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Drake has dropped his legal action accusing Universal Music Group (UMG) and Spotify of artificially inflating the popularity of Kendrick Lamar’s diss track “Not Like Us,” less than two months after he first filed it.
The action, filed in November, accused UMG and Spotify of an illegal “scheme” involving bots, payola and other methods to pump up Lamar’s song — a track that savagely attacked Drake amid an ongoing feud between the two stars.
But in a filing Tuesday (Jan. 14) in Manhattan court, Drake’s company Frozen Moments LLC said it would voluntarily withdraw the action “without costs to any party.” Another similar petition, filed in Texas against UMG and iHeartRadio alleging Lamar’s song was defamatory, remains pending.
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An attorney for Drake did not immediately return a request for comment on why the case was dismissed. A spokesman for UMG declined to comment. A representative for Spotify did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Drake shocked the music industry in November when he went to court — a remarkable twist in a high-profile beef that saw Drake and Lamar exchange stinging diss tracks over a period of months earlier in the year. That a rapper would take such a dispute to court seemed almost unthinkable at the time, and Drake has been ridiculed in some corners of the hip-hop world for doing so.
The actions also represented a stunning rift between Drake and UMG, where the star has spent his entire career — first through signing a deal with Lil Wayne’s Young Money imprint, which was distributed by Republic Records, then by signing directly to Republic.
The New York petition accused UMG of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the federal “RICO” statute often used against organized crime. He accused Spotify of participating in the scheme by charging reduced licensing fees in exchange for recommending the song to users. A day later, he filed a similar action in Texas, suggesting that UMG had legally defamed him by releasing a song that “falsely” accused him of being a “sex offender.”
The filings were not full-fledged lawsuits, but rather “pre-action” petitions aimed petition seeking to secure information so that a full lawsuit can be filed.
UMG had not yet responded to either action. But in a stinging response last month, Spotify called the allegations “false” and flatly denied that it struck any deal with UMG to support Lamar’s song. And the company took aim at the unusual way he filed the allegations, saying he had done so because his allegations were too flimsy to pass muster in an actual lawsuit and would have been quickly dismissed: “This subversion of the normal judicial process should be rejected.”
In Tuesday’s filing, attorneys for Drake said they had met with both UMG and Spotify ahead of the withdrawal. Spotify had “no objection” to the dismissal, according to the filing, but the record “reserved its position” about whether it would challenge the move in some way.
The new “junk fee” rules passed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to clean up the event ticket industry won’t slow the rising price of concert tickets or reduce the huge fees added by ticketing companies, a group of prominent music agents and managers is warning.
In a letter to the FTC last week, Nathaniel Marro, executive director of the National Independent Talent Organization (NITO), said the new rules are “a positive step forward” in cleaning up the business but that they do “nothing to reduce the junk fees buried inside each concert ticket.” NITO is now asking the FTC to expand its ruling to address its concerns.
So-called junk fees, which are added to a ticket purchase by ticketing companies like AXS and Ticketmaster, regularly push ticket fees up 25% to 30%, often without any sign-off from the artist, says Marro.
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“The artist is kept in the dark about how much their fans are being charged in fees for tickets,” Marro wrote in the letter. “We don’t know the fees in advance. Most agents, and artists and managers don’t see the full spread of fees until the show goes on sale.”
Some of the fees also aren’t accounted for during show settlement, Marro added, meaning that most artists don’t know how much revenue ticketing companies are making from their concerts.
Officials with Live Nation pushed back on this claim, telling Billboard that “if an artist team is ever unsure of the venue fees, it’s a simple ask that the venue rental agreement outline it,” adding, “this is never hidden as it’s a standard cost of doing business.”
Marro worries that the FTC’s new requirements that fans be shown the full price of a ticket upfront –instead of first being shown the face value before fees are tacked onto the price at checkout — will make it easier for ticketing companies to add fees to the face value of a ticket while effectively hiding them, resulting in higher ticket prices.
Recent data from Billboard Boxscore shows that ticket prices are rapidly increasing. The average cost of a concert ticket to one of the tours on Billboard’s Year-End top 100 tours chart last year was $132.30, marking an increase of 9.1% from 2023 and a 20.6% increase from 2022. Prior to the pandemic, ticket prices were increasing at a much more sustainable rate of just 3% to 4% a year.
In a statement to Billboard explaining its support for mandatory all-in pricing, Live Nation said that “fans are better off when they focus on the true cost of a ticket, which is the sum of face value and all mandatory fees. There is no basis for obscuring the all-in price on the fiction that artists do not understand ticket fees. That information is never hidden as the NITO comments suggest. It is readily available to artist teams, who also know that most ticket fees go to the venues hosting their events.”
WME has added veteran music agent Lance Roberts as a partner in its Nashville-based country music division. In addition to more than three decades of experience in the business, he brings artists including Chris Janson, Craig Morgan, Parmalee, Easton Corbin, Ian Munsick and Sammy Kershaw to the WME fold. Roberts began his career at the […]
After helping to create the watery pink-and-gray cover art for Linkin Park‘s 2024 album From Zero, Frank Maddocks, the band’s art director, chopped the visual into five pieces and adapted them into collages for four alternate vinyl releases. “I wanted to develop these unique textures I could use for whatever kind of piece they could schedule, whether it was a different vinyl or CD configuration,” says Maddocks, Warner Records’ vp of creative, who has been working with the band on album artwork for 24 years. “It’s smart to think of, ‘What would be the next tier of this artwork?’ or, ‘How can it adapt and change?’”
From Zero came out with 17 alternate physical versions, known as variants, including 11 vinyl LPs, three CDs, a CD box set and two cassettes — and the combined sales of those variants contributed to Linkin Park’s debut at No. 1 on four rock album charts in late November, including Top Rock Albums and Top Hard Rock Albums. That may sound like a lot, but it’s now standard in today’s music industry, in which almost every hit artist, from Taylor Swift to Sabrina Carpenter to K-pop stars such as TWICE, ATEEZ and Stray Kids, markets highly priced variants to collectors and superfans.
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Today’s variant explosion is rooted in the early 2000s, when the Eagles’ 2007 album Long Road Out of Eden and AC/DC’s 2008 album Black Ice boosted their CD sales with heavily hyped Wal-Mart exclusives — and both landed No. 1 albums at a time when iTunes-style digital downloads dominated the business. In a way, these exclusives were the opposite of today’s variant explosion — each was available for sale at just one retailer. But they broke the dam. Up to that point, labels resisted deals involving exclusive albums for Wal-Mart, Best Buy or Target, fearing spurned old-school record stores might take out their frustrations by short-changing other releases. After the Eagles and AC/DC successes, artists and labels realized they could provide exclusives and release multiple separate versions, for sale directly to consumers through their own webstores or to multiple retailers. K-pop stars became masters of this practice, encouraging superfans to buy every single variant.
“The idea of having consumers run around and collect them all, and pick the best version of an album, isn’t really new,” says Adam Abramson, formerly Elektra Records’ head of sales and streaming. “In the mid-2000s, we could’ve had four or five exclusives — there might’ve been a Best Buy CD with two bonus tracks, a Target CD-DVD combo, Trans World would have a poster, Circuit City would have a T-shirt, Hot Topic would have some kind of merch item, the indies would have a promo item.”
Once streaming kicked in, artists and labels quickly realized CD sales had a disproportionate influence on the Billboard 200, so they could boost chart performance by offering fans extra material, like concert tickets or merch. For a while, the Billboard charts allowed artists to bundle physical albums with concert tickets. But that all changed when Billboard banned the practice in 2020. “The ticket bundles going away was almost a tipping point that opened the floodgates,” says Mike Sherwood, former executive vp of global commercial marketing and strategy at Capitol Records. “They had to be replaced by something, and that something became, ‘Well, this vinyl thing is happening over here, and you can make different colors and weights and packages.’”
As a result, many of today’s biggest artists have gone to extremes in putting out multiple variants. Swift is the master of this approach, scoring a No. 1 album earlier this year with the help of 859,000 first-week sales, including six vinyl versions of The Tortured Poets Department. And every time she sought a chart boost, she rolled out more versions — including not just physical LPs and CDs but digital downloads — allowing the album to remain atop the Billboard 200 for 17 total weeks. At one point in May, Tortured Poets managed to stay ahead of Dua Lipa’s No. 2 Radical Optimism, which arrived with 20 physical versions.
According to Luminate, in early 2019, the top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 arrived with an average of 3.3 different versions of physical albums per week. By the end of 2023, that number had jumped to an average of 8.9 versions. During this time — which included the pandemic, the greatest gift to the vinyl business since Michael Jackson’s Thriller — annual LP sales jumped from 18.8 million to 49.6 million. “It’s a great revenue play and the margins are solid, and for many years, it’s been a growing business,” says Tom Corson, co-chairman/COO at Warner Records, Linkin Park’s longtime label. “K-pop, to some degree, helped unlock this market, as we learn from their ability to service the fan. If that manifests itself in a greater chart result, great.”
The multiple-versions trend has gone over the top in recent years. Travis Scott’s 2023 album Utopia arrived with 31 variants — and hit No. 1, of course. Last year, The Rolling Stones put out limited $38 vinyl editions of Hackney Diamonds with artwork representing each of the 30 Major League Baseball teams, while a Saltburn soundtrack variant containing “bath water filled vinyl” sold out at prices ranging from $60 to $175. K-pop acts helped to pioneer this device and show no signs of stopping: In 2024, TWICE’s With YOU-th came out with 14 CD and three vinyl variants; ATEEZ’s Golden Hour: Part.2 had 23 CDs, six LPs and three digital downloads — and both hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in their debut weeks.
One artist who pushed back — gently — on the practice was Billie Eilish, who said she would limit her variants on 2024’s Hit Me Hard and Soft to a conservative eight, all packaged with recycled materials, but wound up releasing 14. “We are doing everything we can to minimize waste in every aspect of my music,” she said at the time.
But there are business downsides to the multiple-variant approach. “Fans are talking it up and figuring out what color or version they want, and there’s a fun element to that,” Abramson says. “But you’re making people choose, oftentimes with limited resources financially, which one they want, knowing they can’t get them all. It’s a little unfair to get them to spend maybe 40 extra dollars to get one extra song.”
The market for endless physical variants may show signs of over-saturation: Fall Out Boy’s 2023 album So Much (for) Stardust dropped with 31 physical versions in its first week, but LP copies were marked down by 30% during a recent holiday sale from retailer The Sound of Vinyl, suggesting low demand. “It’s a point of differentiation if you have something other people don’t have — that’s a lovely thing and you can market around it,” adds Carl Mello, director of brand engagement for New England music chain Newbury Comics, which benefits from variants when labels release exclusive LPs and CDs for release-date events and Record Store Day. But, he says, “The vinyl colors have been so omnipresent. By the time the 12th color rolls around, the average consumer will be like, ‘So what?’”
Labels nonetheless remain committed to their multiple-variant strategy — although, according to Peter Standish, Warner Records’ senior vp of marketing, they should study which artists’ fans crave collectors’ items and which ones don’t. Warner’s analytics department attempts to predict how many copies of a given album might sell so it doesn’t lose too much money, given the expense and long lead times for LPs. “We are trying to offer at least one configuration that’s competitive financially — then maybe more elaborate ones, with more packaging, for a harder-core fan,” he says. “But you also want to balance that with not overwhelming them with choice.”
A version of this story appears in the Jan. 11, 2025, issue of Billboard.
The 2025 MusiCares Person of the Year event honoring the Grateful Dead is still set for Jan. 31 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, MusiCares announced on Tuesday (Jan. 14). The announcement, first reported in Variety, came one day after the Recording Academy announced that the 67th Grammy Awards were still on for Feb. 2.
Many had expected the Academy to reverse course and postpone the date of the Grammy telecast after all, but the announcement that the top Grammy Week event outside of the telecast is still on gives the impression that the academy is indeed planning to move forward with the show.
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“Your attendance at Persons of the Year and your ongoing generosity will support these continued vital efforts, helping those in urgent need and signaling to the world that this vibrant city is on its feet,” MusiCares said in a statement that it is emailing to Recording Academy members.
“At our upcoming Persons of the Year, we will make a special appeal for donations to support our wildfire relief efforts. We invite you to join us in spreading the word to your friends and family by sharing this link: www.musicares.org/FireRelief.”
In a joint statement on Monday (Jan. 13), Harvey Mason jr., CEO of both the Recording Academy and MusiCares, and Tammy Hurt, the chair of the academy’s board of trustees, suggested that the Feb. 2 show would combine the fund-raising goal and emotional appeals of a telethon with award presentations. “This year’s show, however, will carry a renewed sense of purpose: raising additional funds to support wildfire relief efforts and honoring the bravery and dedication of first responders who risk their lives to protect ours,” they said.
Even before the Grammys announced plans to go on with the show, Lucas Keller, president/founder of Milk & Honey Management, announced that he was canceling Milk & Honey’s popular Grammy party. “It would be tone deaf to celebrate and I hope all other companies will follow suit,” he wrote on his Instagram Story.
Many followed Keller’s lead. Just hours after the Recording Academy announced that it planned to go ahead with the telecast, Universal Music Group (UMG) announced it was canceling all of the company’s Grammy-related events, including its artist showcase and after-Grammy party, and will instead “redirect the resources that would have been used for those events to assist those affected by the wildfires.” Within 24 hours, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment had also canceled their Grammy Week events. And on Tuesday (Jan. 14), BMG announced that it too was canceling its annual pre-Grammy party.
Additionally, many executives not based in Los Angeles expressed concern about taking up hotel rooms that may be needed by evacuees and planned not to attend.
The Recording Academy has yet to announce the host of this year’s Grammys. The announcement was expected last week but has been delayed to avoid stepping on the main news about whether the show was going to proceed or not. The announcement is expected soon.
MusiCares conveyed the news in an email to members on Tuesday (Jan. 14). It appears in full below.
“We hope you and your loved ones are safe. We’re reaching out to assure you that the MusiCares Persons of the Year will take place as planned on Friday, January 31, 2025, at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
“As the devastation unfolds from the wildfires in greater Los Angeles, MusiCares is committed to supporting the impacted music community. When the crisis began, we launched our Fire Relief Effort with a $1 million contribution from the Recording Academy and MusiCares.
“Your attendance at Persons of the Year and your ongoing generosity will support these continued vital efforts, helping those in urgent need and signaling to the world that this vibrant city is on its feet.
“Now more than ever, our mission is critical. For more than three decades, MusiCares has been a steadfast partner to the music industry during times of need, offering aid in response to a variety of disasters. From the Las Vegas Route 91 shooting and the COVID-19 pandemic to Superstorm Sandy, Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Helene, the California and Maui wildfires. MusiCares is here to help—no matter the size or scope of the crisis.
“At our upcoming Persons of the Year, we will make a special appeal for donations to support our wildfire relief efforts. We invite you to join us in spreading the word to your friends and family by sharing this link: www.musicares.org/FireRelief
“Thank you for your support during this crucial time. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions. We look forward to coming together for this important cause.
Best regards,
MusiCares
Attorneys for Sean “Diddy” Combs claim in new legal filings that key evidence disclosed by prosecutors — videos of the alleged “freak off” parties at the center of case — show only consensual sex and “fundamentally undermine” the charges against him.
In a motion filed Tuesday (Jan. 14), the star’s lawyers say they must be given more expanded access to the videos because they amount to “exculpatory evidence” — crucial material that must be handed over to a defendant if it can help prove their innocence.
Far from the “sensationalistic media reports,” Diddy’s attorneys write, the videos at issue “unambiguously show that the person alleged in the indictment to be Victim-I not only consented but thoroughly enjoyed herself.”
“There are no secret cameras, no orgies, no other celebrities involved, no underground tunnels, no minors, and not so much as a hint of coercion or violence,” lead defense attorney Marc Agnifilo writes. “Far from the government’s lurid descriptions, the videos show adults having consensual sex, plain and simple.”
The arguments came in a motion complaining that prosecutors have only given Combs’ lawyers limited chances to view the tapes, rather than handing over actual copies. Now that they’ve seen them, the star’s lawyers say they need full access so they can use the videos as central evidence in their defense: “Mr. Combs is entitled to put this evidence to use for trial.”
At times, Tuesday’s filing sharply criticized the government’s case, arguing that prosecuting Diddy for partaking in the “clearly consensual sex” captured on the tapes was “both sexist and puritanical” — a means of policing the behavior of consenting adults behind closed doors.
“The government’s theory perpetuates stereotypes of female victimhood and lack of agency,” Combs’ attorneys write. “The prosecution reflects a paternalistic view that the government is here to protect women, who cannot be trusted to make their own decisions about sex, and are not capable of consenting to sex that the prosecutors view as outside the norm.”
Combs was indicted in September, charged with running a sprawling criminal operation aimed at satisfying his need for “sexual gratification.” The case centers on the elaborate “freak off” parties mentioned in Tuesday’s filing, in which prosecutors say Combs and others would allegedly ply victims with drugs and then coerce them into having sex. He also stands accused of acts of violence and coercion aimed at keeping victims silent and compliant.
A trial is currently set to start on May 5. If convicted on all of the charges, Combs faces a potential life prison sentence.
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: TikTok – and the music industry – wait for a Supreme Court ruling on the app’s fate; Megan Thee Stallion wins a new civil restraining order against Tory Lanez; Travis Scott and SZA face a copyright lawsuit over their collab hit; and much more.
THE BIG STORY: TikTok’s Future Hangs In The Balance
The U.S. Supreme Court could rule at any moment on the future of TikTok – a key cog in the modern music industry. And it doesn’t look good for TikTok.
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At arguments on Thursday, justices on both sides of the high court’s ideological divide seemed to signal that they plan uphold a law requiring the app’s Chinese-owned parent ByteDance to either sell TikTok to a U.S. company or face a total ban on January 19. TikTok and groups of users argued that the law violates the First Amendment’s protections for free speech, but the justices appeared more concerned about national security concerns cited by the government.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh said China could use internal TikTok data to “develop spies, to turn people, to blackmail people.” Justice Elena Kagan noted that the First Amendment doesn’t even apply to a foreign firm like ByteDance. Chief Justice John Roberts pointedly asked TikTok’s lawyer if the court was “supposed to ignore the fact that the ultimate parent is, in fact, subject to doing intelligence work for the Chinese government?”
Following the hearing, courtwatchers weren’t optimistic about TikTok’s chances: “I think it’s more likely than not that TikTok & TikTok users lose this case 9-0,” wrote Leah Litman, a constitutional law professor at the University of Michigan Law School, in a post on Bluesky.
Many legal battles have big stakes for the industry, but few are on the scale of the TikTok case. With more 170 million American users, the app has become a key part of the modern music ecosystem – a core promotional tool for labels and a jumping off point for many new artists, albeit one that has occasionally butted heads with rights owners and can sometimes prove difficult to harness into lasting success.
As Billboard‘s Elias Leight writes, record labels are already gearing up for the potential of life without TikTok — an outcome that executives tell him is hard to even imagine: “Where is new artist discovery happening in 2025 if this app completely disappears?” The live music business is also preparing to lose the platform, Billboard’s Dave Brooks writes, since festivals and other promoters have increasingly relied upon TikTok in recent years to reach ticket buyers.
The wild card in all of this, of course, is President-elect Donald Trump – who was very famously For It Before He Was Against It when it comes to the TikTok ban but has now said he wants to “negotiate a resolution” to save the platform.
Trump is set to take office on Jan 20, just hours after the ban is scheduled to go into effect. Stay tuned.
Other top stories this week…
“WON’T LET ME FORGET IT” – Megan Thee Stallion won a civil restraining order against Tory Lanez after tearfully testifying before a Los Angeles judge that she was scared he’ll “shoot me again” when released from prison and “maybe this time I won’t make it.” The order came more than two years after Lanez was convicted of shooting the superstar rapper in the foot during a drunken incident in the Hollywood Hills. Lanez is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence, but Megan warned the judge that he has continued to harass her from behind bars: “It just seems like I have to relive it every day. The person who shot me won’t let me forget it.”
COPYRIGHT CLASH – Travis Scott, SZA and Future were hit with a copyright lawsuit by Victory Boyd (a singer signed to Jay-Z‘s Roc Nation record label) over allegations that they stole key elements of their 2023 hit “Telekinesis” from her 2019 song “Like The Way It Sounds.” Boyd says she initially shared her song with none other than Kanye West, who then allegedly shared it with Scott.
UNMASKING ORDER – K-hip-hop star Jay Park asked a U.S. court to force Google to identify an anonymous YouTube user so he could sue the person in Korean court, citing allegedly defamatory internet videos linking him to drug traffickers and disparaging Korean-Americans. The case isn’t entirelys surprising: As K-pop has exploded in global popularity — and with it an intense online fan culture — superstar acts like BTS and BLACKPINK have repeatedly turned to Korea’s strict libel laws to target statements made on the internet. Last year, NewJeans filed a similar U.S. case seeking to reveal a YouTuber’s identity.
RELEASE DATE – YoungBoy Never Broke Again (a.k.a. NBA YoungBoy) will be released from prison in July, according to federal inmate records — far sooner than indicated by his formal two-year sentence handed down last month. The rapper (real name Kentrell Gaulden) received the sentence after taking a plea deal last year to resolve federal gun possession charges in Louisiana and Utah. The likely explanation: YoungBoy is being credited with time-served for jail stints while he awaited trial.
CASE CLOSED (FOR NOW) – An anonymous Jane Doe accusing Diplo of sharing “revenge porn” dropped her lawsuit against the DJ, just weeks after a federal judge ruled she would need to reveal her identity if she wanted to proceed with the case. The move to end the suit was filed “without prejudice,” meaning she could still refile her lawsuit at some point in the future.
CARDI v. TASHA CONTINUES – Years after Cardi B won a multi-million dollar defamation verdict against gossip blogger Tasha K, the superstar is still battling to get that money. In a court filing last month, Cardi accused Tasha of using bankruptcy as part of a “fraudulent scheme to shield debtor’s assets and income from creditors.” Tasha then fired back last week, arguing that the rapper is trying to “sabotage” her career and “silence” her.
As devastating wildfires continue to ravage Los Angeles County, a number of music businesses have stepped up to support relief efforts. Whether it’s multi-million dollar donations, offers to replace destroyed musical instruments and gear, or providing free studio time to affected musicians, it’s clear the industry is coming together to support both music professionals and the greater public who have suffered devastating losses.
Billboard has compiled a list of some of the music companies taking part in relief efforts around L.A. We will continue to update this list as more announcements are made.
If you’re a musician or music industry worker impacted by the fires, please see Billboard’s list of entertainment non-profits offering financial and other assistance. You can also check out a list of ways to help here.
Amazon Music
Amazon’s entertainment division, which includes Amazon Music, Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, along with Ring and Whole Foods, has committed $10 million to L.A. wildfire relief efforts. According to a company blog post, the money “will go directly to national and local disaster and response organizations.” This includes the American Red Cross of Southern California, FireAid, MusiCares, World Central Kitchen, the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation and more.
Sony Group Corporation
Sony has pledged $5 million toward supporting relief efforts related to the Los Angeles-area fires. The sum will be allocated to organizations supporting first responders, community relief and rebuilding efforts, as well as employee assistance programs.
Sony Music Group also said on Tuesday (Jan. 14) tht it would redirect funds allocated to its now-canceled Grammy Week party to local relief efforts.
Warner Music Group/Blavatnik Family Foundation Social Justice Fund
On Sunday (Jan. 12), the Warner Music Group’s social justice fund announced a pledge of $1 million to support fire relief and rebuilding efforts in Los Angeles. The funds will be directed to organizations assisting the Los Angeles community, local first responders and individuals in the music industry affected by the disaster. Recipients of the pledge include the California Community Foundation, the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, Project HOPE and MusiCares, among others, according to a press release.
WMG added on Monday (Jan. 13) that it would not be holding its annual Grammy party and will instead redirect funds to efforts to combat the wildfires and help those affected.
Universal Music Group
The label giant announced that it would cancel all of the company’s Grammy-related events, including its artist showcase and after-Grammy party, and instead “redirect the resources that would have been used for those events to assist those affected by the wildfires.”
Good Boy Records
Good Boy Records, a label founded by producer Elie Rizk, is opening its doors for free to any musician who has lost their recording space in the L.A. fires. Click here for a public calendar and to book time at the company’s studio in Studio City.
Homemade Projects
Homemade Projects, a record label, influencer management firm, merchandiser and digital marketing agency, announced via Instagram after the fires took hold that anyone in the L.A. area in need of clothing could contact the company and be provided with new tees, hoodies, sweats and hats from its warehouse.
Guitar Center
The Guitar Center Music Foundation is offering support to L.A.-area musicians and music programs affected by the devastating fires, as announced on its website. Eligible individuals can apply for a one-time grant to help replace instruments lost or damaged in the fires. Applications are open through Feb. 28. To apply, visit the link here.
Discogs
The record-collecting marketplace announced it will donate its sales revenue on Friday (Jan. 17) directly to MusiCares, The Recording Academy’s non-profit arm, which is offering financial assistance to affected music industry workers.
The Pacific Palisades fire destroyed the building housing Belmont Music Publishers, the exclusive publisher of physical works by early 20th century composer Arnold Schoenberg. The fire consumed Belmont’s entire inventory of sales and rental materials, including manuscripts, scores and other printed works, the publisher said.
“For a company that focused exclusively on the works of Schoenberg, this loss represents not just a physical destruction of property but a profound cultural blow,” said a press release written by Schoenberg’s son, Larry, who also lost his home in the fires, according to his nephew E. Randol Schoenberg.
Since the 1970s, Belmont has worked to preserve Schoenberg’s legacy, providing meticulously edited editions of his wide range of transformative compositions, including Verklärte Nacht and Pierrot Lunaire, to musicians and scholars.
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Despite the loss of its physical inventory, Belmont Music said it already has plans to rebuild the collection digitally, ensuring the music of Schoenberg — the author of the twelve-tone technique of composition — remains accessible to scholars, performers, and music enthusiasts.
“While we have lost our full inventory of sales and rental materials, we are determined to continue our mission of bringing Schoenberg’s music to the world,” the publisher said. “We hope to rebuild our catalog in a new, digital format that will ensure Schoenberg’s music remains accessible for future generations.”
The Belmont team added, “We are committed to rebuilding and adapting to the changing times. The community’s outpouring of support has been truly heartening, and we know that, with your help, we can ensure that Schoenberg’s legacy lives on in a way that is as dynamic and enduring as his music.”
Born in Vienna in 1874, the self-taught Schoenberg initially drew inspiration from German Romantic composers like Brahms but is most renowned for developing the twelve-tone technique, or serialism, which dispatched traditional tonality and treated all 12 notes of the chromatic scale equally.
As a teacher, Schoenberg mentored influential composers such as Alban Berg and Anton Webern, further cementing his legacy. Fleeing the Nazi regime in 1933, he emigrated to the United States, where he continued composing and teaching in Los Angeles until his death in 1951.
Several wildfires have broken out in Southern California since the beginning of the year, with the largest being in Pacific Palisades along the coast. The major fires have scorched more than 63 square miles, destroyed thousands of homes and killed at least 24 people. Here is a list of organizations providing relief for those impacted by the devastation, from families to first responders.
Opry Entertainment Group (OEG) has acquired a majority interest in the North Carolina-based live events, hospitality and production company Southern Entertainment, whose portfolio of owned or promoted live music events includes the country music festivals Carolina Country Music Fest (Myrtle Beach, S.C.), Barefoot Country Music Fest (Wildwood, N.J.), Lovin Life Music Fest (Charlotte, N.C.), Greenville Country Music Fest (Greenville, S.C.) and the upcoming Field & Stream Outdoor Music Fest, which will launch this year in Winnsboro, S.C.
Founded by Bob Durkin and Rob Pedlow in 2015, Southern Entertainment has produced more than 200 events in the United States.
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“We’ve always looked at the festival business as a significant opportunity for us given the sort of shared focus on live events and venues that we do,” Patrick Moore, CEO of Opry Entertainment Group, tells Billboard. “Rob and Bob are 10 years into this business and they’ve created distinctive experiences for fans and for artists in really exciting destination markets.”
Says Durkin, “[OEG] had similar synergies when it came to growth, when it came to customer service, hospitality, the things that are what we think drive the business.”
For OEG, a subsidiary of Ryman Hospitality Properties, the new investment marks an additional expansion of its footprint in the live music space. OEG’s portfolio includes not only iconic country music mainstay the Grand Ole Opry (the Opry celebrates its milestone 100-year anniversary in 2025) and the Ryman Auditorium, but also WSM Radio and newer additions including the Blake Shelton-inspired Ole Red brand and the Luke Combs-inspired venue, bar and restaurant Category 10. In 2022, Ryman Hospitality Properties completed a deal that includes iconic Austin, Tex., venue ACL Live at Moody Theater. OEG is also a minority, non-controlling investor in the country lifestyle brand Whiskey Riff.
Moore declined to provide the specific percentage of OEG’s majority interest in Southern Entertainment, but notes that the combination “enables both businesses to tap into markets and demographics and communities that we can’t do individually.”
One of the biggest priorities for Southern Entertainment this year is the inaugural Field & Stream Music Fest, which is slated for Oct. 3-5 with headliners including Eric Church and Miranda Lambert; the festival is co-produced by Field & Stream alongside key investors Church, Morgan Wallen and Southern Entertainment.
“Field & Stream is something we are very excited about because it gives a unique feel for a music festival,” says Durkin. “You celebrate music and community with your fellow people and this one’s going to be in the middle of the woods and we have to take advantage of everything outdoors. There’ll be fishing aspects to it, hiking, mountain biking, so it’s really unique. What’s exciting, too, is that it is driven by artists. Eric Church, he’s from [North] Carolina. And the Field & Stream Magazine and the brand is iconic. So I think we can only help each other.”
Crucially, the investment will align the two companies’ shared focus on artist development and spotlighting emerging artists. “We have the same kind of general vision strategy and approach, and that goes for emerging artists and artist development,” says Moore. Following the deal, Southern Entertainment will integrate OEG’s artist development programs into its flagship country music festivals, where many Opry members and Opry NextStage artists have performed in recent years. The Opry’s NextStage Class of 2024 features artists 49 Winchester, Anne Wilson, Charles Wesley Godwin, Chase Matthew, Ella Langley, Wyatt Flores, Flatland Cavalry, Josh Ross and Madeline Edwards. Flores, Flatland Cavalry and Ross are among the current Opry NextStage artists who have played at Southern Entertainment festivals.