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Jonathan “Hovain” Hylton, who was recently honored as one of Billboard’s 2022 R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players, has died.
“It is with deep regret that we message to all family, friends and colleagues that Jonathan ‘Hovain’ Hylton passed away while at his home on Friday, November 25. He was a beloved and devoted father, husband, son, brother and a proud Brooklyn representative,” read a statement posted Saturday (Nov. 26) on Hylton’s verified social media accounts.
The statement continued, “We’d like to thank all of his close friends for all of the love and support that you have shown during this difficult time. We ask that you all continue to keep his family in your prayers and respect their privacy at this time.”
A cause of death has not been disclosed.
On Friday morning, Hylton had last tweeted, “Good morning and thank GOD for another day,” a message he had been putting out into the world daily.
Hylton, a Brooklyn native who was a vp at Cinematic Music Group, was named alongside founder Jonnyshipes on this year’s R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players list.
“I’ve always prided myself on just being a good person and a hard worker. Never was big on awards. The way I came in this game was the independent route so I always knew caring too much about the politics wasn’t going to help me. But it feels good to be honored as one of Billboard’s Power Players alongside my brother and partner @jonnyshipes,” Hylton wrote on Instagram on Nov. 17. He added, “I think the biggest lesson is this is you don’t have to be a sucka or do corny s— to be recognized. Just be a good person and do your job and God will make the rest happen on his time.”
Throughout his career Hylton helmed projects for prominent New York rappers including Cam’ron, Styles P and Lloyd Banks, and alongside Jonnyshipes at Cinematic Music Group worked with artists including T-Pain and Flipp Dinero.
Hylton was also a professor at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, where he taught “The Business of Music,” an eight-week course offering students in-depth knowledge on publishing deals, business positions needed for an artist’s success and more.
“It’s an amazing opportunity to come from where I come from and to be asked to teach at such a fine institute,” Hylton told Billboard in 2021, when the course launched. “To share my love for music with the young minds who are looking to learn [will be a great experience].”
The music community mourned the death of Hylton on Saturday.
“Maaannnn we lost my brother in drip @hovain love you brother you always showed nothing but love and positivity. My condolences to your family,” Fat Joe wrote on Instagram. “Till we meet again RIP.”
“Damn Hov… Rest Up… Appreciate your knowledge & your positive energy… May God Bless your family with peace. Love & Light from my family to yours. Long Live Hovain,’ T.I. wrote on Twitter.
“Hovain had just hit me up about doing some music with lloyd banks,” Hit-Boy tweeted. “God bless his family.”
Elon Musk said Friday (Nov. 25) that Twitter plans to relaunch its premium service that will offer different colored check marks to accounts next week, in a fresh move to revamp the service after a previous attempt backfired.
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It’s the latest change to the social media platform that the billionaire Tesla CEO bought last month for $44 billion, coming a day after Musk said he would grant “amnesty” for suspended accounts and causing yet more uncertainty for users.
Twitter previously suspended the premium service, which under Musk granted blue-check labels to anyone paying $8 a month, because of a wave of imposter accounts. Originally, the blue check was given to government entities, corporations, celebrities and journalists verified by the platform to prevent impersonation.
In the latest version, companies will get a gold check, governments will get a gray check, and individuals who pay for the service, whether or not they’re celebrities, will get a blue check, Musk said Friday.
“All verified accounts will be manually authenticated before check activates,” he said, adding it was “Painful, but necessary” and promising a “longer explanation” next week. He said the service was “tentatively launching” Dec. 2.
Twitter had put the revamped premium service on hold days after its launch earlier this month after accounts impersonated companies including pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co., Nintendo, Lockheed Martin, and even Musk’s own businesses Tesla and SpaceX, along with various professional sports and political figures.
It was just one change in the past two days. On Thursday, Musk said he would grant “amnesty” for suspended accounts, following the results of an online poll he conducted on whether accounts that have not “broken the law or engaged in egregious spam” should be reinstated.
The yes vote was 72%. Such online polls are anything but scientific and can easily be influenced by bots. Musk also used one before restoring former U.S. President Donald Trump’s account.
“The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk tweeted Thursday using a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people, the voice of God.”
The move is likely to put the company on a crash course with European regulators seeking to clamp down on harmful online content with tough new rules, which helped cement Europe’s reputation as the global leader in efforts to rein in the power of social media companies and other digital platforms.
Zach Meyers, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform think tank, said giving blanket amnesty based on an online poll is an “arbitrary approach” that’s “hard to reconcile with the Digital Services Act,” a new EU law that will start applying to the biggest online platforms by mid-2023.
The law is aimed at protecting internet users from illegal content and reducing the spread of harmful but legal content. It requires big social media platforms to be “diligent and objective” in enforcing restrictions, which must be spelled out clearly in the fine print for users when signing up, Meyers said.
Britain also is working on its own online safety law.
“Unless Musk quickly moves from a ‘move fast and break things’ approach to a more sober management style, he will be on a collision course with Brussels and London regulators,” Meyers said.
European Union officials took to social media to highlight their worries. The 27-nation bloc’s executive Commission published a report Thursday that found Twitter took longer to review hateful content and removed less of it this year compared with 2021.
The report was based on data collected over the spring — before Musk acquired Twitter — as part of an annual evaluation of online platforms’ compliance with the bloc’s voluntary code of conduct on disinformation. It found that Twitter assessed just over half of the notifications it received about illegal hate speech within 24 hours, down from 82% in 2021.
The numbers may yet worsen. Since taking over, Musk has l aid off half the company’s 7,500-person workforce along with an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation. Many others have resigned, including the company’s head of trust and safety.
Recent layoffs at Twitter and results of the EU’s review “are a source of concern,” the bloc’s commissioner for justice, Didier Reynders tweeted Thursday evening after meeting with Twitter executives at the company’s European headquarters in Dublin.
In the meeting, Reynders said he “underlined that we expect Twitter to deliver on their voluntary commitments and comply with EU rules,” including the Digital Services Act and the bloc’s strict privacy regulations known as General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR.
Vera Jourova, the European Commission’s vice president for values and transparency, tweeted Thursday evening that she was concerned about news reports that a “vast amount” of Twitter’s European staff were fired.
“If you want to effectively detect and take action against #disinformation & propaganda, this requires resources,” Jourova said. “Especially in the context of Russian disinformation warfare.”
HONG KONG — Chinese-Canadian pop star Kris Wu was sentenced to 13 years in prison for rape and other sexual offenses, a Chinese court said on its official Weibo account on Friday (Nov. 25).
The Chaoyang District People’s Court in Beijing said that from November to December 2020, Wu, also known as Wu Yifan, raped three women at his home when they were under the effect of alcohol.
Wu was sentenced to 11.5 years for rape and 22 months for “assembling a crowd to engage in promiscuous activities” in July 2018, according to the Weibo post. Wu, who is a Canadian citizen, will serve a 13-year term in China before being deported.
“Justice was delayed, but now it’s here,” Du Meizhu, the Chinese influencer who blew the whistle on Wu, wrote on Weibo after the announcement.
Born in China and raised in Canada, Wu was a former member of the popular K-pop group EXO before returning to China to pursue his solo career in 2014.
Wu was detained in Beijing in July last year and was formally arrested on suspicion of rape in August, after the then-18-year-old Du accused him of luring her and other underaged girls into having sex under the pretense that they would be promised an acting career. The closed-door trial began in Beijing in June.
The sexual assault allegations against Wu prompted widespread criticism and became one of the most high-profile #MeToo cases in China.
Wu was also ordered to pay a 600 million yuan ($83.5 million) fine for hiding personal income through domestic and foreign affiliated enterprises, local taxation authorities said on their website.
Wu’s scandal came at a time when Chinese internet and media regulators have pledged to silence “unhealthy” online fan groups and crack down on “tainted artists” who have used drugs, visited prostitutes or broken the law, from all forms of broadcast.
Artists in China have been under great pressure to refrain from “immoral conduct,” which includes acts as minor as smoking or having tattoos.
Under public pressure from the sex-crimes allegations, some 20 brands — including Lancôme, Louis Vuitton, Bulgari and Porsche — cut ties with Wu last year. Chinese music streaming platforms, including Tencent’s QQ Music and NetEase Cloud Music, pulled his songs, and his Weibo social media account, where he had over 51 million followers, was taken down shortly after his detention.
Wu’s former group, EXO, became one of the most successful boy bands of South Korea, selling over 1.4 million albums in their first year, according to its label, SM Entertainment, and performed sold-out gigs around the world.
He has also starred in films and appeared as a judge on The Rap of China, a popular reality television program. By 2017, Wu was named Forbes’ 10th most influential Chinese celebrity of the year, with an annual income of 150 million yuan ($23 million).
In 2018, Wu signed with Universal Music to distribute his music in global territories besides Japan and South Korea. His debut studio album, Antares (2018), knocked Ariana Grande off the U.S. iTunes music charts and was platinum-certified in China. It peaked at No. 100 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, while the single “Like That” rose to No. 73 on the Billboard Hot 100. (Each lasted one week on the charts.)
Wu’s contract with Universal expired in March 2021 and the label has not renewed it.
For the second consecutive quarter, Sony Music Publishing and Universal Music Publishing Group split the top honors in the publisher’s rankings. Sony topped the Top Radio Airplay category with a more than seven percentage point lead over No. 2 UMPG, while the reverse occurred in the Hot 100 Ranking: UMPG squeaked to a No. 1 finish, surpassing Sony by close to one percentage point.
This is each publisher’s second quarter in a row atop those categories.
Harry Styles‘ “As It Was” was the No. 1 song on the Hot 100 for the second quarter in a row and held steady as the No. 2 song on Top Radio Airplay for the same period. Lizzo‘s “About Damn Time” finished first on Top Radio Airplay and No. 2 on Hot 100 Songs, and was the top song for each of the big three publishers in all but one category. Third-quarter top 10 publishers with a stake in “As It Was” are UMPG and Pulse, while UMPG, Sony and Warner Chappell Music each have a share in “About Damn Time.”
Kate Bush‘s Stranger Things-fueled resurgence continued as her Sony-published “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” finished No. 3 on Hot 100 Songs, No. 7 on Top Radio Airplay, and because she is the track’s sole songwriter, established her as the top Hot 100 songwriter of the quarter.
Styles and his main co-writer Kid Harpoon (born Thomas Edward Percy Hull) took top songwriter honors in the Radio Airplay category for authoring “As It Was” and their credits as two of the three songwriters of another Top 10 Radio Airplay hit, “Late Night Talking.”
In Top Radio Airplay, Sony improved its industry leading market share by more than five percentage points over its 25.62% second-quarter showing, even though its song count fell slightly from 64 to 63 tracks. Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” was Sony’s top song on both the Hot 100 and Radio Airplay charts.
No. 2 UMPG’s Radio Airplay market share also grew more than 1.5 percentage points quarter-to-quarter and raising its song placements from 54 to 56. While “About Damn Time” was also UMPG’s top track on the Top Radio Airplay chart, Styles’ “As It Was” was its No. 1 track in the Hot 100.
UMPG held on to its No. 1 Hot 100 Songs ranking for a second quarter, even though its market share was down half a percentage point from its second-quarter 31.25% market, and its song count fell from 67 to 60.
As it did with its Radio Airplay showing, Sony increased its market share by slightly more than five percentage points over its 24.69% second-quarter market share. Its song count also rose from 62 to 64.
Warner Chappell, Kobalt and BMG, respectively ranked No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 on both the Top Radio Airplay and the Hot 100 publisher rankings — an order that has remained for seven consecutive quarters in the Hot 100 rankings and two in a row for Top Radio Airplay.
In Radio Airplay, Warner Chappell’s market share dropped slightly more than two percentage points from last quarter, and its song count from 54 to 48. But the publisher improved its Hot 100 market share by more than one point over the second quarter’s 14.66%, despite its song count dropping from 53 to 49. Warner Chappell’s top song on both charts was “About Damn Time.” Warner Chappell Nashville also gave up its status as the No. 1 country music publisher for 22 consecutive quarters. It slipped to No. 2 behind Sony.
Kobalt held on to No. 4 in both rankings, despite losing market share. For Top Radio Airplay it fell from 14.945% to 13.21% quarter to quarter. For the Hot 100, it dropped more than three percentage points from 11.97% to 8.60%. Likewise, its song count is down for the Hot 100 chart from 53 to 49 while holding steady at 43 for the Top Radio Airplay chart. Jack Harlow’s “First Class,” which was No. 4, was its top Airplay song while Steve Lacy’s “Bad Habit” at No. 5 is its top Hot 100 song.
BMG also saw market share declines in both rankings, falling to 3.12% from 4.48% in the second quarter for the Top Radio Airplay chart; and to 2.17% from 3.58% for the Hot 100 chart. Its top song on both charts was Harlow’s “First Class,” which was the No. 7 song on the Hot 100.
In the second half of the rankings, Hipgnosis and Pulse Music Group held steady in the No. 6 and No. 7 spots, respectively, for the fourth straight quarter on the Top Radio Airplay rankings, and traded places in the Hot 100 from the second quarter. Both also lost market share from the prior quarter.
While Hipgnosis managed to hold onto its sixth place ranking in the Top Radio Airplay chart, its market share fell to 1.77% from 2.65% in the second quarter. In the Hot 100, it fell to 2.01% from 2.76% in second quarter, which led to the publisher falling from No. 6 to No. 7. Glass Animals’ “Heatwave” was its top song in both charts and finished No. 12 on both.
Pulse Music also dropped market share, falling to a 2.07% share in the Hot 100 from 2.76% in the second quarter but still went up one spot in the rankings to No. 6.; while over in the Top Radio Airplay rankings its tally fell to 1.6% from 2% in the second quarter. Its top song was Styles’ “As It Was.”
On the Radio Airplay chart, three publishers came close to tying: Pulse’s 1.607% was closely followed by No. 8 Concord with 1.597% and No. 9 Downtown at 1.593%. Round Hill Music rounded out the rankings with 1.05%. For the Hot 100, the same three publishers held down the last three spots albeit in different positions with Round Hill at No. 8 Concord at No. 9 and Downtown at No. 10.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) is following up last week’s open letter to Live Nation over “dramatic service failures” during the Taylor Swift presale with a hearing on competition across the ticketing industry. The senator and her across-the-aisle counterpart on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), jointly announced the hearing, with a date and witness list forthcoming.
“Last week, the competition problem in ticketing markets was made painfully obvious when Ticketmaster’s website failed hundreds of thousands of fans hoping to purchase concert tickets,” said Klobuchar, without mentioning Swift. “The high fees, site disruptions and cancellations that customers experienced shows how Ticketmaster’s dominant market position means the company does not face any pressure to continually innovate and improve.”
Klobuchar said the hearing will examine the effects of consolidation across ticketing — namely that a lack of competition suppresses the need to improve services and maintain fair pricing.
Lee added that consumers “deserve the benefit of competition in every market, from grocery chains to concert venues. I look forward to exercising our Subcommittee’s oversight authority to ensure that anticompetitive mergers and exclusionary conduct are not crippling an entertainment industry already struggling to recover from pandemic lockdowns.”
Aside from a possible grilling by U.S. senators, Live Nation and Ticketmaster are said to be under investigation by the Justice Department as to whether the company maintains an illegal monopoly over the live event ticketing ecosystem. The probe, according to The New York Times, predates this current debacle involving Swift’s tour presale.
Ticketmaster has apologized for the debacle, which started Nov. 15 when millions of Swift fans overwhelmed a presale for her Eras Tour — causing site crashes and hours-long waits, with many fans left empty-handed and — possibly newly engaged in politics. Ticketmaster went on to cancel the general sale as well.
“I apologize to all our fans. We are working hard on this,” Liberty Media CEO and Live Nation chairman Greg Maffei said in an appearance on CNBC last Thursday. “Building capacity for peak demand is something we attempt to do, but this exceeded every expectation.”
Swift’s tour is actually being promoted by Live Nation competitor AEG, which has told Billboard it “didn’t have a choice” in terms of ticketing sales and distribution because of Ticketmaster’s “exclusive deals with the vast majority of venues on the Eras tour.”
Ticketmaster and Live Nation have long been dogged by accusations that they exert an unfair dominance over the market for live concerts, particularly since they merged in 2010 to create their current structure. The combined entity has operated for its entire existence under a so-called consent decree imposed by the DOJ when it approved the merger. Under the decree, Live Nation is prohibited from retaliating against venues that refuse to use Ticketmaster. Those restrictions were set to expire in 2020 but were extended by five years in 2019 after the DOJ accused Live Nation of repeatedly violating the decree.
This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings, and all the fun stuff in between. This week: Live Nation faces potential legal fallout from Ticketmaster’s Taylor Swift fiasco, Journey bandmates sue each other over an American Express account, Mariah Carey loses a bid for ‘Queen of Christmas’ trademarks, and much more.
THE BIG STORY: Taylor Swift … Trust Buster?
A week removed from Ticketmaster’s disastrous presale for Taylor Swift’s upcoming Eras Tour, criticism of parent company Live Nation isn’t getting any quieter – and the threat of legal repercussions is growing.Live Nation has apologized to fans and pinned the blame on a “staggering number of bot attacks” and “unprecedented traffic.” And whether or not the star really was forced to use Ticketmaster is a complicated question, as Billboard’s Dave Brooks writes.But the debacle, which saw widespread service delays and website crashes as millions of fans tried (and many failed) to buy tickets for Swift’s 2023 Eras Tour, has nonetheless resurfaced some uncomfortable legal questions for the all-powerful concert giant.Since they merged in 2010, Ticketmaster and Live Nation have been dogged by accusations that they form a near-monopoly in the market for live concerts, potentially violating federal antitrust laws. Federal regulators at the U.S. Department of Justice approved that deal, but only after Live Nation signed a so-called consent decree that aimed to allay fears that they might abuse their dominant position. Among other things, the agreement prohibits the company from retaliating against venues or acts that refuse to use Ticketmaster. Those rules were set to expire in 2020, but were extended by five years in 2019 after the DOJ accused Live Nation of repeatedly violating the decree.In the wake of the Swift fiasco, those same monopoly questions are back in the spotlight – and some lawmakers want more than just another extension of the consent decree.On Tuesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) blasted Live Nation as a “monopoly” and called for regulators to “break them up.” Two days later, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the chair of the Senate subcommittee for antitrust issues, warned that the company’s market share “insulates it from the competitive pressures that typically push companies to innovate and improve their services.”Then on Friday, the New York Times reported that DOJ had already been investigating Live Nation for months over potential antitrust violations, reaching out to venues across the country to ask about the company’s conduct. Reacting to that news, Klobuchar and two other Democratic senators on Monday urged the Justice Department to take hard action if they discover more violations, including “unwinding the Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger and breaking up the company.”“This may be the only way to truly protect consumers, artists, and venue operators and to restore competition in the ticketing market,” the senators wrote.Such action might have been unthinkable just a few years ago, amid a decades-long period of relatively lax antitrust enforcement that saw airlines and mobile providers (and yes, music companies) merging into ever-larger conglomerations. But the Biden-era Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have embarked on an aggressive new effort to crack down on such mega-mergers, including successfully blocking book publisher Penguin Random House from buying up rival Simon & Schuster.Beyond the Justice Department probe, other legal threats also potentially loom for Live Nation. The attorneys general of Tennessee, North Carolina, Nevada and Pennsylvania have all launched investigations into whether state consumer protection and antitrust laws were violated, including a Tennessee state law that aims to fight the use of automated “bots” on ticketing websites.And don’t forget about class actions. Live Nation is already facing an existing case that accuses the company of “blatant, anti-consumer behavior,” and the rest of the plaintiffs bar could be eager to try similar cases in the wake of such a high-profile snafu. At least one group of Swift-loving lawyers is already brainstorming how to bring cases.Faced with all that, can Live Nation shake it off? Stay tuned…
Other top stories this week…
JOURNEY’S CREDIT CARD CLASH – Journey guitarist Neal Schon filed a lawsuit against bandmate Jonathan Cain over allegations that he’s blocking access to “critical” financial records for the band’s American Express account, through which “millions” in Journey money has allegedly flowed: “This action is brought to turn the lights on, so to speak, and obtain critical financial information Schon has been trying to obtain but has been denied.” The case is the third legal battle among Journey members in the past two years, but the first to divide Schon and Cain — the only core members remaining in the band from Journey’s heyday.I FEEL SUED – Primary Wave and the estate of James Brown were hit with a lawsuit claiming their $90 million catalog sale last year violated an agreement that the iconic singer had struck decades earlier with another company. The case was filed by David Pullman’s Pullman Group (best known for creating so-called Bowie Bonds in the 1990s) over allegations that the blockbuster sale breached a contract that Pullman company struck with Brown way back in 1999, which allegedly guaranteed the company the right to broker any such deal in the future.YOUNG THUG GANG TRIAL SET FOR JANUARY – A Georgia judge refused to delay the closely-watched criminal case against Young Thug, Gunna and others accused of participating in an Atlanta gang, meaning their trial is now locked in to start on January 9. Prosecutors wanted to move the trial back by nearly three months because a few defendants had not yet been appointed a lawyer. But with Young Thug, Gunna and many others stuck in jail until trial, defense lawyers strongly opposed the delay: “It is unjust that [Young Thug] rots in the county jail and … is being required to wait on the appointment of counsel for co-indictees.”DUA LIPA RIPS COPYRIGHT SUIT – Attorneys for Dua Lipa asked a federal judge to quickly toss out a lawsuit claiming she stole her smash hit song “Levitating” from a little-known reggae track called “Live Your Life.” Florida band Artikal Sound System sued the star for copyright infringement last year, arguing the songs were so similar it was “highly unlikely that ‘Levitating’ was created independently.” But in their response last week, Lipa’s attorneys said those allegations were full of “vague, boilerplate labels and conclusions” and “devoid of a shred of factual detail.”MARIAH CANT GET ‘CHRISTMAS’ TRADEMARKS – The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected Mariah Carey’s application to register “Queen of Christmas” as a federal trademark, siding instead with Elizabeth Chan, another singer who says she’s used the same name for years. Repped pro bono by BigLaw attorneys, Chan had argued that no single singer or company should be able to lock up the title. “It is wrong for an individual to attempt to own and monopolize a nickname like ‘Queen of Christmas’ for the purposes of abject materialism,” Chan said in a statement after the ruling.R. KELLY MANAGER SENTENCED – Donnell Russell, R. Kelly’s friend and former manager, was sentenced to 20 months in prison after pleading guilty to charges that he stalked one of Kelly’s sexual abuse victims in an effort to keep her silent. Prosecutors said Russell used “reprehensible” tactics against the unnamed victim after she filed a civil lawsuit against the disgraced singer in 2018, including threatening messages to her mother and leaking explicit photos online.SLACKER ON HOOK FOR HUGE ROYALTY JUDGMENT – A federal judge refused to undo his own earlier ruling that Slacker owes nearly $10 million in unpaid music royalties to SoundExchange, despite the steamer’s warnings that the huge judgment could trigger financial ruin for the company. SoundExchange urged the judge to ignore those pleas and last week he obliged – ruling that the seven-figure judgment was simply the result of an agreement that Slacker itself had signed.
There’s some good news for the music business in Washington DC: House Democrats seem to have found their next caucus chair in Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a champion of music creators who since 2013 has served as the U.S. representative for New York’s 8th congressional district. Jeffries, who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, co-sponsored the Music Modernization Act, the most important copyright law passed in decades, as well as the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2020, a.k.a. the CASE Act. He’s also known as a big hip-hop fan, who once gave The Notorious B.I.G. a shout-out from the House floor on the 20th anniversary of his death.
A formal vote has not yet been taken. But the party seems to be coalescing around Jeffries, who was endorsed as a successor by outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). If chosen, Jeffries would become the first Black leader of a Congressional caucus, as well as the presumptive Speaker if the Democrats were to win back the House majority. And although it’s hard to say if serious copyright legislation will come in front of Congress, having a supporter of creators and copyright in such an important role could only help rightsholders.
“Mr. Jeffries has been a steadfast supporter of songwriters, and as an original cosponsor of both the Songwriter Equity Act and the Music Modernization Act, he has fought for fairness for creators throughout his career,” said NMPA president and CEO David Israelite. “His leadership in this powerful role will bode well for the future of songwriters.”
Jeffries was honored by the RIAA in September, along with hip-hop pioneers Grandmaster Flash and MC Lyte. (Billboard sponsored this event.)
“It’s hard to think of two potential leaders with more experience working in the trenches of music policy and shaping bipartisan consensus for the digital streaming era than Kevin McCarthy and Hakeem Jeffries,” said Mitch Glazier, chairman and CEO of the RIAA. “A House led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries would feature a dynamic duo for the music community.”
Before entering politics in 2007, Jeffries worked as a lawyer, first in New York for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison – where he worked down the hall from NMPA general counsel Danielle Aguirre – then for Viacom. At Paul Weiss, he worked on some copyright cases, and he represented Lauryn Hill in a case brought by some of her collaborators. “He has a deep understanding of copyright law,” Israelite said. “He may know the subject better than anyone else in Congress.”
Jeffries may also be one of the bigger music fans in Congress. Besides giving Biggie a shoutout, he’s written about his favorite female rappers, and hosted an annual “Hip-Hop on the Hill” political fundraiser. “Watching hip-hop develop — with Grandmaster Flash, and then Run-DMC, and then the artists of the ‘80s and ‘90s — has been a fantastic journey,” he told Billboard in a 2018 interview about his history as a fan of the genre. “What’s been most compelling to me is how hip-hop has been a vehicle to tell the story of urban America and black America in such an artistic, poetic, and authentic fashion.”
Jeffries is involved with a number of issues, of course. He advocates police reform, and he co-sponsored the Formerly Incarcerated Reenter Society Transformed Safely Transitioning Every Person Act, a.k.a. the First Step Act, which reformed prison and sentencing laws. He voted to impeach Pres. Donald Trump, but he’s also known for working well with Republicans, including former Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), with whom he co-sponsored the Music Modernization Act, as well as the First Step Act. (The two also put together a summer playlist.) Jeffries has also been a leading Democratic fund-raiser.
Some of this has put Jeffries at odds with some of his more radical colleagues, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Jeffries is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, but his politics are more centrist, as well as more pragmatic. His ability to compromise could be important, since he will have to work with both the Republican House majority as well as the progressive members of his own party. He recently told CNN that “while we can have some noisy conversations at times about how we can make progress for the American people, what we have seen is that under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Jim Clyburn, we have constantly been able to come together.”
Warner Music Group’s double-digit fourth quarter revenue growth served as the capstone in chief executive Stephen Cooper‘s long-term growth strategy, and is a signal more growth to come, Cooper said on Tuesday.
YouTube’s former chief business officer, Robert Kyncl, will replace Cooper as WMG’s new CEO on Jan. 1, though Kyncl will share the top duties with Cooper for his first month.
Cooper’s 12-year-tenure at WMG has been marked by an early embrace of digital streaming, major expansion into markets in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and taking the company public roughly two-and-a-half years ago, among other things.
“I’m very proud of the progress we’ve made over the past 10 years,” Cooper said on a call with analysts Tuesday. “As I look out on the next 10 years, I believe we’re at the doorstep of a new golden age of music. As the ecosystem becomes more complex and exciting new business models emerge, our role as the connective tissue between artists and fans will only become more prominent and important.”
WMG reported quarterly revenues rose 16% at constant currency to $1.5 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter ended Sept. 30, with solid growth across all business lines, including a 39% and a 48% jump in digital and performance revenues respectively. Investors welcomed the news, pushing Warner’s stock up 15.2% to $31.08 as of 10:30 a.m. in New York.
Cooper said he sees the company’s future momentum coming from continued growth in the number and price of streaming subscriptions, penetrating deeper into new emerging markets and investing more in new digital technologies.
WMG now has partnerships with more than 200 streaming services and operates in 70 countries around the world. While executives decline to put a number on how much WMG may make from recent subscription price hikes by Apple Music and Deezer, they said they expect it to result in other streaming companies raising prices.
“I’ve consistently told you that streaming revenue would continue to have significant runway, that we would have price increases and ongoing subscriber growth, and that emerging platforms would continue to expand,” Cooper said. “We’re now seeing all these come to fruition.”
WMG’s annualized revenue from emerging streaming platforms, include deals like the recent one reached with Meta, topped $370 million this quarter, Cooper said.
The fourth quarter saw big releases Lizzo, whose album Special was her first to hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart, as well strong carry-over sucess from some of WMG’s superstars like Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa and Silk Sonic.
The company’s pipeline remains strong, Cooper said, with first quarter releases expected from Paramore, Aya Nakamura, Cardi B, Roddy Ricch and others.
However, Cooper said he expects the outsized monetary impact of hit singles and albums to continue to decrease in the coming years as the company works with talent in more geographic markets and diversifies its revenue streams.
“As we’ve broadened and deepened our artist roster and prioritized a global approach to domestic music, our revenue composition has evolved,” Cooper said. “A decade ago, our top 5 artists generated over 15% of our recorded music physical and digital revenue. In 2022, they generated just over 5%.”
One new geographic market where Cooper said WMG plans to expand is in Eastern Europe. In recent months, WMG invested in the Polish concert and festival promoter BIG Idea, the Serbian record company Mascom Records, and participated in launching OUT OF ORDER, a new label for Eastern European artists.
Warner Music Group, helped by digital revenue growth across recorded music and publishing, reported quarterly revenues rose 16% at constant currency (9% as reported) to $1.5 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter ended Sept. 30, the company announced Tuesday (Nov. 22). Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, amortization and depreciation (EBITDA) grew by 16% to $276 million.
In his final quarterly earnings after 12 years as Warner Music’s chief executive, Steve Cooper said, “Against the backdrop of a challenging macro environment, we once again proved music’s resilience, with new commercial opportunities emerging all the time. We’re very well positioned for long-term creative success, and continued top and bottom line growth. We’re excited to have Robert Kyncl joining next year as WMG’s new CEO, as we enter the next dynamic phase of our evolution.”
WMG’s share price edged slightly lower in pre-market trading, down 0.88% to $26.98 on Tuesday at 8:19 a.m. New York time. Warner Music executives will discuss the company’s quarterly and full year results on a call with analysts at 8:30 a.m. ET.
Digital revenue grew 12.3% at constant currency or 6.8% as reported to $989 million, including a $38 million settlement related to certain copyright infringement cases. Total streaming revenue increased by 8.9% at constant currency (3.5% as reported) due primarily to driven by music publishing streaming revenue, which rose by 37.0% at constant currency (or 29.8% as reported).
Recorded music streaming revenue increased by 4.7% at constant currency, but decreased by 0.4% as reported. Digital’s share of total revenue comprised 66.1%, compared to 67.3% in the prior-year quarter, due to the double-digit growth of recorded music artist services and expanded-rights and licensing revenue.
Music publishing revenue improved 32.3% at a constant currency (23.9% as reported) to $254 million on the strength of digital and performance revenue. Digital revenues jumped 39.5% at constant currency (32.5% as reported) to $159 million. Streaming revenue increased 37.0% in constant currency (29.8% as reported) helped by streaming services and new digital deals.
In WMG’s recorded music segment, revenues rose 13.1% at constant currency (6.1% as reported) to $1.25 billion. Expanded rights revenue improved 33% to $204 million at constant currency (21.4% as reported) due to an increase in concert promotion revenue following the disruption of the touring business in 2021.
Physical revenue of $123 million was up 6% at constant currency but down 3.1% as reported, primarily due to volatility in exchange rates that offset higher vinyl sales and strong sales in Japan. Digital revenues of $830 million rose 8.1% in constant currency (up 2.9% as reported), and now represents 66.7% of total recorded music revenue compared to 68.9% in the prior-year quarter.
Music publishing contributed nearly 17% of overall company revenues in the quarter, up slightly from the year-ago quarter when music publishing made up 15% of overall revenues. Recorded music revenue contributed 83% of overall revenues in the quarter, down slightly from the year-ago quarter when recorded music revenues comprised 85% of overall company revenues.
The popular Arab-language music and content streaming service Anghami became the latest music company to cut staff as growing global economic uncertainty forces companies to cut costs in order to maintain profitability.
The Abu Dhabi-based company said in a statement last week (Nov. 15) that it was reducing full-time employee headcount by 22%, or roughly 39 employees.
“Given the impact of challenging macroeconomic conditions, we had to take some cost disciplinary measures to improve our bottom-line performance,” Eddy Maroun, Anghami’s chief executive and co-founder, said in a statement announcing the company’s third quarter earnings.
Several music companies have let go of staff or cut investment budgets in recent months as they prepare for a possible economic downturn. This summer, Spotify said it would cut hiring by 25%, SoundCloud laid off 20% of its staff and BMI said it was cutting just under 10% of its total workforce, through a combination of letting 30 people go and leaving certain jobs unfilled.
Launched in 2012, Anghami is the most popular streaming and content company focused on Arabic-language music, with about 58% of the Middle East’s market share and around 20 million active users, according to company filings.
Since going public on the NASDAQ in February, Anghami’s stock has declined by more than 73% to close at $2.70 on Monday. The company’s low stock price and growing investor interest in music companies based in the Middle East and Africa has fueled market chatter about the company’s future. Earlier this month, the German magazine Frankly reported that Spotify was considering buying Anghami.
In an email to Billboard, Maroun said the cuts were necessary as the company worked to reduce operating expenses and focus on profitability. Maroun declined to answer a question about whether the company was preparing for a possible sale.
In its third quarter earnings, Anghami reported that its revenues grew by 29% to $31.7 million, up from $24.5 million in the year-ago quarter. The company’s gross profit rose 13% in the quarter ending Sept. 30 from the year-ago period, helped by a reduction in cloud computing costs by 19% and a 15% increase in music traffic in the quarter.
Additional reporting by Alexei Barrionuevo