State Champ Radio Empire
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The conference room on the 22nd floor of EMPIRE’s San Francisco office is brightly lit, with plaques covering the walls: a gold single for King Von’s “Crazy Story,” a gold album for Kendrick Lamar’s Section.80, a seven-times platinum certification for D.R.A.M. and Lil Yachty’s “Broccoli.” Every chair around the big central table is full of EMPIRE staff members, each charged with different aspects of bringing to life the next project from Dinner Party, the collective comprised of Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, Kamasi Washington and 9th Wonder, among others; their first EP was released by EMPIRE in 2020 and subsequently nominated for a Grammy for best progressive R&B album.
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Standing by the table near the door is Martin — the multi-talented producer, saxophonist and vocalist — who introduces the project to the staff and lays out his vision for how he wants to see it rolled out.
“I look at Dinner Party as like the hip-hop version of Steely Dan,” Martin says, referencing the classic rock group’s famous aversion to touring. “Let’s keep this one thing as like an expensive art piece.”
It’s late afternoon, and the EMPIRE crew is hosting another day of its Africa writing camp at its San Francisco studio for Nigerian stars Fireboy DML, Asake and Olamide. But first, there’s other business to attend to, and the Dinner Party project is high on the agenda. Martin holds court for nearly two hours, discussing plans for the physical release, for spot-date performances and for possible brand tie-ins and content plans when the project is rolled out. But he’s also playing near-final mixes of the album, which he hopes to complete within the week, and telling stories about how it came together (“We’re all in our 40s now,” he jokes about he and his Dinner Party cohorts. “You get us all together and it’s just story time, story after story.”)
One song, for instance, originally sampled Mtume’s “Juicy Fruit,” more famous these days as the basis for The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy.” When Martin heard it, he called Mtume’s son to ask about clearing the sample, who replied not with permission but with the stems to his father’s original track; that allowed Martin to bypass clearing the master recording and left him needing only to clear the publishing side. For another song, Martin eschewed drums altogether — something he picked up from his 19-year-old daughter, who is now a producer herself. “I come from the era where a beat with no drums was an interlude,” he says. “I’m following her now.”
YBNL & EMPIRE teams meet in Studio A to listen over Olamide, Asake and Fireboy DML’s newly recorded records
Daniel Aziz
The meeting wraps before 6 p.m., and now it’s time to head over to the studio. The vibe is a little different tonight. Asake and Olamide have stayed at their hotel — where Olamide has been recording vocals in his room — the kitchen is playing Tupac instead of Kevin Gates, and Nigerian vegetable soup, fried catfish, smothered turkey wings and mac and cheese are the main events at dinner. (Though all anyone is talking about is how hot the pepper sauce is.)
Fireboy and Asake stayed in the studio until after midnight the night before cooking up another collaboration, and while Asake isn’t there now, Fireboy is, meeting Martin and adding in vocals and guitar to another song he’s working on. (The guitarist, Tone, sports a black triple-humbucker Fender Telecaster Deluxe, for those curious.) The vocals constitute an anthemic plea that Fireboy pores over with his engineer in Studio C, looping the vocals on the hook again and again to get them right then hopping back into the vocal booth to add harmonies and ad-libs while reading lyrics off his phone. Steadily, over the course of 45 minutes, the two add layer after layer to the track, reinforcing melodies and bringing forth different textures until Fireboy sits back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling and taking it all in.
It’s been more than a week since the camp began, and the conversations around the studio are diverse. Topics include the benefits of vocal coaching for an artist going on tour; the Nigerian presidential election; who is leaving from and coming to camp (songwriter Ivory Scott left this morning, Rexx Life Raj is set to arrive tomorrow, and Nigerian producer Magicsticks is on the way); and the studio’s many renovations. EMPIRE is planning to open a space in Los Angeles, too, and recently did the same in New York, though San Francisco will always be home.
Daniel Aziz
Shortly after 8 p.m., EMPIRE regional head of West Africa, Mobolaji Kareem, pulls us into Studio A to listen to a final mix of a new Kizz Daniel track that engineer Jaycen Joshua completed that morning. Right on cue, Daniel calls on FaceTime, dictating the custom lighting to tell us which color the room needs to be to listen to the track and promising to get out to the new studio when he can. But it’s an early night for just about everyone involved. The exception is Fireboy, who stays in the studio after many have left even though his voice is tired from the constant grind of recording. Tomorrow is another day, and more work is expected before things wrap in another week.
It was just over 18 months ago that Fireboy DML released the record that would change his life.
But the song — “Peru,” which, aided by a remix with Ed Sheeran, would ultimately reach No. 53 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 2 on the UK Official Singles Chart and No. 1 on U.S. Afrobeats Songs — was almost never released at all. Standing in the lounge of EMPIRE’s studio space in San Francisco, where he originally cut the record in 2021 (memorialized by the line “I’m in San Francisco jamming”), he’s explaining how, if it wasn’t for the enthusiasm of EMPIRE founder/CEO Ghazi pushing him to release the record, he might never have put it out due to his own perfectionism. (Which, as an EMPIRE staffer standing nearby points out, is due to him being an Aquarius.)
But four hours later, that alternate timeline where Fireboy’s single didn’t break through into the U.S. and help Afrobeats’ global takeover seems implausible, even absurd. Shortly after 10:00 p.m., Ghazi leads Fireboy into the studio’s white marble lobby, where two dozen EMPIRE employees, songwriters, producers and managers, as well as fellow Nigerian Afrobeats artists Asake and Olamide, the latter of whom also runs their YBNL record label, are waiting to surprise Fireboy with an RIAA plaque of platinum certification for “Peru.” After a short bow and a swig from a bottle of champagne, Fireboy gives in to the calls for a speech, thanking everyone in the room and calling the plaque the “perfect definition of success,” to a round of applause.
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The impromptu ceremony is the highlight of another day at EMPIRE’s afrobeats writing camp, which the Bay Area-based independent music company initiated last month to bring together some of its leading African artists to record together at the ever-evolving studio space near San Francisco’s Mission District. It’s a space that currently boasts three studios and a live room, but one that is still being developed. When it’s finished, some time this summer, it will include two more recording studios, a pair of podcast studios, a gaming room with a massive, 30-foot LED screen along one wall and a swimming pool in the back yard, in addition to the lounge (which will eventually become a theater space with Dolby Atmos sound), kitchen and dining room, all of which is outfitted with EMPIRE logos, custom lighting and specially designed sound systems, which Ghazi has overseen.
“We’ll literally be able to create pieces of content around all these verticals, and then this becomes a hub of where you gotta visit,” he says, giving a tour of the space earlier in the afternoon. “There’s gonna be no way around it. It’s going to create too much energy, it’s going to be impossible to overlook.”
The studio serves as the center of the writing camp, with Fireboy, Asake and Olamide the resident stars of the show. It hasn’t all been work since the three Nigerian artists got to the Bay — over the previous few days, they sat courtside at a Golden State Warriors game, went to wine country in the Napa Valley and took in the sights on a tour around the city. But each day, starting around 3:00 p.m., it’s back to the studio to get back to business, building on the momentum of recordings from previous days and channeling the creativity that comes from working in an environment designed to let them simply exist as artists, with few distractions.
For us, however, this particular Tuesday started out with oysters and clam chowder at Hog Island Oyster Bar on the water (Shrimpy is the hookup; if you know you know) before braving the spitting rain to head to a photo shoot for Fireboy and the shoe company Clarks, where he’ll be part of a campaign that will result in a concert in the metaverse down the line. (In addition to the regular photo shoot, Fireboy was tasked with filming things like catching a rolled up magazine, which will be transformed into a microphone in the digital realm.) The shoot had been in progress since 10am, but the afternoon started to wear on, so soon it was into a sprinter van and off to the studio, where Asake and Olamide are holed up in Studio B, looping a section of a track that Asake is workshopping, with Olamide over Asake’s shoulder reading lyrics off his phone.
Forty-five minutes later, Olamide was holding court outside around an electric fire pit, while two engineers — one of them multi-Grammy winning mix engineer Jaycen Joshua, who EMPIRE flew up from L.A. for the occasion — worked on the mix to Olamide’s next single in Studio A, tweaking drums to get the punch just right. The room was still under construction just days before, and was finished just as the artists started to arrive in the city, having been rebuilt in just three weeks. In the lounge, Fireboy was talking about his new grill and his plans to dye his hair blue — while in the kitchen, a local chef, brought in to make okra soup, smoked mackerel, shrimp and garlic crabs and cornbread for the Nigerian contingent each night, was mid-cook, blasting Kevin Gates in the newly-remodeled space. But then it was back to work, with Asake and Fireboy disappearing into different studios, then swapping spaces a half hour later.
Shortly after 7:00, it was time to eat, with staff and crew at the long banquet tables and the artists sitting in the backyard, before EMPIRE’s regional head of West Africa, Mobolaji Kareem, brought a half-dozen of us into the live room to hear new Asake and Olamide records that the two have been working on over the past week. The songs are unmixed and only half done, he said, and I was the first non-EMPIRE person to hear them, and he danced through them and broke them down after each. We moved to Studio A — for the bigger speakers — to hear them again, as well as forthcoming records from Kizz Daniel, who is also working on his next release, albeit not in San Francisco at the moment. Eventually, EMPIRE’s senior vp of A&R Tina Davis kicked us out of Studio A — there was mixing to do, after all, and while listening to the records is exhilarating, there’s still work ahead.
Indeed, even as everyone gathers in the lobby for Fireboy’s plaque presentation, the celebration is short-lived; before long, Fireboy is back in Studio B, listening back to a song he had initially cut last night. It was after 10:00, but time hardly matters; the night before, they were in the studio until around 3 a.m., and the likelihood is that the evening will be trending in that direction again. But what comes of those late night hours will be the subject of another day, and another round of listening, tinkering and building, creating the next generation of records that will continue spreading the Afrobeats movement across the globe.
EMPIRE is pushing further into clubland, with big ambitions for helping DJs and producers get paid.
Today (Feb. 1), the San Francisco-based label announced that Moody Jones will step into the newly created general manager of dance role. Jones was previously EMPIRE’s svp of digital & creative, a position from which he worked across genres including dance projects by artists like The Martinez Brothers and Santino Le Saint.
Jones tells Billboard that this position will allow EMPIRE to “prioritize our expansion in this scene.” Jones’ new role follows EMPIRE’S acquisition of Claude VonStroke‘s storied Dirtybird label last October, with Jones adding that EMPIRE Dance is currently in talks with other labels and properties and “are open to other opportunities including catalog acquisitions.” Jones — a 2022 Billboard Indie Power Player honoree — will lead a dance team made up of the Dirtybird team, along with a team of new hires.
In this new role, his day-to-day involves signing artists, working on reintroducing songs from the EMPIRE catalog, and developing ways to incorporate dance strategies into the company’s daily priorities. Most crucially though, is time spent “getting obsessed with artists that deserve more exposure and figuring out where EMPIRE Dance can add value to them,” Jones says.
“The music industry has been evolving over the last five years and the dance labels haven’t caught up yet,” Jones says. “Our goal is to improve dance artist and label deals and reintroduce strong communities. DJs and dance artists have gotten used to making pennies on their music and making majority of their income on touring, which unfortunately means less quality time in production and more negative impact on their mental and physical health. I’m trying to help artists turn the pennies they are making on music into profits to better their livelihood.”
While EMPIRE has previously worked largely in genres like hip-hop and Latin, it’s bringing a significant competitive edge to the dance space. The company has its own publishing division and boasts “our own distributor so we have better data insights and audience analytics that empower us and our artists to make more proactive decisions,” he says.
EMPIRE also has its own studios, synch and partnership team and international staff in more than a dozen cities to help with regional rollouts.
“Moody has been an integral part of EMPIRE’s growth over the years,” EMPIRE CEO Ghazi adds in a statement. “As we expand into Dance, I’m confident in Moody at the helm with his ability to identify and develop artists that are impacting culture.”
EMPIRE Publishing, the publishing arm of independent distribution and service company EMPIRE, has announced its new joint venture with Surf Club, a collective of young artists, producers and writers founded by superstar producer Hit-Boy. Along with the news of the partnership itself, EMPIRE and Surf Club have also announced their first three signees: Gary “G Dav” Davis, Jesse “Dr. Blum” Blum, and Randy “Bandz” Holmes.
G Dav is a contributor to a number of major rap records, including Nas‘s King Disease, which earned him a Grammy for best rap album; Dr. Blum is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, best known for his touring work with Twenty One Pilots and cuts with Big Sean and Rage Against the Machine; Bandz is a writing and production talent, bringing his West Coast-infused sound to YG, OhGheesy, Kamaiyah and more.
Though Hit-Boy himself is not working with EMPIRE for publishing administration and remains in his previous deal, the new partnership involves the EMPIRE Publishing team — run by industry vets Al McLean, Vinny Kumar and Brett Sweeney — providing publishing administrative services to the three new signees and helping Hit-Boy Surf Club identify and sign new talent in the future.
The Surf Club collective is led by Hit-Boy along with managing partner Nima Nasseri, president Jameel “Double” James, and head of a&r James Bentley.
EMPIRE’s directors of business affairs Benedict Paz and Sarah Beth Gerlecz negotiated and finalized the partnership.
“We want to build Surf Club up to be great, create outstanding pieces of work and music. I’ve been looking for a publishing situation for years, and Empire really made it happen,” says Hit-Boy, whose credits include “Sicko Mode” by Travis Scott, “Clique” by Ye, “Trophies” by Drake, and many more.
“Hit-Boy is a prolific record producer,” says Sweeney. “His resume precedes him and his team is composed of innovative entrepreneurs. We are excited to be in business with Hit and the Surf Club team and empower their writers.”
“EMPIRE has long been in the business of pushing the culture forward on a global scale, enabling recording artists to excel independently with its distribution and label services,” adds Paz. “This partnership with a talent like Hit-Boy and the passionate individuals of the Surf Club team mirror that same ethos at EMPIRE Publishing and we are excited for what this is set to accomplish in the music publishing space.”
Ghazi believes some stories are “better told in rewind than forward.” How EMPIRE — the independent label, distributor and publisher that he established in 2010 — acquired Dirtybird is one of them.
On October 20, EMPIRE announced its acquisition of Claude VonStroke’s stalwart dance imprint, which has nurtured an inimitable, off-kilter brand of house and techno since its 2005 launch.
Under the agreement, EMPIRE obtains ownership of Dirtybird’s back catalog and all future releases, for which EMPIRE will now handle distribution and publishing. The deal — representing EMPIRE’s first stride into the dance/electronic space — includes Dirtybird’s clothing and Web3 assets, excluding only Dirtybird’s live events and festival brands. These rights are retained by Dirtybird CEO VonStroke, known by his given name Barclay Crenshaw, who will also continue to A&R Dirtybird and direct creative for its apparel line. (The rights to Dirtybird’s live events and festival brands were not a part of the negotiations. “I told Barclay early on, ‘We’re not an events company at this time — I think [the events are] better served to stay under your umbrella than under ours,’” Ghazi tells Billboard.)
Though negotiations between Ghazi and Crenshaw’s respective San Francisco-based multihyphenates started in October of 2021, Dirtybird’s appeal was apparent much earlier, according to Moody Jones, EMPIRE’s Senior Vice President of Digital & Creative, who will lead its dance/electronic department.
As the story goes, well before he accepted a role as EMPIRE’s Digital Marketing Director in 2018 — a move that propelled him from Canada to California’s Bay Area — Jones began producing his own music. In 2007, he went to a Toronto event where Crenshaw played an opening set as Barclay Crenshaw, his hip-hop-centric artist project that predated his launch of the Claude VonStroke moniker in 2006. There, Jones first met Crenshaw. Five years later in Montreal, Jones played the first-ever Dirtybird BBQ.
Over the years, one slot at a Dirtybird event begat another for Jones, who along the way formed a professional relationship with Crenshaw, his wife Aundy Caldwell Crenshaw (who serves as Dirtybird’s Chief Operating Officer) and the sprawling Dirtybird collective at large. A friend of the brand with an ear for Dirtybird’s idiosyncratic sound and an eye for business solutions, Jones assisted the Crenshaws with advising, consulting, marketing and artist promotion. Their early collaboration — coupled with Jones’ newfound proximity to Dirtybird HQ and his continued closeness with the Dirtybird crew — organically created the circumstances that would underscore the now-17-year-old brand as a complementary fit for EMPIRE and later aid its acquisition.
“I was very interested in their business model,” says Jones. “When we were out, I’d always ask questions and they’d always ask me for advice on how things are done on our end. The conversation started shifting from being about marketing to being about operating and scaling. I’d learned so much from being around Ghazi that a lot of the things I started saying [about EMPIRE] seemed like competitive advantages to Dirtybird. We [the Crenshaws] began talking about Dirtybird and what it would take to scale it.”
Thus, when Ghazi expressed interest in expanding EMPIRE’s hip-hop-concentrated scope to include dance/electronic, Dirtybird emerged as a natural fit.
Jones highlighted the similarities of the cultures within Dirtybird and EMPIRE, Ghazi’s own homegrown business — which has been responsible for several Billboard Hot 100 hits and key releases that have raised the profiles of hip-hop mainstays like Kendrick Lamar and Anderson .Paak. Armed with proprietary software that enables EMPIRE to distribute its music to digital streaming platforms, the hip-hop stronghold has increasingly expanded its sonic purview, venturing into Afropop and Afrobeats, country, Latin, R&B, and now, dance/electronic.
“He [Jones] jumped into my office and he said, ‘Hey, what do you think about buying Dirtybird?’ And I basically responded, ‘Why not? That would be a great acquisition for us, a San Francisco company,’” says Ghazi. “And he proceeded to tell me that there might be a synergy and a possibility for us to make the acquisition.”
“Aundy and I spoke to several companies in this process,” Crenshaw tells Billboard of the deal. “EMPIRE was always the best fit, simply because Ghazi understands the value of our brand name. We kept every single employee from top to bottom, and I still run the label with Deron Delgado and our killer team. I have also been friends with Moody Jones for years and years, so it was very reassuring that he was spearheading the dance division.”
“Tons of buyers just wanted to analyze the catalog and look at pure math,” Crenshaw continues. “I’ve never been a math guy; I’m a vibes guy. Dirtybird means something special to its fans, and that is why it’s one of maybe one or two U.S.A. house brands that everyone recognizes by name. Ghazi and Moody understand that, and I think we are going to have even more fun in our new home.”
Ghazi and Jones declined to disclose financial details of the acquisition to Billboard, but expounded on their motivations for bringing Dirtybird to roost at EMPIRE.
There are a number of independent dance labels that EMPIRE might have considered acquiring. Beyond the personal association, why Dirtybird?
Jones: I don’t know if Ghazi would’ve even considered Dirtybird [if not for my suggestion]. I was at Dirtybird Campout West Coast 2021 with Nima [Etminan, also of EMPIRE], and we saw the culture, the fanbase, the loyalty, the energy, and we knew it had a synergy. I saw them being hands-on with everything.
Our company is very culture-driven. Having an impact on culture is one of the pillars for us, and being a Bay Area company meant so much to us. We wanted to move into dancefloors a little bit stronger, and I can’t think of another company that would’ve complemented us the way Dirtybird does. There’s no other company that crossed every one of those boxes for us.
And when Ghazi sat down with Barclay and Aundy and got to meet her, knowing the people behind the company and how hard they work, it [was clear that it] really was their blood, sweat, and tears that put Dirtybird together. That meant a lot to us. Family is a big thing for us, and Dirtybird is literally their family business. Luckily, we [Barclay and Aundy] had built a relationship a long time ago — and honestly, life just came full circle.
Ghazi: It was a perfect fit. Our core DNA has always been hip-hop, and Barclay had a really strong affinity for hip-hop, so there were a lot of synergies between what Dirtybird was doing primarily as a dance company, and what we have historically done as a hip-hop company that’s moved into all these other verticals — like Afrobeat, Latin, R&B, and things of that nature.
I saw that there would be this holistic approach to music. You could just see it all blend together, merge into one, and be really impactful, because it makes all the sense in the world to have a dance department or a dance arm in a company like ours. We have tons of hit records that deserve to have dance remixes and dance mixes in general, and that goes beyond even just the core of what Dirtybird has already accomplished on their own.
So, for me, the initial thought process in the very beginning was like, “Oh cool, we could have a remix arm.” And then I got to spend time with Barclay and see the festivals, the culture, and everything else, and I was like, “Yo, this is a no-brainer. These guys, through and through, mean to the dance world what I think EMPIRE means to the hip-hop space.”
Naturally, it sounds like there will be an increase in the amount of hip-hop sound on Dirtybird given EMPIRE’s strength in this domain.
Jones: If you look at the sound that Dirtybird has embodied over the last three years, you’ll notice that it’s changed so much compared to the Dirtybird sound that we had early on. They’re moving into drum ‘n’ bass, they’re doing a lot more garage, and they’re doing a lot more experimental. And Barclay Crenshaw [the artist project] is more hip-hop-leaning than electronic, so I think Dirtybird will continue to be experimental. We’re going to continue to push the boundaries of electronic music, but I think now, we’re going to be able to equip Dirtybird with the ability to work with more hip-hop artists and work in different territories to push the sound to even more regions.
Outside of hip-hop, are there any other genres that you’d like to see Dirtybird work with to a greater degree?
Ghazi: Definitely a lot of the African music [Afropop/Afrobeats] that we’re doing at EMPIRE, 100%.
Given that Barclay will continue to A&R Dirtybird, you’ll be working together to advance these sounds. What do you hope this relationship will look like?
Ghazi: We’re hoping to continue letting Dirtybird do what they do best, but on top of that, increasing the volume and variety of releases that they’re doing, and giving them the tools and resources that they need to go even further. In the past, they did a few albums per year. We want to increase that number significantly, and we want to be able to give them more music videos — whatever types of tools and resources other genres have been accustomed to. We want to bring those to dance to give dance the same spotlight other genres have.
Looking ahead, what is the value of the Dirtybird catalog going forward?
Ghazi: Definitely in syncs, stems, derivative works, physical like vinyls and merch, and emerging territories where the music might not have even touched yet. I don’t know the whereabouts of the previous distributor’s reach, but we have a very far reach, so we’ll make sure that the music is in every nook and cranny in every part of the world.
Jones: It’s also in the re-releasing of a lot of products. I think a lot of the Dirtybird sound was ahead of its time, and I think a lot of these albums and singles can resurface again and be repackaged and delivered to an audience that is ready for it today that might not necessarily have been ready for it back then. Plus, there are a lot of [digital-only] releases that might have [worked well on] vinyl.
EMPIRE is a strong proponent of artist empowerment. What are some of the resources at EMPIRE that will help empower Dirtybird artists in ways that might not have been previously possible?
Ghazi: We have a huge facility in San Francisco where we do a lot of creative work. We just did a writing camp there a few months back for an African album we’re about to release. I would love to be able to do writing camps in the dance space, and I would love to increase the output of music videos with both our in-house video staff and the resources and the relationships that we have across the video sphere in the marketplace.
Additionally, more strategic marketing, more digital marketing, and greater transparency on analytics — because we are a supply chain distribution company by design, so I think empowering the artists with analytics and information is going to give them greater insight into how to market their music. We’re a very powerful marketing company, and there could be a momentous shift onward and upward for the Dirtybird side of the company and for dance as a whole for EMPIRE.
Jones: One of the last things we’re working on — and I don’t want to give away too much too soon — [is changing the nature of label deals in dance music]. One of the things I’ve noticed is that a lot of genres [have changed] in terms of the deals that labels have with artists, and I feel dance is one of the very last ones to make that change and have more transparency in deals and give better splits.
With the aid of EMPIRE, I think we can help revolutionize the whole dance scene — not just Dirtybird — by bringing this sound onto all the digital streaming platforms, and giving artists more favorable deals. I think [the deals] are a reason why, in the past, a lot of artists haven’t been loyal to their labels. You know, when every release is with a different label. But I think we can help revolutionize that and build a proper dance culture with the artists as well.
Indie label, distributor and publisher EMPIRE has acquired tastemaking electronic label Dirtybird, the imprint founded by producer Claude VonStroke in 2005.
Per the terms of the deal, EMPIRE now owns the entirety of the Dirtybird brand, outside of Dirtybird’s live events including its annual Dirtybird campout. The deal includes Dirtybird’s back catalog and all future releases, with EMPIRE also now handling distribution and publishing for the San Francisco based imprint. A representative for EMPIRE declined to disclose financial details of the deal.
VonStroke, born Barclay Crenshaw, will continue to A&R the San Francisco-based Dirtybird label and also direct creative for Dirtybird apparel.
The sale marks the first foray into the electronic music space for EMPIRE, a San Francisco-based multi-hyphenate music company founded by Ghazi in 2010. The company has offices in New York, Nashville, the UK and the Middle East and has worked extensively in the hip-hop, Latin, country, R&B and Afrobeats, helping build the careers of artists including Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak, XXXTentacion and Fireboy DML.
“Growing up in San Francisco and the Bay Area at large, dance music has always been a huge part of our music scene,” says EMPIRE CEO and Founder Ghazi. “EMPIRE at its core is a company that is for the culture. Dirtybird embodies the independent ethos and understands the cultural nuance of everything San Francisco and dance music.”
“I’m so excited to join another incredible independent Bay Area music company,” says Crenshaw, also the CEO of Dirtybird. “I will continue to A&R the Dirtybird label and direct the creative for the music and clothing, while EMPIRE has the capacity and resources to grow the brand globally. This is a dream come true.”
Since it’s 2005 launch, Dirtybird has become one of the United States’ leading independent electronic labels, helping develop and popularize the underground house and tech-house genres via releases by VonStroke and the cadre of Dirtybird artists including Justin and Christian Martin, J Phlip, Justin Jay, Walker & Royce and Nikki Nair. Crenshaw has run Dirtybird alongside his wife, Dirtybird COO Aundy Crenshaw, since launching the imprint.
EMPIRE and Dirtybird are formally announcing the partnership today (October 20) at ADE, the annual electronic industry conference happening this week in Amsterdam.
“Our deals are full-on partnerships,” Ghazi told Billboard in March of this year, “so the way the rights are written, recoupment is likely; master reversion, if there is a reversion, is likely; and artists tend to have a lot more creative input, not control.”
