Business
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Primary Wave Music has acquired the catalog of Toto keyboardist, songwriter and composer Steve Porcaro. The multi-million dollar deal includes the ownership of Porcaro’s publishing catalog, artist royalties and neighboring rights, including some of his hits with Toto and all of his film/TV compositions, including his score for the FX show Justified.
Warner Chappell Music has signed Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter and producer Cris Chil. One of the top songwriters in the Latin music market, Chil contributed to hits like “Telepatía” by Kali Uchis; “Contra La Pared” by J Balvin and Sean Paul; “Lento by Lauren Jauregui and Tainy; “Fuego” by DJ Snake, Anitta and Sean Paul; and “I Can’t Get Enough” by Selena Gomez, Benny Blanco and J Balvin.
NEON16 and UNRESTRICTED have jointly signed Mexican-American producer Frank Rio to a publishing deal. Known best as a producer for Ivan Cornejo, Becky G, A.Chal and Peso Pluma, Rio now hopes to expand his credits beyond the Latin charts.
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BMG Nashville has signed an administration deal with the publishing company Triple Play Music. Owned by Jason Aldean and his bandmates Kurt Allison and Tully Kennedy, the Triple Play roster includes John Edwards, John Morgan and Neil Thrasher.
Tim & Danny Music and Warner Chappell Music UK have signed an exclusive publishing agreement with Elmiene, a 22-year-old emerging British R&B/soul star. Along with his own artist project, Elmiene has also written with Stormzy, Timbaland and Justin Timberlake. Recently, he was named one of BBC Radio 1’s “Sound Of 2024” artists and was also nominated for the Rising Star Award at the 2024 Ivor Novello Awards.
Concord Music Publishing has signed Grammy-nominated and Juno award-winning artist Daymé Arocena to a worldwide publishing deal. The agreement also includes a selection of the neo-soul fusion singer’s back catalog.
Warner Chappell Music has signed a publishing deal with Schmitty, a rising singer-songwriter who combines the sounds of ’90s-era country hits with rock and roll influences.
Wise Music Group has signed a new publishing deal with English folk duo The Staves. Comprised of sisters Jessica and Camilla Staveley-Taylor, the duo’s new publishing agreement comes on the heels of its fourth studio LP All Now, released in March.
The upcoming elections in the United States in November will be profoundly important, with consequences for the economy, foreign policy, technology and perhaps even democracy itself. From a music industry perspective, though, there just isn’t all that much at stake. After two decades of change, the industry has found a new business model in the U.S., in the form of paid subscription streaming, and there’s only so much a new president could do to either improve that or screw it up. Most of the industry’s policy priorities involve either legislation (which any president would almost certainly sign) or in-the-weeds rulemaking procedures.
You certainly don’t get this sense from artists and executives, most of whom support Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president — and generally tend to vote Democrat. This probably comes from their personal politics — Harris doesn’t have an extensive track record on intellectual property policy or other issues important to the music business, although she was seen shopping for vinyl and appears to have excellent taste. (Make America analog again!) For all the disdain they get from media executives, Republican presidents have often been better for it, since they tend to reduce taxes, regulation and barriers to mergers. Same goes for legislators. Most music industry executives might not care for the politics of Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), but she’s certainly helped their business.
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Which candidate would be better for any specific business isn’t entirely clear because, at a time when the world is growing more complicated, U.S. politicians seem to offer fewer specifics on complicated issues. Both Harris and former president Donald Trump seem to be running more on who they are than on what they plan to do. (Based on Trump’s comments at the National Association of Black Journalists event in Chicago on July 31, he seems to want to run on who Harris is, which says far more about who he is, and not in a good way.) Some of this seems inevitable — Trump likes to change his mind and Harris only entered the race after President Joe Biden dropped out of it on July 21. It might just reflect an increasingly tribalized electorate.
The music industry’s biggest issues have remained bipartisan, though, and they seem to occupy a rare demilitarized zone between parties in which politicians who don’t normally agree on much come together. The quintessential example is copyright, which often unites Republicans who favor property rights and Democrats who want to support the arts. The most complicated and important part of the 2018 Music Modernization Act was introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), who may not agree on much else. (In 2018, they shared their “Summertime Heat” playlist with Billboard.) This year, the NO FAKES Act brought together Blackburn and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), among others.
The industry’s traditional opponent on strong copyright is Silicon Valley platforms, which had a lot of power under former president Barack Obama. (Months ago, I saw Obama talk about the dangers of online misinformation without mentioning that he did little to regulate the platforms it’s on.) Biden, who has been a strong supporter of copyright, has been more skeptical of Big Tech. Now venture capitalists and technology companies, who tend to vote Democrat but favor libertarian politics, are courting both parties. Reid Hoffman and a group of 100 venture capitalists have announced their support for Harris, while Trump’s choice for Vice President, J. D. Vance, sometimes seems to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of arch-libertarian Peter Thiel. The next president will inevitably be asked to deregulate artificial intelligence at the expense of the rightsholders who own the works it will be trained on — the only question is who it will be. Investors will also push to legitimize cryptocurrency — or at least reduce the legal barriers to pretending that it’s an investment instead of a high-end pyramid scheme.
The other big issue these days is antitrust law, which the Biden-appointed Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan is trying to strengthen. The immediate issue is the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment, but more aggressive antitrust enforcement would also make it harder for the major labels to buy catalogs and companies. Although constraining the majors could make it easier for smaller companies to compete, it could also reduce the number of potential buyers they might attract. And although Republicans have traditionally wanted to weaken antitrust law, some populists now see it as a tool to reduce the power of platforms like Google.
The next president’s ability to help or hurt the music business may come down to putting copyright provisions in trade treaties, which doesn’t really resonate with the public. AI initiatives could matter, too. More AI legislation will almost certainly follow the NO FAKES Act, but that debate mostly sets different businesses against one another. (The NMPA recently asked the House and Senate Judiciary Committees to adjust copyright law, but that’s not going to happen so soon.) It’s harder than ever to pass federal legislation, and the president can only do so much to help.
The music business will also try to get wins on smaller issues — whether it’s legal to train an AI on copyrighted content and how much involvement of AI makes a work ineligible for copyright. These are the kind of subjects that require position papers rather than strong rhetoric. But we may not see those until 2025.
The estate of the late rapper Juice WRLD is being sued by a music producer named Joshua Jaramillo, who claims he’s owed royalties from the late rapper’s 2021 collab with Suga of BTS.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday (July 31) in Los Angeles court, Jaramillo says he served as a producer on “Girl of My Dreams,” a 2021 hit that debuted at No. 29 on the Hot 100, and that he was promised a 5% ownership stake and an additional 1% producer royalty.
But “despite repeated requests by plaintiff,” Jaramillo says the estate has not paid him everything he’s owed.
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“Plaintiff has performed all services under the contract. ‘Girl of My Dreams’ became a nationwide hit,” Jaramillo’s lawyers write. “Defendant has failed to pay plaintiff the full amount of agreed upon royalties.”
The lawsuit, which is short on details, also claims that the estate has refused to provide a legally-required accounting “to verify that all royalties were paid.”
A rep for the estate could not immediately be reached for comment.
Juice WRLD (Jarad Anthony Higgins), a pioneering voice in emo rap and SoundCloud rap, died of a drug overdose in December 2019 while onboard a private jet flying from Los Angeles to Chicago. Citing law enforcement sources, TMZ reported days later that the rapper swallowed a large number of pills to hide them from federal agents who were waiting for the plane to land.
Released as a promotional single for his posthumous 2021 album, Fighting Demons, “Girl of My Dreams” was a collaboration with South Korean rapper Suga and features lyrics in both English and Korean. Though the track spent just a week on the Billboard Hot 100, Fighting Demons was a bigger hit, spending 72 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaking at No. 2.
The new case is the second time Juice’s estate has been sued over the past year. In October, an artist named PD Beats filed his own lawsuit claiming he’d served as one of the co-writers of the rapper’s 2021 track “Not Enough” but had not been paid his proper royalties.
That case, which also named “Not Enough” producer Dr. Luke (Lukasz Sebastian Gottwald) as a defendant, remains pending.
SiriusXM Holdings stock fell by more than 6% on Thursday after the satellite radio and streaming content company said it lost 173,000 subscribers in the quarter ending on June 30.
The company said it lost approximately 100,000 SiriusXM self-pay subscribers and 73,000 paid promotional subscribers. While that was an improvement from the same period last year, and churn remained steady at 1.5%, it caused a 5% decline in SiriusXM subscriber revenue and $0.42 year-over-year decrease in average revenue per user (ARPU) to $15.24. That pushed SiriusXM Holdings’ second quarter revenue down 3% to $2.18 billion, below analysts’ expectations.
On a call discussing the quarter’s earnings, executives sought to emphasize Sirius’ improved profit margin and lower operating expenses, despite signing big-ticket deals for podcast powerhouses like SmartLess Media earlier this year.
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“SiriusXM’s financial position remains robust as we steadily enhance our business and establish a sustainable foundation for growth,” Sirius CEO Jennifer Witz said on the call, reiterating the company’s 2024 financial targets. “With these solid margins and declining capital expenditures, we anticipate converting more of this strong EBITDA into growing free cash flow in the coming years.”
Quarterly profit rose 2% to $316 million. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) was flat year over year at $702 million and its adjusted EBITDA margin held steady at 32%.
Sirius reported operating expenses fell 5.5% on lower costs of running SiriusXM and Pandora and off-platform services across the board and lower personnel costs after the companies’ two rounds of layoffs over the last 18 months. Subscriber acquisition costs decreased by 1%. Free cash flow in the quarter rose 6% to $343 million.
“We think the key for the stock is conversion of self-pay trials,” Steven Cahill, equity analyst at Wells Fargo, wrote in a report for investors on Thursday. “Self-pay conversion in new [and] used car is arguably [SiriusXM Holdings’] biggest key performance indicator as it looks to improve capture of younger car buyers versus digital competition. We think Q2 self-pay converstion were down to around 30%-32% from 33% in the prior quarter.”
While SiriusXM saw declines in both subscriber and advertising revenue, Pandora and off-platform segments reported an 8% rise in subscriber revenue to $138 million. The segment’s advertising revenue held flat at $400 million from the same quarter a year ago.
Late last year, Sirius announced plans for a 10-to-1 reverse stock split and merger with Liberty Media’s SiriusXM Group tracking stock, a move aimed at bolstering the company’s faltering stock price. Executives said Thursday that transaction will close on Sept. 9. The Nasdaq-listed SiriusXM Holdings has seen its stock price fall by more than 65% from a 52-week high of $7.95, leading the Nasdaq to drop SiriusXM from its Nasdaq-100 Index last Thursday (June 13).
SiriusXM’s stock price was down 6.25% to $3.22 as of 12.25 p.m. New York time.
AI music firms Suno and Udio are firing back with their first responses to sweeping lawsuits filed by the major record labels, arguing that they were free to use copyrighted songs to train their models and claiming the music industry is abusing intellectual property to crush competition.
In legal filings on Thursday, the two firms admitted to using proprietary materials to create their artificial intelligence, with Suno saying it was “no secret” that the company had ingested “essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open Internet.”
But both companies said that such use was clearly lawful under copyright’s fair use doctrine, which allows for the reuse of existing materials to create new works.
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“What Udio has done — use existing sound recordings as data to mine and analyze for the purpose of identifying patterns in the sounds of various musical styles, all to enable people to make their own new creations — is a quintessential ‘fair use,’” Udio wrote in its filing. “Plaintiffs’ contrary vision is fundamentally inconsistent with the law and its underlying values.”
The filings, lodged by the same law firm (Latham & Watkins) that reps both companies, go beyond the normal “answer” to a lawsuit — typically a sparse document that simply denies each claim. Instead, Suno and Udio went on offense, with extended introductions that attempt to frame the narrative of a looming legal battle that could take years to resolve.
In doing so, they took square aim at the major labels (Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment) that filed the case in June — a group that they said “dominates the music industry” and is now abusing copyright law to maintain that power.
“What the major record labels really don’t want is competition,” Suno wrote in its filing. “Where Suno sees musicians, teachers and everyday people using a new tool to create original music, the labels see a threat to their market share.”
Suno and Udio have quickly become two of the most important players in the emerging field of AI-generated music. Udio has already produced what could be considered an AI-generated hit with “BBL Drizzy,” a parody track popularized with a remix by super-producer Metro Boomin and later sampled by Drake himself. And as of May, Suno had raised a total of $125 million in funding to create what Rolling Stone called a “ChatGPT for music.”
In June, the major labels sued both companies, claiming they had infringed copyrighted music on an “unimaginable scale” to train their models. The lawsuits accused the two firms of “trampling the rights of copyright owners” as part of a “mad dash to become the dominant AI music generation service.”
The case followed similar lawsuits filed by book authors, visual artists, newspaper publishers and other creative industries, which collectively pose what could be a trillion-dollar legal question: Is it infringement to use vast troves of proprietary works to build an AI model that spits out new creations? Or is it just a form of legal fair use, transforming all those old works into something entirely new?
In Thursday’s response, Suno and Udio argued unequivocally that it was the latter. They likened their machines to a “human musician” who had played earlier songs to learn the “building blocks of music” — and then used what they had learned to create entirely new works in existing styles.
“Those genres and styles — the recognizable sounds of opera, or jazz, or rap music — are not something that anyone owns,” Suno wrote in its filing. “Our intellectual property laws have always been carefully calibrated to avoid allowing anyone to monopolize a form of artistic expression, whether a sonnet or a pop song.”
The lawsuit from the labels, Suno and Udio say, are thus an abuse of copyright law, aimed at claiming improper ownership over “entire genres of music.” They called the litigation an “attempt to misuse IP rights to shield incumbents from competition and reduce the universe of people who are equipped to create new expression.”
Both filings hint at how Suno and Udio will make their fair use arguments. The two companies say the cases will not really turn on the “inputs” — the millions of songs used to train the models — but rather on the “outputs,” or the new songs that are created. While the labels are claiming that the inputs were illegally copied, the AI firms say the music companies “explicitly disavow” that any output was a copycat.
“That concession will ultimately prove fatal to plaintiffs’ claims,” Suno wrote in its filing. “It is fair use under copyright law to make a copy of a protected work as part of a back-end technological process,invisible to the public, in the service of creating an ultimately non-infringing new product.”
A spokeswoman and an attorney for the labels did not immediately return a request for comment.
Last week, HYBE — the Korean label and music company behind BTS, among others — announced that Jason Jaesung Lee would become its new CEO, replacing Jiwon Park, as part of what it dubbed its “HYBE 2.0” strategy. Today (Aug. 1), the company unveiled more specifics as to what that will start to look like.
HYBE says the strategy kicked off at the top of the year, and will see the company lean into its superfandom platform, Weverse, around the world, while also partnering with other companies globally “to adapt to the fast-evolving market landscape,” the company said in a press release.
The priorities the company laid out will reorganize the company — which had previously been structured as Label, Solution and Platform — into a broader Music, Platform and “Tech-driven future growth initiatives” framework. As part of that, the company laid out four new initiatives and several executive-level appointments with new leaders atop its reformed division.
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The first is the formation of HYBE Music Group APAC, which will encompass the company’s labels in Korea and Japan, which will focus on doubling down on the company’s strengths and strategies in that region and exporting them around the globe. The current president of BIGHIT Music, Young Jae Shin, who has helped oversee the success of BTS and Tomorrow X Together, will now take on the role of president of HYBE APAC and lead the Korean and Japanese labels’ global growth.
The second is a doubling-down on what the company calls its “multi-home, multi-genre” strategy in the U.S., Japan and Latin America. That will mean a new label service launched under HYBE America — which is led by Scooter Braun — that will bring in a management element to its current label operations, in a bid to “bring the K-pop methodology to the American pop scene.” As part of that, HYBE America says it signed a new U.S.-based group, KATSEYE, through its continued partnership with Geffen Records. The company also said that its HYBE Latin America division — whose CEO Jonghyun “JH” Kah recently spoke to Billboard about their plans — will ramp up beginning in 2025, while HYBE Japan will continue to roll out new artists as well under newly-appointed chairman Youngmin Kim, who until now had served as general manager of SM Entertainment.
The third is the launch of a subscription membership tier for superfan platform Weverse, which will go live in the fourth quarter of 2024 and be available to all artists who use the platform. That will include ad-free videos, digital membership cards and a private Weverse DM feature, while the main Weverse platform will begin incorporating ads. Weverse president Joon Choi spoke to Billboard two weeks ago (July 19) about the platform’s plans moving forward, as well as the onboarding of Ariana Grande onto the platform, joining many of the Korean artists already in the HYBE stable. (Grande, who cut ties with Braun and HYBE last year, resumed working with them in June.)
Finally, HYBE is planning to “merge content with technology,” which it says will “ensure mid to long-term growth” for the company. That is where HYBE’s investments in gaming, AI, audio and voice technology and integrated online/offline experiences will live moving forward.
“HYBE 2.0 focuses on fostering our future growth businesses centered on music, platform and technology,” newly-announced CEO Lee said in a statement. “HYBE will continue to excel in the music industry, solidify its position as the leading player in the superfan business, and secure long-term growth drivers through tech-driven future growth initiatives.”
Earlier this month, an alarming stat sent a shudder through the U.K. music industry. When the Official Singles Charts announced the biggest songs of the year so far in the country, only four of the top 20 were by British artists: Artemas (“I Like The Way You Kiss Me”), Cassö (“Prada” featuring Raye and D-Block Europe), Sophie Ellis-Bextor (“Murder On The Dance Floor”) and Natasha Bedingfield (“Unwritten”), the latter two enjoying a boost from film syncs in Saltburn and Anyone But You, respectively.
It was a chilling omen nonetheless. Where are the breakout stars from the U.K., and how will they get onto the international stage?
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2024 has proved a particularly tough one for U.K. artists: no single from a British artist has hit No. 1 on the charts. The last was by Wham! for the seasonal hit “Last Christmas;” before that, it was the Beatles with the AI-assisted single “Now and Then.” In 2022, the top 10 songs in the U.K. were all made by homegrown artists like Ed Sheeran, Sam Fender and Kate Bush. Now, questions are being asked about the success of U.K. artists on a global scale — particularly pop — and why the landscape is not particularly rosy.
The U.K. appears to be in an era of importing music. Alongside stalwarts like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, new names like Noah Kahan, Benson Boone, Teddy Swims, Tate McRae and Shaboozey have flourished in a way that local talent has not. Annabella Coldrick, CEO of the Music Managers Forum, says that strong performances on the U.K. Charts can be key milestones for acts as they head to international markets. “If we’re not even dominating the charts in our own market,” Coldrick says, “then who follows?”
So how can the U.K.’s emerging artists keep pace? Competing with the resources and spending that the major labels can unlock in the U.S .market is an uphill battle, but music journalist Alim Kheraj suggests it runs deeper than that: “The U.K. [industry] has been so focused on hip-hop and singer-songwriters for a while now, so perhaps that’s why there’s been fewer pop stars transferring to the global stage.” There’s been international success for Artemas and Myles Smith, whose single “Stargazing” blazed onto the Hot 100 earlier this year, and other British artists like dance act Fred Again… and rapper Central Cee, but few in the more traditional pop sphere.
Coldrick says that we could see a change in the majors’ involvement with supporting new talent. “Maybe there’s a world in which the catalog labels become entirely separate from investment in new music,” she says. “That might be a good thing as it’s a different kind of investment business.” Following the announcement that resources at several labels at Universal Music would be merged, there are fears that non-priority artists will fall even further down the chain given their return on investment compared to catalog hits.
There are a myriad of issues that touring U.K. musicians face in 2024. Production costs and visa fees have risen substantially and the after-effects of Brexit have meant that touring EU countries is less profitable. “We’ve got very little government investment and a hostile environment for touring,” Coldrick says. “Artists and managers will do anything to make things work as they’re innovative problem solvers, but that’s a huge burden for them.”
Coldrick also notes that the U.K. is lagging behind other markets’ approach to exporting music. She celebrates the success of regional music scenes, particularly in Latin American countries and Asia, but says that lack of a “joined-up” export program is holding back U.K. artists. Those schemes can help provide funds to cover tour and visa costs and provide practical advice.
In 2022, a report by UK Music said that the value of exporting British talent — led by Harry Styles and Glass Animals — generated £4 billion to the economy. The Music Export Growth Scheme, Coldrick notes, is relatively slight compared to initiatives by Australia and the Netherlands. “We’ve been putting barriers up,” she says. “We’ve rested on our laurels a little bit and always relied on our great heritage and history.”
Kheraj suggests that there needs to be a recalibration of what we consider a “breakout artist.”’” He notes that the forthcoming new album from breakout act Sabrina Carpenter will be her sixth and follows success in the Disney stable, as well as a recent support slot on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. Similarly, buzzy new act Chappell Roan first signed with Atlantic in 2015 and released music consistently until her 2023 debut album. Charli XCX’s first megahits — “Boom Clap” and Iggy Azalea team-up “Fancy” — were released in 2014; a decade later, she’s a key endorsement for Kamala Harris in the upcoming U.S. presidential election and in the midst of a Brat Summer.
“Someone like Olivia Rodrigo was a star and had a hit right out the gate, but that is so rare these days for an artist to launch with that level of commercial success,” Kheraj says. “We should be looking at people who’ve been doing it for a while longer as it does take time.”
There is no shortage of talent. Earlier this month Griff, who first released music on Warner Music in 2019, shared her debut LP Vertigo and had the best-selling opening week for a debut album by a British female since Raye’s 2021 debut; in October she will support Carpenter on a run of U.S. tour dates. Kheraj points to the early success of Jade Thirlwall’s debut solo single “Angel of My Dreams” on the U.K. Singles Charts as a bright spot. “She gets all the cultural touch points, is a fan of that world and has already operated on a global stage,” he says of the Little Mix member. “I think we could see her cross over to ‘Main Pop Girl.’”
Other names have made solid starts in their careers domestically and overseas: Holly Humberstone, Olivia Dean, Maisie Peters, Cat Burns and FLO to name a few. With malleable genres disrupting the pure “pop” tag, indie artists like Rachel Chinouriri, Wet Leg and The Last Dinner Party could all scale up rapidly on the international stage.
Perhaps 2024 will act as something of a recalibration for success in the pop world and beyond. There’s no denying that the U.K. has the right talent to succeed, it’s now a question of how to make the world hear it.
Jhené Aiko is making her return to Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Wednesday night (July 31), two weeks after ending the first leg of her tour in Atlanta and more than four years since the COVID-prompted cancellation of her breakout arena tour in support of her critically acclaimed album Chilombo.
Released on March 6, 2020, just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Grammy-nominated platinum album is finally being performed for Aiko’s growing female fanbase on her Magic Hour Tour, which kicked off last month at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit. The “Sativa” singer, 36, is joined on the tour by supporting acts Coi Leray, Tink, Umi and Kiana Ledé.
Magic Hour’s live production showcases the music of Chilombo, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart when it was released in 2020, and tells the story of Aiko’s musical journey and spiritual growth, explains agent Caroline Yim at WME, told through an astral array of visual elements and video production, styled to match Aiko’s own signature psychedelia.
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“Jhene’s process has never been ‘drop an album, do a tour,’” explained Yim, who noted that Aiko maintained a close connection with her fanbase during the pandemic, adding, “People are yearning for the music, and the beauty of not rushing a tour was that the music she did put out got to live and breathe over several years.”
Yim added, “Magic Hour is Jhene’s life story. It’s the things that she has gone through, the things that she has felt and a message to others to feel good about yourself and love yourself. That’s why it’s so pure and authentic; it’s not just dealing with heartbreak and those type of relationships, but also family dynamics and friendships and loss and grief. And that resonates with her fans in a very intimate and emotional way.”
Aiko’s life certainly has changed since the release of Chilombo — in November, Aiko gave birth to her son Noah Hasani with rapper Big Sean. A longtime advocate for restorative healing, Aiko launched her own wellness company The ARK in 2022, following up on her success experimenting with crystal bowls as both a musical source and an energy center. Every track on Chilombo includes the use of quartz crystal sound bowls, which she has performed with for nearly two decades.
Aiko’s ARK and ALLEL brands have grown to now include jewelry, her Jhenetics makeup line and audio companions for meditation and sleep. Aiko’s entrepreneurial efforts have pushed her team to prioritize high-impact performances since the pandemic ended, booking high-profile performances at Coachella for both 2022 and 2024, as well as Las Vegas’ Lovers and Friends festival in 2023 and Day N Vegas in 2022.
“The timing really worked with doing a few shows at the end of last year to set up for everything that was going to go on in 2024,” explained Yim, adding, “It’s become this community of women and girls coming out to grow together and sing their hearts out.”
Eric Gardner, chairman and CEO of Panacea Entertainment, died from complications of pneumonia on July 19 at his home in Camarillo, Calif. Gardner, whose career as a talent manager and producer of television shows and Las Vegas residencies spanned more than 50 years, was 74 years-old.
Gardner, who managed dozens of acts over the years, was inducted into the Personal Managers Hall of Fame at their 2017 ceremony in Las Vegas. He was still managing Todd Rundgren and Paul Shaffer at the time of his death.
Gardner’s career began in 1970 when, as a graduate student earning his Master of Fine Arts in playwriting at Columbia University, he started coordinating tours for such rock bands as Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead and, later, KISS. His company, Panacea Entertainment Corp., was the industry’s first rock and roll tour coordination company. By 1973, it was coordinating tours in 23 countries.
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In 1974, Panacea’s emphasis shifted to talent management. Over the years, Gardner represented such diverse musical artists as Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones, Kenney Jones of The Who/ Faces/Small Faces, Rundgren, Donny Osmond, Rick Wright of Pink Floyd, The Stray Cats, Jefferson Starship, Sex Pistols, John Lydon, Steven Van Zandt and Max Weinberg (both of the E Street Band), Hot Tuna, Blue Öyster Cult, Grace Jones and Bettye LaVette.
He also represented Late Night with David Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer; writer/producer Jim Steinman; actors David Hasselhoff, Richard Belzer and Richard Chamberlain; and psychologist, author and activist Timothy Leary, among others.
In 1981, Gardner relocated Panacea from New York to Los Angeles to expand into film and television. His first foray in 1982 was signing Cassandra “Elvira” Peterson, whom he helped develop from a local Los Angeles television personality into an international film and television phenomenon. Over the next 26 years, he produced her many film and television projects.
Gardner’s IMDB page includes 40 credits as a producer or executive producer, including multiple projects with Elvira, Hasselhoff, Belzer, Rundgren (both solo and with his band Utopia), Shaffer and Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones.
Gardner both produced and directed a 1976 TV special, Blue Öyster Cult: Live 1976. That was the year the band landed its biggest hit, “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper,” which reached No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100.
He executive produced Digital Dreams, a 1983 TV movie which documented Wyman’s life. Two years later, he executive produced Willie and the Poor Boys, a film about the “supergroup” of the same name. The band consisted of Wyman and Charlie Watts, also of the Rolling Stones, plus Andy Fairweather Low, Mickey Gee and Geraint Watkins. Their eponymous album reached No. 96 on the Billboard 200 in 1985.
Gardner executive produced Heavy Metal Heaven, a 1990 miniseries in which Elvira introduced six programs celebrating the genre.
He executive produced The Filth and the Fury, a 2000 documentary about the career of the notorious punk rock band, Sex Pistols. The film was directed by Julien Temple, who had also directed The Great Rock and Roll Swindle, the classic 1980 documentary about the band. The Filth and the Fury provided an opportunity for the surviving members of the group to tell their side of the story. Also in 2000, Gardner executive produced Rotten TV, a short-lived VH-1 series hosted by Lydon of Sex Pistols fame.
He executive produced Bitter Jester, a 2003 show which was billed as the first documentary to offer a glimpse into the process behind the comedy we watch in clubs, on television and at the movies. The film included interviews with Richard Pryor and Belzer, among others.
In 2006, he executive produced Running With Arnold, a documentary on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s successful gubernatorial campaign in California that year. The doc was narrated by Alec Baldwin.
In 2019, he executive produced Paul Shaffer Plus One, an eight-episode TV series in which Shaffer and his guests discussed inspirations and influences and notable songs.
Despite having a hand in numerous music projects, Gardner’s longest-running TV project was Shahs of Sunset, a Bravo reality series which followed a group of affluent young Persian-American friends who juggle their flamboyant L.A. lifestyles with family demands. More than 125 episodes were produced from 2012-2021.
Gardner was also behind several successful Las Vegas residencies. In 2009, he launched and produced Donny & Marie featuring Donny and Marie Osmond at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas in association with Caesar’s Entertainment. He co-produced with Planet Hollywood, also in Las Vegas, the “Ringo Starr and His All-Star Band” residency shows. Once again with Caesar’s Entertainment, he produced “Paul Shaffer and the Shaff-Shifters” residency shows.
Gardner was active right up until his death. Projects in the works at the time of his death included a Blues Brothers primetime animated TV series in partnership with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi’s widow Judy Belushi (who died two weeks before Gardner, on July 5 at age 73); adapting the hit 1980 Blues Brothers movie as a Broadway musical; “Sharknado the Musical” in Las Vegas in partnership with Caesar’s Entertainment/Greg Young/The Asylum; a Hellraiser primetime TV series with former New World Entertainment chairman Larry Kuppin; and a feature film about Timothy Leary life’s story with HBO.
Gardner is survived by his wife, Janis, who is the co-owner of Panacea Entertainment, and three grown daughters, Cameron, Madeleine and Nathalie.
R. Kelly is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn his convictions on child pornography and enticement charges, arguing the case should have been barred by the statute of limitations.
In a petition filed with the high court on Monday (July 29), attorneys for the disgraced R&B singer asked the justices to take up his case and toss out an April ruling by a lower appeals court, which said that “no statute of limitations saves him” from his 2022 convictions.
Kelly’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, argued that an updated federal law extending the statute of limitations, passed in 2003, could not be applied retroactively to Kelly’s alleged crimes, which occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
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“Retroactive application of the 2003 amendment not only fly in the face of congressional intent,” Bonjean writes. “It violates notions of fundamental fairness.”
Like all appeals to the Supreme Court, Kelly’s case faces long odds. The high court receives thousands of petitions per year and only decides to hear a tiny fraction them.
This week’s petition deals with only one of Kelly’s two sets of felony sex abuse convictions. The other one — a September 2021 guilty verdict on racketeering charges brought by prosecutors in New York that resulted in a 30-year prison sentence — is currently pending on appeal before a lower appellate court.
In the current case, a different team of federal prosecutors from Chicago accused Kelly of violating child pornography laws, enticing minors for sex and obstructing justice by upending a 2008 criminal trial. Though he was acquitted on certain counts, Kelly was convicted in September 2022 and later sentenced to 20 years in prison; the vast majority of that sentence will be served concurrently with the New York sentence.
Bonjean, who famously won a 2021 ruling at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturning Bill Cosby‘s 2018 sex assault conviction, has repeatedly argued that Kelly is innocent and that she will take his cases all the way to the Supreme Court.
In doing so on Monday, she focused on the PROTECT Act — a 2003 federal statute aimed at preventing child abuse. Among other changes, the 2003 law eliminated the statutes of limitations for child sex abuse victims, extending the right to sue through the entire life of the victim.
But Bonjean said the PROTECT Act was not written to apply retroactively to crimes allegedly committed before it was passed. Without a clear intention from Congress to apply it to past crimes, she wrote, a law must be considered to only apply to future wrongdoing.
“This court has explained that the aversion to retroactive rulemaking is deeply rooted in our jurisprudence and embodies a legal doctrine centuries older than our Republic,” she wrote. “Elementary considerations of fairness dictate that individuals should have an opportunity to know what the law is and to conform their conduct.”