Distribution
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Music business entrepreneur and EMPIRE founder/CEO Ghazi Shami announced the launch of a new, white-label distribution platform called Supply Chain today (March 15). The product, which is available now and is separate from EMPIRE, will allow brands, labels, distributors, service providers and retailers to make use of the platform to distribute music to any service provider and integrate distribution into their own products and offerings.
“With Supply Chain, we have built the most comprehensive distribution platform in the music industry,” Shami said in a statement. “Brands and services can now tap into the power of Supply Chain and offer a full set of distribution services to their customers.”
Supply Chain will offer SaaS and API solutions to allow companies to tap into digital tools to allow them to offer distribution to clients for service providers all over the world. The new offering comes at a time in the music business when there is a heightened interest in services and distribution, with new companies flooding into the arena to offer new solutions for independent artists and labels and existing companies pivoting their business models towards non-ownership services offerings. Unlike many of those services, which sign deals with artists or allow them to upload to digital service providers for a flat fee, Supply Chain will allow companies to integrate its distribution offering into their own services, providing a back-end basis for their own offerings.
“The new Supply Chain product provides a tremendous amount of power, but does so with a very simple approach that is both flexible and recognizes that many partners will not want to build out their own UI,” said chief product officer Stephen White. “We have focused on making the product easy to integrate while not sacrificing any of the powerful functionality.”
Downtown Music Services has inked a global distribution, creative marketing and synch licensing deal with Natanael Cano‘s record imprint, Los CT, it was announced Monday (Feb. 27). The label’s current roster includes Gabito Ballesteros, Alejandro Buelna, Tyan G and more.
Under the deal, Downtown Music Services will be responsible for all aspects of global distribution, creative marketing and synch for Los CT. This includes providing listeners with access to new music releases, securing strategic marketing and synch opportunities and ensuring that Los CT artist releases are available on all major digital streaming platforms.
Cano launched Los CT last year amid a public dispute with his former label, Rancho Humilde, as an opportunity to continue broadening the Mexican music style he’s been actively internationalizing.
“I am always very happy to work with people who supported me from the beginning,” Cano said in a press release. “Now being able to distribute my music with some of the same people who always believed in me, I am extremely grateful and motivated to continue giving my all alongside the Downtown Music Services team.”
Downtown Music Services vp of A&R Latin, Ray Tapia, worked side by side with Cano’s manager, Ramon Emilio Hernández, to make this partnership a reality. A subsidiary of Downtown Music Holdings, Downtown Music Services offers bespoke distribution, publishing administration, creative marketing and finance solutions to entrepreneurial creators and their partners.
Tapia said, “We are thrilled to partner with Natanael Cano and the Los CT record label team. The Mexican music scene is undergoing a transformation with an increasing number of collaborations and a growing number of artists attracting millions of monthly listeners. This genre remains one of if not the most independent, and we are super excited to have the opportunity to contribute to its success. ¡Ánimo!“
“We have been working on this for a minute and I am really excited about this partnership and how we are helping put this new era of the culture out there,” added Hernández. “There is so much promising talent in this space and we look forward to working with some of these artists and the team at Downtown Music. They really knew the genre, the music and understood our goals from the beginning.”
This year, Cano has achieved three entries on the Billboard Global 200 chart, including “AMG” with Gabito Bastelleros and Peso Pluma which hit No. 35 on the tally. He’s also scored two entries on the Billboard Hot 100.
Universal Music Group (UMG) has purchased a 49% stake in the indie label group [PIAS], expanding on a strategic global partnership that began last year. As part of the deal, [PIAS] founders Kenny Gates and Michel Lambot will retain control of the company, “remain fully independent” and UMG will have no seats on the indie’s board.
In March 2021, [PIAS] rebranded its distribution and services arm to [Integral], bringing on a new managing director to expand its business globally. Three months later, [PIAS] entered into an agreement with UMG that gave the major label group access to the [Integral] platform, which also handles distribution services for more than 100 indie label partners including ATO, Beggars Group and Secretly Group. The newly announced minority investment is said to be an extension of that initial deal.
“We have enjoyed an excellent relationship with the Universal Music Group team since we announced our strategic global alliance with them last year,” said Lambot — who co-founded [PIAS] in Brussels, Belgium, in 1983 alongside Gates — in a statement. “Kenny and I are celebrating our company’s 40th anniversary this year and we are still as ambitious as we were when we started out about growing our global presence and providing a world class service to the independent music community.”
“These days we are competing with finance and tech giants and a partner like Universal Music Group provides the additional support for us to compete and grow,” Gates said in his own statement. “Universal made it clear that they like us, they trust us and they need us, because they can’t do what we do and they value it highly. For Michel and I this is our life’s work and an ongoing journey and I am excited about the prospect of this new chapter in the life of [PIAS]. This move makes us stronger and secures the future of our brand, our staff and our partners while maintaining control of our destiny.”
The expansion of the deal comes at a time when many major labels — Capitol Music Group, Republic, 300, Interscope and more — are increasingly launching or enhancing their distribution offerings for independent artists and labels. This deal with [PIAS] presumably expands UMG’s access to independent distribution moving forward.
“The boldly independent and music-centric culture that Kenny and Michel have built over the last four decades has provided a vital creative network to so many artists,” UMG chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge said in a statement. “While much of the past was focused on ‘majors versus indies,’ it’s clear that today, the important divide in our industry is about those committed to artist development versus those committed to quantity over quality. We share Kenny and Michel’s passion for developing artists and moving culture, and we recognize that a healthy music ecosystem needs companies like [PIAS] who are committed to amplifying the best voices in independent music.”
Over one year ago, alt-pop sister duo Aly & AJ released their first album in 14 years — and the pair has been on a steady release streak ever since.
Now, Billboard can announce that the act’s upcoming single, “With Love From,” will arrive Nov. 2, ushering in a new deal for the duo. The single doubles as the title of a new album, coming in the spring, which will be the first through a new distribution deal with SoundCloud that will also see the company provide Aly & AJ with marketing support.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled to have the support of SoundCloud entering this new album cycle,” Aly & AJ said in a joint statement. “They’ve allowed us to have the creative freedom we need to make our best possible music to date.”
The signing comes at a crucial time for SoundCloud, which cut 20% of its workforce in September. Not long before that, the company had added new features such as “the roster” — which signs artists to more traditional record deals (initial members included Lil Pump and Tekno) — and Repost, a distribution service offered at $30 annually that allows artists to keep up to 80% of the royalties they make from other streaming services. Aly & AJ’s deal fits into neither category, proving artists can still choose their own path when partnering with SoundCloud.
With Love From follows Aly & AJ’s independently-released 2021 album A Touch of the Beat Gets You Up on Your Feet Gets You Out and Then Into the Sun. Also last year, Aly & AJ scored a top 10 hit on Billboard’s Digital Song Sales chart with the re-released hit “Potential Breakup Song (2020),” which went viral on TikTok years after its initial release.
Following the arrival of A Touch of the Beat, Aly & AJ hit the road performing at festivals including Lollapalooza, Governors Ball and Austin City Limits. They just wrapped an opening gig on Ben Platt’s national tour, including stops at New York’s Madison Square Garden and Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl. Next up, a performance at Corona Capital in Mexico City followed by a string of overseas dates in Europe and the U.K.
For now, as fans patiently wait for Nov. 2 to arrive, a snippet of Aly & AJ’s new single can be heard in the teaser for an upcoming collaboration between Rowing Blazers and Seiko watches, with the collection set to drop Friday (Oct. 28) at 11 a.m. ET.