clip, AMRA also aims to exploit opportunities with other niche music genres in the Latin and African markets in a bid to replicate the success it had partnering with mood-music companies. It also aims to take on more clients on the “long-tail end of the business” — songwriters who may not be published or affiliated but have steady streaming income.
This last prong of the strategy reflects the influence of Francisco Partners. In the past two years or so, the firm has invested $2 billion in six music companies, five of which are geared toward music creators, ranging from audio production and DJ’ing software and hardware to a plugin platform with marketing, distribution and authorization services. Managed under the umbrella of SoundWide, Francisco Partners says these companies have a combined 7 million users.
“We have seen the marketplace has shifted and grown around the creator community,” Hubert says. “We have the capabilities from a scaling and tech stack perspective to go after that market.”
AMRA faces hurdles if it’s to maintain formidable growth. Tracking digital royalties is challenging, given metadata errors and fast-growing use cases. The association is also held back when it comes to nondigital royalties, where existing laws and collection societies prevent it from operating as swiftly or accurately as it can with digital revenue. Songwriters in particular are the most restricted: They can use AMRA to collect their digital performance and mechanical royalties, as well as offline royalties, but the offline royalties still pass through a traditional PRO before reaching AMRA, meaning the writer will be charged two fees: one from the traditional organization, then a “significantly lower” fee from AMRA. Also, although AMRA collects in 212 countries, two of the world’s most royalty-rich nations, China and the United States, are not part of their offering due to local laws.
Still, AMRA will bring all of its promised efficiencies to the digital side, which is what the company anticipates will far outweigh offline royalties soon. The company believes it to be uniquely positioned to collect those royalties. As it likes to say: “AMRA is a category of one.”
Artist Publishing Group has entered into a partnership with Makasound Records, Billboard has learned exclusively. APG CEO Mike Caren and Makasound co-founders Chrishan “Prince Chrishan” Dotson and Christian “Hitmaka” Ward are also announcing two new signees under the partnership: Grammy-nominated producer Rob Holladay (Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Megan Thee Stallion) and Aye YB (French Montana, 2 Chainz, Big Sean).
“Hitmaka and Chrishan maintain a rare balance between talent, entrepreneurism, vision and work ethic,” said Caren in the press announcement. “They will continue to win as top creatives and mentors who can both coach and play. We’re excited to partner on their growing list of endeavors.”
The new partnership follows several years of collaboration between APG and Makasound’s co-founders. The relationship has yielded hits such as “Dangerous” by Meek Mill featuring Jeremih and PnB Rock, “Look Back At It” by A Boogie wit da Hoodie, “No Stylist” by French Montana featuring Drake and “Rule the World” by 2 Chainz featuring Ariana Grande.
“Mike gave me my first publishing deal as a writer and producer,” Hitmaka tells Billboard. “He really believed in me and took me under his wing, which has allowed me to open a bunch of different doors. Mike has since deepened the business relationship with me and Chrishan at Makasound. So this new partnership just made sense because he believes a million percent in what we’re doing. He’s like, ‘You are the guys. Let me get out of your way and support you in keeping the momentum you have going.’ It’s a seamless transition to a partnership I’m super excited about with Mike and Chrishan.”
Adds Dotson, “We’ve built Makasound from the ground up, focusing on the records first: what it takes to make a great song, a great piece of work. We take a boutique approach to artists and repertoire, a department in which a lot of the majors are lacking. Many times, these executives are experienced on the technical side, but not when it comes to record creation, understanding how to stay creative, stay motivated and stay hungry. We want to help guide the next generation of producers, songwriters and artists through what we’ve learned when we were at that point in our careers.”
Dotson and Hitmaka established Makasound Records in 2016. During that time, the pair has written and produced hits for platinum-selling artists such as Drake, French Montana, Chris Brown, Ty Dolla $ign, Meek Mill and Gucci Mane.
Artist Publishing Group, a division of Artist Partner Group, was founded in 2004. It has scored its by writers such as 24k Goldn, Taz Taylor, Don Toliver, Ava Max, Charlie Puth and YoungBoy Never Broke Again.
When executives from across the United States and international markets convene in Nashville May 15-18 for the Music Biz 2023 conference, they will connect with a trade organization widening its reach, with a leader boasting credentials that are uncommon in the music industry.
Portia Sabin, who became Music Business Association president in September 2019, brings to her role a Columbia University doctorate in anthropology and education and savvy that she gained from a subsequent 13 years as president of the respected independent label Kill Rock Stars and eight years as host of music business podcast The Future of What.
It’s no wonder that Sabin has cultivated an esteemed fan club of music industry professionals, including the heads of other trade groups.
“Because of her background and her personality, she’s got analytical and creative skills to put fresh ideas out there, and she’s not afraid to push the envelope,” says Mitch Glazier, chairman/CEO of the RIAA.
“She remains focused on educating and improving this business, pushing for growth and inclusion while helping others to navigate the challenges that come with never-ending technological and economic change,” says Michael Huppe, president/CEO of SoundExchange. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for Portia as a strong and insightful voice in the music industry.”
Highlights of this year’s Music Biz conference will include four days of panels and workshops, keynote addresses by Kobalt founder and chairman Willard Ahdritz and leaders of the Black Music Action Coalition, as well as the second Bizzy Awards to recognize companies and individuals who are making a difference in improving the global industry. The 2022 Music Biz drew over 2,100 attendees from across some 750 companies, with 8% of participants coming from outside the United States.
“Running a label made me get very interested in the business of the music industry,” Sabin says of the road that led her to her Music Business Association role. “I was also on the board of A2IM [the American Association of Independent Music] for 12 years, on the board of the RIAA for a couple years, on the Recording Academy Board of Governors in the Pacific Northwest for six years and I also started a podcast about the music industry in 2014, so I had a lot of interest in the business itself.
“It’s a fascinating industry,” Sabin continues. “There’s a lot to know, and it’s also one of those weird ones where everybody thinks it’s easy from the outside until you get involved in it. We really saw that in the tech boom, starting about 10, 12 years ago, when all these tech people came into our sector saying, ‘I don’t know what your problem is. We can make lots of money,’ and then one by one they have disappeared. The only ones who stuck were the ones who bothered to learn and respect the music industry.”
Portia Sabin
Nashville Corporate Photography
Originally comprised of music wholesalers, retailers and distributors, the Music Business Association had already begun to broaden its scope during the tenure of James Donio, Sabin’s predecessor — a shift indicated in 2013, when the organization changed its name from the National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) to the broader moniker it has today. Continuing that expansion was one of Sabin’s early priorities.
“We’ve made a concerted effort to be inclusive, to reach out to companies that are coming in, like tech startups, that are doing cool things and solving problems that people have,” Sabin says.
The music business, she notes, is “an ever-changing landscape, and I think it’s one of those things you have to be comfortable with when you set out to have an inclusive trade association.”
Today, the Music Business Association has several initiatives to more broadly serve the music industry. For example, the Music Biz conference has added programming that focuses on the touring and ticketing industry “because that part of our business has always weirdly been a little bit separate,” Sabin says. “I certainly found out when I was running a record label that that whole live side was sort of its own animal. The booking agents are over there, the promoters, the big talent agencies.”
But the pandemic highlighted the fact that the music business “is an ecosystem and we all rely on each other, and when one goes down, the whole goes down,” says Sabin of the live sector. “So we have made a big effort since 2019 to get those folks involved.”
The conference’s programming style has also evolved. “We have discovered the power of creating tracks for discussion,” Sabin says. “It helps people get more in-depth knowledge. If you’re going to do three panels on a topic, one right after the other and everybody is having the conversation together, that makes it stronger, so we’re doing quite a lot of tracks at this year’s Music Biz.”
MIDiA Research’s Tatiana Cirisano (center) at the UMG Mixer at Music Biz 2022.
Graham Dodd
Sabin’s desire for a larger tent extends beyond the types of companies that make up the Music Business Association. Achieving a more inclusive board “was a huge goal for me,” Sabin says. “It has taken us four years, but now we’ve gotten to 52% people of color on the board, 57% women, as well as a nice, wide range of diversity in company type. I think that’s also really important.”
“She formed a diversity, equity and inclusion committee pretty much immediately, so that was a core element of building and reconsidering the organization,” says Downtown Music Holdings chief marketing officer Molly Neuman, who recalls that Sabin’s early priorities included making the organization’s board more diverse and expanding the voices heard at its events. “That was in place when George Floyd was murdered and we had Blackout Tuesday and all the things that happened in the summer of 2020, so we already had this core unit considering these things for the industry, but we were also in a position to offer mutual support as well as long-term plans.”
That commitment to inclusion was illustrated recently when the Nashville-based Music Business Association issued a statement decrying anti-LGBTQ+ bills passed by the Tennessee Legislature.
Broadening the scope of the Music Business Association also includes an effort to increase the involvement of younger music professionals. “We have a programming track called #NextGen_Now, and we tried our first physical event with them [in March] in Nashville,” Sabin says. “We had a cocktail mixer and it was incredibly successful; they all had to be kicked out at the end of the evening because they were enjoying themselves too much, which is great.”
The association is also reaching students through its #NextGen_U initiative. Like its predecessor, NARM, the Music Business Association has continued to offer scholarships to help the next generation of music business executives.
“The programming that we did online for them was very successful over the pandemic and we continued to do those through as recently as February of this year,” says Sabin. “We think it’s easier for students to attend a two-day virtual conference for $39 rather than flying and getting a hotel room. We also have an academic-partner newsletter now that we send out monthly.”
Willard Ahdritz
Paul Brissman
Another recent Music Biz outreach echoes NARM’s almost-forgotten 1970s-era playbook — the Road Show.
“For the vast majority of our members, their clients are actually artists and musicians and Music Biz [previously] didn’t provide any forums for them to get in front of those people,” Sabin says. “So I put together what we call the Music Biz Road Show. We usually partner with a trade association in a city and go for a day and do a mini Music Biz, where we put on some panels, maybe a fireside chat and a cocktail hour. The local trade association brings a couple hundred local artists so our members get to get in front of their actual clients, the people who they actually want to meet. And we get to do educational programming for those folks. It has been very successful so far.
“We’ve had them in Atlanta, Portland, Ore., and Memphis and we have them coming up in Huntsville, Ala., New Orleans and Miami,” Sabin continues. “If my staff doesn’t kill me, I would like to have at least one a month.”
Amid such outreach, what are the priorities for this year’s expanded Music Biz conference?
“I think everyone is always interested in what’s coming next, so I think generative [artificial intelligence] is a conversation that people really want to have,” Sabin says. “Because our conference is crowdsourced, it’s really fun to see what topics come in over and over and which ones fall by the wayside.
“For example, we had the highest number of [programming suggestions] that anyone can ever remember receiving, like 326 proposals this year, and there was only one on [non-fungible tokens]. So you can tell that’s no longer of concern to the membership.”
But a perennial concern remains: “What are the revenue streams that are out there and how do we capture them? That is what the internet has done for the music industry; it has created boundless opportunities, with this scary downside of, ‘How do [creators] collect [revenue for their creations]?’
“I feel like the music business has always been playing catch-up to technology,” Sabin adds. “A new technology comes along and we spend 20 years figuring out how to get it monetized properly, and by that time another technology comes along. But it’s happening so much faster right now and I think that’s the central interest of our membership, and that’s really what we are.”
This story originally appeared in the May 13, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Luminate is launching a new platform that will house the company’s global data capabilities across music, film, TV and more, the company announced Monday (May 15).
An improvement from the company’s current legacy data platform, Music Connect, the new platform includes the industry-leading music sales, streaming and airplay data that has powered the Billboard charts for over three decades. The design was built to complement the rapidly evolving entertainment industry and allows users to explore a more comprehensive view of music consumption by artist and project at both global and individual country levels. It also provides customers with the ability to extract more in-depth insights.
The news was broken Monday morning at the annual Music Biz conference in Nashville by Luminate CEO Rob Jonas.
“As conversations of uncertainty surrounding AI and other technological advancements begin to inundate the entertainment industry, there’s never been a more pressing time for transparency and objectivity in how data is used across music, film, TV, streaming video content and more,” said Jonas. “Luminate’s new platform is built upon three decades of expertise – the information and content we collate and analyze every day forms a rich data asset on which prediction and recommendation will become commonplace for our customers and partners. We are focused on centralized, unbiased information to help keep creators informed, honest, and united by a singular reference point.”
The platform’s improved benefits and features include a more customizable user interface, allowing for various sorting, filtering and grouping functionality; an improved search, with dedicated page and separation per categories (artist/song/album) for quicker access; and the ability for users to share dashboards with team members by copying and pasting a URL for easier collaboration.
Additionally, the platform boasts upgraded data infrastructure, using a multi-cloud architecture incorporating Amazon Web Services and Snowflake, making it faster and more flexible than any of its predecessors. It is designed to ingest thousands of data sources and present them as valuable insights and trends about consumer engagement and behavior, with data exchange and API support available for customers who require data ingestion into their own systems and platforms.
The platform also incorporates more comprehensive artist metadata, including country of origin, language(s) and label information. Additionally, users can drill down to the ISRC or EAN/UPC level, as well as break out the data by different criteria; they also have the ability to separate all activities from Charts Equivalent by providing a dedicated “charts view.” The platform also includes international market-level data via new global filters — an improvement from Music Connect, which largely represents North America — giving users the ability to drill down to key international data from specific countries.
Lastly, the new platform incorporates support for new forms of consumption, including short-form video and gaming environments.
In the coming quarters, Luminate will integrate its other data offerings into the new platform, including music audience research, film metadata, TV metadata and streaming video analytics. New data provider partners will also be announced in the coming weeks.
“Luminate’s new platform was designed in collaboration with some of our most valued partners across the entertainment industry,” said Luminate chief product officer Arnaud Retureau. “Their feedback was invaluable to our efforts in providing a user experience that is beneficial to the entire music community, especially in creating a central reference point pertaining to baseline consumption metrics and expert insights. We’re looking forward to continuing to engage with that feedback to maintain the most effective and useful product possible.”
Luminate’s team is currently on the ground at Music Biz, where they’re scheduled to participate in featured speaking sessions and curated music data programming and will be offering demos of the new platform for industry professionals. You can learn more about their presence at the conference here.
Luminate rebranded in March 2022 and was previously known as Nielsen Music and P-MRC Data.
Cumulus Media’s share price climbed 11.9% to $3.30 on Friday (May 12) after the company announced it commenced a “modified Dutch auction” tender offer to purchase up to $10 million of shares of its common stock at up to $3.25 per share. That news led to a 19.1% improvement this week and made Cumulus, the […]
Jimmie Allen‘s management company The Familie and booking agency UTA both announced they were suspending their work with the country singer-songwriter on Friday (May 12), following a new lawsuit alleging him of rape, sexual assault and battery.
“Given the nature of the allegations in the lawsuit filed on Thursday, The Familie has decided to suspend management activities with Jimmie Allen effective immediately,” a spokesperson for the management firm told Billboard in a statement. The Familie began working with Allen in 2022, after he parted ways with his former management company, Wide Open Music.
“We have suspended our representation of Jimmie Allen due to the recent allegations against him, which we take seriously,” said a UTA spokesperson in a separate statement.
In a civil lawsuit filed Thursday in Tennessee federal court, an anonymous “Jane Doe” accuser says that Allen “manipulated and used his power” over her job as a day-to-day manager in order to “sexually harass and abuse her” over a period of 18 months from 2020 to 2022.
“Plaintiff expressed in words and actions that Jimmie Allen’s conduct was unwelcome, including pushing him away, sitting where he could not reach her, telling him she was uncomfortable and no, and crying uncontrollably,” the woman’s attorneys wrote in the complaint. “However, Allen made clear that plaintiff’s job was dependent on her staying silent about his conduct.”
Allen denied the allegations in a statement to Billboard, saying, “It is deeply troubling and hurtful that someone I counted as one of my closest friends, colleagues and confidants would make allegations that have no truth to them whatsoever. I acknowledge that we had a sexual relationship — one that lasted for nearly two years. During that time she never once accused me of any wrongdoing, and she spoke of our relationship and friendship as being something she wanted to continue indefinitely.”
The artist continued to say he intends to “mount a vigorous defense to her claims and take all other legal action necessary to protect my reputation.”
Since the report came to light, Allen has also been suspended by his record label, BBR Music Group, which includes halting of promotion for his latest radio single, “Be Alright,” which fell 57-60 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart dated May 20. He has also been pulled from the performer lineup at CMA Fest, which is slated from June 8-11 in downtown Nashville.
The suit follows previous news that Allen and his wife Alexis Gale announced their separation on April 21; at that time, they also shared that Gale is pregnant with their third child.
Assistance on this story provided by Melinda Newman.
Stories about sexual assault allegations can be traumatizing for survivors of sexual assault. If you or anyone you know needs support, you can reach out to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). The organization provides free, confidential support to sexual assault victims. Call RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE) or visit the anti-sexual violence organization’s website for more information. (edited)
A move by Barry Weiss to reconfigure ownership over his RECORDS label has resulted in deal that buys out his former partners with a new going-forward joint venture directly between him and Sony Music, sources say.
Weiss — the former Jive/Zomba impresario — launched RECORDS in 2015 with his then-partners at the SONGS publishing firm, Matt Pincus and Ron Perry, and in 2017 they soon entered into a joint venture with Sony Music for the label. That deal was renewed for another three years in 2020, but with that arrangement coming to term Weiss and his original partners recently hired Artisan’s Brian Richards to selectivity shop for a new equity partner. The original 2017 deal, sources say, had a buy/sell mechanism in place that when it expired, either partner — Sony or the original RECORDS founders — could chose to buy out the other partner. While that mechanism never officially kicked in, sources say that if Sony decided to trigger the buy/sell option, Weiss and his partners apparently wanted to be prepared.
By the end of 2022, sources say, RECORDS was generating about $20 million in annual revenue and the original partners were seeking a valuation above $100 million. The label’s roster and catalog includes music from 24K Goldn and Noah Cyrus, who each have racked up over 1 million album consumption units in the U.S.; rapper Nelly’s 2021 country-crossover album Heartland, which is approaching 600,000 album consumption units in the U.S.; and the Labrinth-Sia-Diplo collaboration LSD and Stella Lennon, who are each approaching 500,000 album consumption units in the U.S.
As part of the deal, Sony now owns outright that part of the RECORDS catalog and all of its other masters from the original joint venture, although Weiss and his team will continue to work those records. Meanwhile, the recent singings that sources say are likely part of the new joint venture owned collectively by Sony and Weiss, include Matt Stell, who has scored two No. 1 records at country radio — the double platinum “Prayed For You” and the platinum “Everywhere But On”; former Band Perry member Kimberly Perry, whose “If I Die Young Pt. 2,” is just hitting country radio; and iCandy, whose “Keep-Dat-N—a” has become a TikTok hit.
As one source puts it, “while RECORDS may have been slow-going at the start, Weiss did a really nice job of building up the label and creating a valuable business.”
The search for a new equity partner received a number of interested offers from suitors that were said to be in the ballpark of the asking price. But it turned out that Sony — which sources say also had matching rights — came up with the most attractive offer and a deal was struck, one that had the added advantage of likely being the easiest deal to make since Sony was already familiar with the label.
In the original joint-venture deal with Sony from 2017, the major became RECORDS’ majority owner with a stake slightly over 50%. Of the remaining stake, sources say Weiss had the largest remaining equity piece, around 25% to 30%. Perry had the second largest stake, while Pincus — who originally had the largest stake at the label’s founding — had been left with the smallest slice of equity.
The new deal, according to sources, sees a 50/50 partnership between Sony and Weiss, with Pincus and Perry bought out completely from RECORDS as they received their second payday from selling a stake in the label to Sony. Moreover, even Weiss received a payday by cashing out his stake in the original joint venture, besides the new joint-venture deal, those same sources say.
While Pincus and Perry are no longer owners in RECORDS, Perry is chairman and CEO of Columbia Records, the distributing label for many of the releases from RECORDS, so he will still be involved in the label he helped found.
In the last six months, this marks the third deal involving music assets in the Sony Music Group orbit that were or are up for sale, either wholly or in partially, where the company has moved aggressively to keep — or try to keep — the music assets under its umbrella.
Two other deals that are likely still up in the air but close to fruition involve Rimas Entertainment and the Michael Jackson Estate. In the former situation, Sony is helping Noah Assad to buy out his partner in another deal that will rejigger the ownership structure of that company; while in the latter deal, Sony is negotiating to purchase outright the Jackson estate but the executors want to keep their hand in running that operation, according to sources. No formal announcements have been made for either deal.
Weiss and Pincus didn’t respond to requests for comment, while Sony Music declined to comment.
As a musician, educator, and author, I’ve spent the last few years examining AI’s challenges to the music ecosystem. But recently, after a comical misunderstanding on a U.S. podcast, I ended up playing devil’s advocate for the AI side of the AI and music equation. The experience was thought-provoking as I took on the role of an accidental AI evangelist, and I started to refocus on the question of, “Why are we fighting for ethical use of AI in music in the first place? What are the benefits, and are they worth the time and effort?”
As we hurtle from the now-quaint AI chatbot ChatGPT, to the expected text-to-video and text-to-music capabilities of GPT 5 (rumoured to drop in December), to Microsoft’s acknowledgment that AGI is feasible (artificial general intelligence, or a sentient AI being, or Skynet to be alarmist), to viral AI-generated hits with vocals in the style of Drake & The Weeknd and Bad Bunny & Rihanna, it can be easy to focus on the doom and gloom of AI. However, doing so does us a disservice, as it shifts the conversation from “how do we harness AI’s benefits ethically” to “how do we stop AI from destroying the world?” There are many, with a cheeky chappie nod to Ian Dury, “Reasons to Be Cheerful” (or at least not fearful) about music and AI. Here are nine reasons why we need to embrace it with guardrails, rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Fun: Yes, damn the ethics – temporarily. Generative AI technologies, which ingest content and then create new content based on those inputs, are incredibly fun. They tease and capture our curiosity, drawing us in. We might tell our employers that we use text-to-image services like DALL-E and Stable Diffusion or chat and search bots like ChatGPT and Jasper to optimise workflow to stay ahead of the technological curve, but they are also so seductively entertaining. Elementary AI prohibition won’t work; our solutions must be at least as stimulating as our challenges.
Time-saving: According to a survey by Water & Music, this is what music makers desire most. Many musicians spend countless hours managing social media accounts, wishing they could focus on music-making instead. AI solutions promise to grant that wish, allowing them to auto-generate text for social posts and announcements, and providing inspiration and potential starting points for new tracks, giving them the gift of time and helping them write, record, and release music more quickly. Let’s use automation wisely to free up musicians for their art and their economics.
Education: Despite dwindling funds for music education, technology offers new ways to make music accessible to everyone. Affordable AI tools can help students break through privileged barriers, providing access to personalised learning. I work with Ableton, which makes a variety of music production hardware and software. Successful initiatives such as the Ableton Push 1 campaign, which provided discounts to those who traded in their Push 1 midi controller and then refurbished and provided them for free to schools that needed them, demonstrate how digital tools can empower the economically marginalised, enable them to explore new musical styles and techniques, and nurture their passion for music.
Imperfect charm: AI’s imperfections and quirks make it endearing and relatable. AI’s unpredictable nature can lead to happy accidents and repurposing technologies for new musical uses. The fact that LMMs (large language models), which analyze huge swaths of text and then generate new text based on the patterns it learns, can be flawed retains a touch of human magic and humour in our interactions with them. Let’s enjoy this fleeting VHS fuzziness before it’s gone.
Affordable: Setting aside the environmental costs for a moment, AI has become exponentially accessible. AI allows creators to produce incredible results with basic tools. Last July, I purchased an expensive GPU-filled MacBook with dreams of making mind-blowing AI musical creations, but by September, I was doing just that using only my old phone’s browser. This so-called “democratisation” of music production can level the playing field for musicians worldwide, allowing more people to pursue their passion. Can we get it to increase their income too?
Tech Stacking: Experimenting with new combinations of generative AI APIs (application programming interfaces) opens up a world of DIY creativity. APIs are essentially pre-made functionality that developers can slot into their code easily, allowing them to focus on innovation rather than spending their time creating generative AI applications from scratch. This collision of technologies can encourage collaboration between musicians and developers, fostering a dynamic and innovative environment that crucially must be aligned with new licensing and rights payment models.
Elevated Chatter: As AI becomes more prevalent, the quality of conversations surrounding it has improved. People are starting to debate the legality of using copyrighted material to train AI, particularly in the music world, with a variety of strong arguments being made on behalf of human creators. In my research, I tried to address the complexities of AI in the music ecosystem, and now, I find these discussions happening everywhere, from John Oliver to barber shops. This elevated discourse can help us as a global industry make informed and necessarily swift decisions about AI’s role in our lives, better integrating its reasonably cheerful benefits and not being overwhelmed by its many chilling implications.
Inspiring the next generation: Introducing AI to young minds can be inspiring and terrifying. In my undergraduate module at Windmill Studios Dublin, I tasked students with inventing new music IP using existing cutting-edge technologies, with one rule of thumb: they could use a hologram but not bring someone back from the dead. Initially, I felt terrible about presenting such a potentially dystopian vision to young minds. But what happened next amazed me: all 40-odd students (from two classes) came up with outstanding commercial ideas. Their creativity and enthusiasm reminded me that the adage, “no one knows anything,” holds as true for music as it ever did.
Time to adapt: Perhaps the biggest reason to be cheerful at the moment, we still have enough time to address AI’s challenges. As Microsoft announces the “first sparks of AGI” and we face a saturated streaming market, we must work quickly together to ensure an equitable future for music makers. In my book, “Artificial Intelligence and Music Ecosystem,” my fellow contributors and I delve into the pressing issues surrounding AI, and now, more than ever, we need to take action to steer the course of music’s evolution. As AI continues to develop, it’s crucial for musicians, industry professionals, and policymakers to engage in open dialogue, collaborating to create a sustainable and equitable music ecosystem. Otherwise, what looks like Drake and sounds like Drake may not actually be Drake in the future.
The Human Artistry Campaign is the first step in this direction and interlinks with the concerns of MIT’s Max Tegmark’s “Pause Giant AI Experiments Open Letter” (which currently has 27,000+ signatures and called for a pause in the development of AI to give governments the chance to regulate it) for a big-vision picture. As we work together, we can ensure that AI serves as a tool for artistic growth and sustainability. But we must move fast and nurture things as AI’s growth is exponential. Do you remember back when ChatGPT was on the cutting edge of AI? Well, that was only five months ago, and we’re now talking about the possibility of sentience. That’s why I am working with some of the biggest companies in music and big tech to create AI:OK, a system to identify ethical stakeholders and help to create an equitable AI music ecosystem. If you are human and would like to help shape this future, it might be the most significant reason to be cheerful of all.
Dr. Martin Clancy, PhD is a musician, author, artist manager and AI expert. He is a founding member of Irish rock band In Tua Nua, chairs the IEEE Global AI Ethics Arts Committee, serves as an IRC Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, and authored the book Artificial Intelligence and Music Ecosystem. He also manages Irish singer Jack Lukeman and is a leading voice in advocating ethical use of AI in music.
