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Australian indie-pop singer-songwriter Gretta Ray has provided an update on her health, announcing the cancelation of all her remaining 2024 shows to focus on her recovery from a serious heart infection.
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Earlier this month, Ray revealed she was hospitalized in London due to an unknown illness, with the news prompted an outpouring of support from fans worldwide. On July 16, she took to Instagram to thank her followers and shed light on her situation.
“I’m overwhelmed by the outpouring of love on my latest post, you are all so incredibly kind and it really means the world to me, thank you x,” Ray wrote.
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“I wanted to clarify that luckily I’m not having to deal with this experience on my own – due to the seriousness of my condition my family are here in London taking care of me I am in good hands here in a really good hospital. Just taking it day by day. Lots of love.”
On July 30, Ray updated her fans again, revealing her diagnosis of infective endocarditis, a severe heart infection.
“I wanted to let you know that the sickness I am recovering from is a rare disease called infective endocarditis – a severe infection in the heart that for me, caused a multitude of distressing repercussions,” she explained in her Instagram post.
“It happened very suddenly and frighteningly, and as a result, took a moment to be diagnosed. Nonetheless I am so, so lucky that I caught it early, and landed in such a great hospital here in London that took amazing care of me. I was then transferred to a second hospital – one that is famous for dealing with this particular disease.”
Ray confirmed that she will need surgery due to the impact on her heart, but for now, she is focusing on regaining strength after completing a long course of intravenous antibiotics and being discharged from the hospital.
“The toll this has taken on my heart means that at some stage I will need to undergo surgery,” she continued. “For now, it’s been a week since I finished a long course of intravenous antibiotics, and two weeks since I was discharged from hospital. Due to the fact that I am stable, the doctors have encouraged me to spend time regaining some strength and immunity outside of hospital.”
Although she is still dealing with some complications, Ray expressed relief at being able to enjoy the world outside the hospital.
“While I’m still dealing with some complications, it’s already been healing being back out in the world… I just take it one day at a time (my mum is also still in London with me x),” she wrote.
All dates are off for the foreseeable future, including her appearance at BIGSOUND 2024.
Ray concluded her update by expressing her gratitude for her fans’ unwavering support, saying, “I know I will be telling this story in more detail when the time is right, but for now I’m processing the trauma and taking things slowly.”
“I can’t tell you how much your kind and thoughtful messages and comments have meant to me in this challenging time, I’m so grateful… sending all my love to you from London, and we’ll speak soon.”
After LANY completed its four-album deal with Interscope early last year, the Los Angeles pop-rock duo decided to be an independent act.
“You’ve built your career on a major [label] model, and you’re like, ‘We’ve got what we’re going to get out of the system – let’s get back some control,’” says Rupert Lincoln, the band’s manager.
LANY had a big following, and multiple streaming hits, including 2018’s “Malibu Nights,” which has more than 403 million Spotify plays, and the 2020 album mama’s boy, which hit No. 7 on the Billboard 200. But without a label, the band needed help – and money – to market music and shows to its fanbase.
So Lincoln and the band talked with some of the many distribution companies now vying for independent artists’ business with advances and marketing services. They selected Stem Disintermedia, founded nine years ago by United Talent Agency veteran Milana Rabkin Lewis and which a year ago secured $250 million in credit for artist advances from Victory Park Capital.
LANY self-financed a new album, last year’s a beautiful blur, with help from Stem and Virgin Records, its label for international territories. The band made a deal with Stem to handle marketing and promotion. “Stem made an investment,” says Seth Faber, the distributor’s general manager, adding that LANY took “a few advances along the way to fund different aspects of the project.” Stem set up a TikTok marketing campaign, taking advantage of the social-media giant’s commercial music library, which allows new and indie artists to make their tracks available for brands to use in video clips. Then Stem and Lincoln pooled their radio connections and pushed “XXL” onto iHeartMedia and SiriusXM playlists.
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Stem launched a TikTok campaign, and fans shared footage from the band’s fall tour in Asia, helping “XXL” hit No. 46 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 last September. Then the company took the track to radio — “shook hands, kissed babies,” according to Faber — and peaked at No. 26 on Pop Airplay in February. “Considering what we were going up against, major labels and their pockets, it’s a pretty good magic trick to pull off,” Faber says. The band performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Today in the fall, and its U.S. spring tour was in clubs and theaters. “XXL” has 14 million Spotify plays and more than 3 million YouTube views.
“The splits are very favorable with Stem,” says Lincoln. “We felt incredible support from the top down.”
Stem began as a typical indie distributor, helping artists to put out physical and digital music and seeing to it they received their streaming revenue. After working with top indie artists and labels, from Frank Ocean for his Blonde album to Big Loud Records, home of Morgan Wallen, Stem pivoted to a new model in 2020, emphasizing advance artist payments; last year, it spun off a new company, Tone, to “modernize the music industry’s financial infrastructure,” as Lewis said earlier this year.
Stem is one of many indie distributors that does not require artists to give up long-term rights to their master recordings in exchange for advance payments — DistroKid, CD Baby, Create Music Group and Secretly Distribution operate a similar way, simplifying the process of putting artists’ music out and helping to arrange timely royalty payments. But what distinguishes Stem, according to Faber, is the ability to “add value” to artist deals by emphasizing major-label-style promotion and marketing campaigns. Instead of distributing numerous artists, Stem selects acts, like LANY, who have track records of sales success and potential for high-quality new material.
Using this model, Stem works with indie labels such as Quality Control and artists such as R&B singer Brent Faiyaz, who received eight advance Stem checks to make his album Wasteland. Artists signed to Stem borrow what they need for music videos or digital-marketing campaigns, negotiating terms as they go along. “Now that we have the bandwidth to focus on a lower volume of more meaningful acts, all these acts get the human touch,” Faber says. “Our approach requires artists that see the big picture and are not just chasing the largest check that they could find — and are looking to make smart and calculated investments in themselves.”
Jim Caparro, a former Warner and Island Def Jam CEO who ran Polygram Group Distribution in the ’80s, says most artists don’t need a major label or even a major distributor, such as Warner Music-owned ADA or Universal Music-owned Virgin Music Group, to serve their fanbase with new music and social-media marketing. Artists like LANY, who’ve established themselves on major labels, simply need up-front money for recording projects and radio connections.
“It’s a matter of advances: Who can write the biggest check?” Caparro says. “Artists can do it themselves. They really don’t need all those partners to share their royalties with.”
Lincoln, who runs Hills Artists in Los Angeles and London, praises Stem for giving LANY a pathway to radio connections, including top execs at iHeartMedia and SiriusXM, which will undoubtedly be useful for future single releases. He also emphasizes that Stem’s success with LANY is due to a collaboration between the distributor and the management company. “It’s been a really great partnership so far,” he says. “Autonomy is the future of the business.”
It’s 9 p.m. on a Wednesday evening in Miami, and Ty Baisden is still taking care of business with an energy level that belies the hour.
“I’m a firm sleeper who gets my eight hours,” says Baisden, his Georgian drawl giving way to laughter. “But what I don’t do is the bulls–t. So subtract the bulls–t, and you’ve got a lot of time to work and a lot of time to rest.”
That philosophy has anchored Baisden since he broke into the business as a manager in 2008. During that time, the native Atlantan also closely observed successful creative/business partnerships including Disturbing Tha Peace Records with Ludacris and Chaka Zulu and Grand Hustle Records with T.I. and Jason Geter.
Given the tenuousness of most manager-artist relationships, Baisden wanted to apply that collaborative model to the right act. “I was like, ‘I’ve got to find an artist that will want to partner with me where they deal with all the creative and I deal with all the business. Then we can build a company together, and we’ll be protected because the company is our protection.’ ”
In 2014, he found an ideal artist-partner in Brent Faiyaz after discovering him on SoundCloud. “It wasn’t an easy thing,” Baisden recalls. “I had executives telling me, ‘Don’t partner with artists; that’s dumb.’ And I had artists thinking, ‘No, I’d rather do something with a major label.’ Brent was the first artist that really believed in the overall process of that kind of partnership.”
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Over the last nine years, the business alignment between Baisden’s firm COLTURE — an acronym that stands for Can Our Leverage Teach Us Real Equity — where he is head of ventures and innovation — and Faiyaz’s Lost Kids label has yielded several successes. Among them: Faiyaz’s 2020 EP, F–k the World, bowing at No. 20 on the Billboard 200, followed by his momentous No. 2 debut with second studio album Wasteland — against Bad Bunny’s multiweek No. 1 juggernaut Un Verano Sin Ti — in 2022.
Then in 2023, Faiyaz’s F*ck the World, It’s a Wasteland Tour grossed $5.3 million and sold 68,000 tickets over 18 shows, according to Billboard Boxscore. Separately, in 2023, he launched his own creative agency, ISO Supremacy, in partnership with UnitedMasters. (Baisden is not involved.) ISO joined forces with PULSE Records in an artist development joint venture, and in May struck gold with genre-melding R&B singer Tommy Richman, whose “Million Dollar Baby” has spent two weeks at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Splitting his time between Atlanta and Miami with a 22-member staff, Baisden, 40, works alongside COLTURE co-founder and head of creative services Jayne Andrew and partner Paris “PK” Kirk. The three are also co-founders and equity partners in COLTURE Holdings, which houses the firm’s nonmusic-related businesses.
“I don’t manage artists,” Baisden says of the business he has built with Faiyaz. “The skin that I have in the game is seeing another Black man be successful in whatever they want to do.”
Devin Christopher
What COLTURE accomplishment stands out over the last 18 months?
Our company vertically integrated and built Brent’s [2023] tour from start to finish. Usually, management will hire out for everything to get done. I partnered with Wasserman Music’s Callender to route it and negotiate the deals. Meanwhile, I handled the entire budget. Jayne handled all the band details, creative direction and making sure Brent felt comfortable onstage while PK handled all the lifestyle and afterparty events. And we each split time going to the different [tour stops] and booking the buses, freight and travel.
That’s not the job of managers, but we’re not managers; we build businesses. To build a business, you’ve got to manage the budget so you can determine your margin. Brent’s tour profited because we controlled every single dollar that was spent. I just think that’s very loud. So many people go out on the road and don’t make money. The artist gets paid, but when it’s time to do your balance sheet, you come out in the red. Many times, when you have other people managing a big lift, you’re going to get blindly overcharged.
How does the COLTURE partnership with Faiyaz and Lost Kids work?
Christopher Brent Wood [Faiyaz’s birth name] and I are business partners. When Christopher turns into the artist Brent Faiyaz and I’m operating on the latter’s behalf, then my job title is manager, for which I get a percentage. That’s probably the best way I can put it. We’re 50/50 partners in Lost Kids, under which we have multiple businesses. That was basically our handshake to one another in the beginning. Those projects and his tours are the financial seeds for Brent and me to go out and make individual investments. Lost Kids gave Brent the opportunity to invest in ISO Supremacy with his high school friend Darren Xu, and now they’re having a huge success with Tommy Richman. Beyond music and publishing, our biggest investments under Lost Kids involve real estate in Atlanta and Dallas and more than 20 startup companies, including Athletic Greens, Therabody, Audio Shake and Seed. And the great thing is three of those four companies — Seed, Audio Shake and Athletic Greens — are led by women.
Lost Kids also sponsors annual initiatives on behalf of female executives and entrepreneurs.
We just finished our fourth annual Show You Off grant program, giving 12 women $10,000 grants each to run their own business or launch a new idea. One of the policies of the grant is to reward Black women that are from the DMV [Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia] area. This year was a heavy one with new ideas involving STEM companies, [artificial intelligence] technology, electric batteries, etc. Thus far, we’ve donated about half a million dollars or more to Black women-helmed businesses.
What additional clients and businesses are under the COLTURE umbrella?
On the producer side, we have Nascent, who’s just finishing his project, Don’t Grow Up Too Soon, that we’ll distribute independently; Jordan Waré and Dpat, who have both worked with Brent. We have a partnership with [podcast] Million Dollaz Worth of Game to help [former rapper/co-host Gillie Da Kid] build out a music division. We’re doing their artist N3wyrkla’s first rollout with Troy Carter’s Venice Music. We collaborate as well with [pop duo] Emotional Oranges on distribution and creative direction when needed. Then, in the same kind of partnership I have with Brent, there’s Canadian female artist Kalisway, who writes and produces funk and R&B. Lastly, we’re helping actor Malcolm Mays [Starz’s Raising Kanan] launch his music career to diversify his business.
What’s the biggest issue facing the independent community right now?
An indie company can put out a song and the song can blow up, but more than likely, the company doesn’t have sufficient infrastructure to make sure everybody’s paid fairly based on their contributions to the record that just changed their artist’s life. The artist and the label are going to get big checks, but the songwriters and producers are probably going to get paid a year or two later, depending on how savvy their manager is — if they even have a manager.
Where do you envision COLTURE three to five years from now?
We have a 10-year plan outlining that parent company COLTURE Holdings will be generating $100 million in revenue by 2030. That’s the goal. Over the next three years, we’re launching our full-fledged media department, including TV, film, podcasting and digital content. The sports division is developing, and we’re continuing our real estate operation. We’re basically building a community and a pipeline for disrupters who can either stay within our ecosystem or build their own businesses.
Additional reporting by Shira Brown.
This story originally appeared in the June 8, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Jessica Berndt has worked in film/TV music for almost a decade, most recently as music supervisor with independent label Secretly Group. “I had a few items on [my] music supervision bucket list,” she says. “An A24 film was at the top.”
In 2021, that dream inched closer when A24 launched its own record label, A24 Music. The in-house entity partnered with Secretly Distribution to build its own catalog of musical intellectual property and ensure its releases appeared on streaming services and in record stores. While it’s rare for a film company to start its own label (excluding major conglomerates like Disney), A24 Music showed signs early on it could be the first successful independent filmmaker to bet on a label: To promote its 2016 Academy Award-winning best picture, Moonlight — which features an Oscar-nominated score by Nicholas Britell (Succession, The Big Short, If Beale Street Could Talk) — A24 hosted a live performance of its score in London.
Ever since, A24 has maintained a music focus across its projects, from 2021’s C’mon C’mon (scored by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner) to the upcoming MaXXXine (starring Moses Sumney and Halsey). And in May, Berndt was able to cross off that No. 1 goal from her bucket list with the release of trans horror film I Saw the TV Glow, for which she was co-music supervisor alongside Secretly Group founder Chris Swanson.
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Like Moonlight and others before it, I Saw the TV Glow leaned heavily on its soundtrack as a marketing tool, using its roster of featured artists to drum up anticipation among its target demographic months before release. Featuring a score by Alex G and original songs by a slate of indie-rock staples including Caroline Polachek, Jay Som and a title track from Phoebe Bridgers and Sloppy Jane (both of whom make cameos in the movie), Berndt says a catchy new song can drive as much advance interest in a film as a well-edited trailer.
While star-powered soundtracks have experienced a revival in the last decade — including for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Black Panther, The Lion King and Barbie — no one has done it in the indie space quite like A24. The company has expanded its brand as a film company into a formidable and growing music catalog, as well as a meaningful merchandise business and podcast network.
It’s that very strategy that enticed Jen Malone to work with the company as music supervisor on the hit HBO show Euphoria, which was a turning point for series co-producer A24 as a music-focused outfit. “Music can often be an afterthought in TV and film,” Malone says. “In Euphoria, we decided at the top that music was going to be like a character in the show, and A24 supported that the whole way through.”
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Euphoria spawned virality for a number of songs on its soundtrack and, in some cases, led to a streaming uptick of over 2,100%, according to Luminate, following a synch. Whether that was for Labrinth’s original score and songs for the show — two of which he and Euphoria star Zendaya performed at Coachella in 2023 (“All for Us” and “I’m Tired”) — or older licensed works like Gerry Rafferty’s “Right Down the Line,” Sinéad O’Connor’s “Drink Before the War” and DMX’s “Party Up,” Euphoria played a large role in igniting trends that would later perpetuate as popular sounds on TikTok.
A24 also creates extended Spotify playlists based on its soundtracks, as well as special-edition vinyl records, both of which continue to strengthen viewers’ relationship with a film long after the lights come on in the theater. On A24’s website, hot pink I Saw the TV Glow vinyl is for sale next to a myriad of other superfan offerings, from coffee-table books and posters to oddities like Marcel the Shell figurines, Everything Everywhere All at Once hot dog fingers and Hereditary-themed gingerbread kits.
And now, just a few years in, A24 Music is rolling out its most ambitious project yet: a star-studded set titled Everyone’s Getting Involved: A Tribute to the Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense arriving in July. It follows A24 remastering and rereleasing the band’s 1984 classic concert film, Stop Making Sense, last year.
And everyone seemingly did get involved with the album, which is just as stacked with major stars like Lorde, Paramore and Miley Cyrus as it is with indie breakouts like The Linda Lindas and Blondshell. “I feel like there’s a real sense of play permeating the entire project,” says Evan Whikeheart, head of label and shared services at Secretly Distribution. “It was a real joy to hear how all these artists from different musical backgrounds came together to interpret these songs.”
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Representatives close to A24 Music tell Billboard it’s still the early days of its exploration into music-focused programming but cite a desire to “attribute the success of A24 Music to all the incredible artists we work with.” (The company declined to be interviewed for the story.) Yet Talking Heads’ David Byrne says the A24 team is largely responsible for the tribute album’s success, saying that he was “absolutely hands off” with the process. “When I saw the list of artists who wanted to do it, I have to say I was pretty excited,” Byrne says. “I thought ‘Damn, this is going to be an amazing record.’
“It’s hard to imagine that yet another generation might connect with this film,” he continues. “We like to believe that life is short and art is long, but here, it is really happening.”
This story will appear in the June 8, 2024, issue of Billboard.
For plenty of music’s most compelling artists, going independent doesn’t mean going small — it means reaping the myriad benefits of forgoing the major label route. Across genres, staying independent can ensure an artist has greater ownership over both their creativity and their intellectual property; the ability to pivot or react quickly when a song unexpectedly takes off; and the freedom to put together a team that truly has their best interests at heart. Of course, there are the more intangible upsides to staying indie too — above all, the feeling that when success happens, it’s truly earned.
Here, Billboard surveys some of the most compelling indie artists making music (and chart inroads) now about the challenges and benefits they’ve seen to independence and the advice they’d offer anyone considering it.
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The advice I’d offer any indie artist is…: “Take mindful steps to get to know and understand your artist identity so that you can become something unique and genuine — whether it’s through vision boards, writing diaries or practicing adjacent forms of artistry to help you flesh out your identity as a musician. It has been instrumental to me in making sure I don’t lose my way.” —Paris Paloma (Nettwerk)
The advice I’d offer any indie artist is…: “You control the narrative, so don’t settle, and be bold. An artist working independently has the ability to reach their fans directly with no barriers to entry and to create their own culture. [Independence] also provides a comfortable space for an artist to discover who they are and run their business with full oversight of the costs. It’s incredibly important for anyone getting into this business to understand how it works, what you’re signing into and how your money is being spent.” —Josh Sanger, manager, Paris Paloma
Paris Paloma
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“Freedom is the most important asset an artist can have, in many more ways than just artistic. If you’re serious about being independent and you know how to work it, it’s way better than signing with an established label. For example, I own my own publishing company. I own my touring company. The capability of reacting and not being on a part-semester plan or a year plan is priceless. The capacity of reaction is one of the biggest assets of being independent.” —Pepe Aguilar (Equinox Records, Machín Records)
One of the most challenging parts of being independent is…: “Being able to make connections with global artists who are represented by major labels for collaborations.” —Cris MJ (Stars Music Chile/Rimas Entertainment)
The advice I’d offer any indie artist is…: “[Take] responsibility as an artist, and form a good team that can support you in making the right decisions.” —Sergio Javier Ampuero Vergara, manager, Cris MJ
“If you’re grinding to get to your highest point of success and you started by yourself, it means more when you make it. The celebration when you make it is different because you get to say that you gave all of yourself to your dream, no matter who believed or didn’t.” —Lay Bankz (Artist Partner Group)
Lay Bankz
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One of the most challenging parts of being independent is…: “[When you’re] doing the same thing every day with what feels like no motion, and spending money. No one knows you, no one is there to help you, or believing in you — it’s just God, you, and your dreams.” —Kenney Blake, manager, Lay Bankz
“Being an independent artist means having total control over both your art and your business. This requires being an entrepreneur, taking all the risks and having no one to blame but yourself and your team. Make sure you have a good team. You can still yell at the label when you are the label, but you will be yelling in the mirror.
That said, where there is great risk there is great reward. The potential upside is tremendous when you own your own masters and publishing. Don’t let anyone ever convince you ‘independent’ is synonymous with ‘small’ or ‘broke.’ ” —Andrew McInnes, CEO, TMWRK Management; manager, Sturgill Simpson (High Top Mountain)
“We have been able to have full control of our music without having to encounter a lot of politics and red tape that other artists do. It has given us the ability to do what we love most in the way we feel is best, and it even allowed us the freedom to experiment with different sounds on our newest album, Jugando A Que No Pasa Nada.” —Grupo Frontera (Grupo Frontera)
Why is being independent important to you?: “It gives us the power of decision-making and accountability without relying on third parties. This autonomy allows us to act swiftly and adapt to changes in the market or consumer behavior. As a team we can identify shifts in consumption patterns and work towards addressing them on the same day, without needing to wait for approval or direction from a label. This freedom to maneuver quickly and make decisions on our own terms enables us to stay agile, innovative, and true to the artist vision.” —Lucas Barbosa, manager, Grupo Frontera
Grupo Frontera
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“Independence, to me, is having autonomy and ownership of your art. This makes me feel a closer connection to my audience because they know that what comes from me is from me.” —Laufey (AWAL)
Why is being independent important to you?: “So I can own my music and I can control my whole world more easily. Being able to work and keep my music in my possession [means] I can have everything in the future. That’s why I work with UnitedMasters.” —FloyyMenor (UnitedMasters)
The advice I’d offer any indie artist is…: “Establish and maintain a clear budget. By implementing a detailed budgeting system early on, I was able to allocate funds effectively, ensuring that I always had enough money set aside for crucial aspects of my career. By tracking income and expenses diligently, artists can make informed decisions about where to invest their resources, ultimately leading to greater financial stability and long-term success.” —310babii (High IQ/EMPIRE)
The advice I’d offer any indie artist is…: “Always ask ‘Why?’ The music business will make you pay for what you don’t know, and it’s your choice on how you choose to learn. If you do not educate yourself on what’s important for the longevity of your career and choose short-term gratification, you will end up paying for it in the long run.” —Jentry Salvatore, manager, 310babii
310babii
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“An indie artist has to have the understanding and knowledge to grasp that investing in their own career is crucial, whether in marketing, in making better content, in doing big tours and shows. An indie artist is one who makes decisions and pays for them from his own pocket.” —Fede Lauria, manager, Bizarrap (Dale Play Records)
The biggest benefit of being independent is…: “Maintaining creative control over the strategies and music that I create. [My song] ‘Daylight’ [had an] original release date scheduled for June, but I knew we had to get it out as soon as possible based on all the engagement we were building around it on socials. I called my manager and just told him we needed to get the song out, and the team made it happen. I think if I were signed to a [major] label, I wouldn’t have been able to make a last-minute change like that and the song wouldn’t have had as big of an impact.” —David Kushner (Miserable Man Music)
“I learned how to play in public. Taught myself how to play guitar and sing and write songs standing on street corners. If I were you, I wouldn’t sign any contracts, ever, if you don’t have to. Because it ain’t to your advantage. Unless they’re giving you a whole bunch of money — and even then, try and get the cash with a handshake. Let me put it to you like this: If you don’t know who the sucker in the deal is, it’s you.
Asking why being independent’s important is really beside the point. I didn’t set out to be independent. I was always seen as so confusing and so different that the people I was dying to do business with didn’t want me. The woman that discovered us, when she started realizing that I was going to be difficult to handle or tame, one afternoon in frustration, she threw her hands down on her desk and looked across at me and said, ‘Goddamn it, Charley Crockett. It’s a Coke and Pepsi world, and you are going to have to dance.’ She said my problem was that I just wanted to be Woody Guthrie and this was my one golden opportunity. Well, the only thing she was right about is I did want to be Woody Guthrie. Where we disagreed is, I don’t think you have one shot. You just have to keep rolling the dice.
At a certain point, I felt like I was out in the wilderness. And when you get far enough out there, the air is real good. You learn how to survive in it, and you just keep going. Don’t ever turn around.” —Charley Crockett (Son of Davy/Thirty Tigers)
Charley Crockett
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The advice I’d offer any indie artist is…: “You have to be persistent in selling your musical vision to find your fans and reach the masses. Being creative and trusting your instincts as an artist can help to level the playing field. And most importantly, don’t take no for an answer.” —Ken Levitan, Vector Management; manager, Charley Crockett
The biggest benefit of being independent is…: “I can work closely with my team and lead my projects, making sure my goals come to reality. At the end of the day, as the artist and mind of my project, that makes it easier for all to be on the same page.” —Junior H (Rancho Humilde)
The advice I’d offer any indie artist is…: “Trust the process.” —Key Glock (Paper Route/EMPIRE)
The advice I’d offer any indie artist is…: “Trust yourself, be authentic and see your artistic vision through. Continue to create the music that speaks to you that will resonate with your core audience, and don’t compromise for quick commercial success.” —Shaboozey (EMPIRE)
The biggest benefit of being independent is…: “Having the flexibility to move at your own pace. For example, if we want to release a record, we control that internally and can capitalize on any traction instantaneously — rather than having to get approvals from multiple parties. We live in a world where the consumer attention span is shorter than it’s ever been, so being able to strike while the iron is hot is ever so crucial to the success of an artist’s rollout.” —Abas Pauti, manager, Shaboozey
Shaboozey
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“It’s so important for an artist to be able to say yes or no without manipulation or punishment. I believe creative freedom is priceless. Art is beautiful. It is honest, it is therapy, it is healing, it is personal, and it is often disrupted and tainted by business minds and models looking to make a quick coin. While the independent route is not without its own risks [like] self-financing, I am truly grateful to be able to be in control of my life and my art.” —RAYE (Human Re Sources)
The advice I’d offer any indie artist is…: “Being independent doesn’t mean working alone! It’s an old saying, but it takes a village and it really does. Your team is everything. I firmly believe getting that right is essential for success.” —Paul Keen, manager, RAYE
“Being an independent artist is one of the most empowering positions to be in. Independent artists feel the weight of responsibility for the future of their careers, which I think oftentimes leads to an increase in grit and work ethic.
I think I’ve realized the power and value of a team that’s aligned with the artist’s vision. A small but effective team around an independent artist and the right strategic partnerships can make a huge difference.” —JVKE (AWAL)
The advice I’d offer any indie artist is…: “Right now, artist culture is very anti-major label. The seed of this is obviously that traditional label deals have been very exploitative. However, I’m noticing that, among young artists, this culture is breeding a fear of engaging with anyone who might be able to help scale their projects. I was speaking with a really talented artist the other day and they were telling me how they’re drowning simply trying to keep up with content creation and writing new songs. Yet, five minutes earlier, they were telling me how they never respond to any music pros that hit them up on socials, because it’s stupid for an artist to have a manager or label partner and give away money when they can do it all on their own. I had to stop them and point out the contradiction.
The great news is, the sort of predatory deals that sparked this label conversation in the first place aren’t all that’s on the table anymore. There are companies out there that allow artists to retain ownership of their music and maintain creative control, while still offering help with all the tasks artists don’t have the time for or network to facilitate, and they’ll do it for a very justifiable portion of the profit that is fractions of what artists had to give away in the past.
If you just want to write songs in your bedroom and hopefully pay the bills, then you might be able to swing it on your own. If you want to go big, building the right team is the best investment an artist can make. There are no billion-dollar businesses that are run by one person alone.” —Ethan Curtis, Plush Management; manager, JVKE
JVKE
David Livingston/WireImage
The advice I’d offer any indie artist is…: “A personal connection with your team is paramount. As the industry continues to shift, having a team that you trust and can envision being in your life for the next two, five, 10, 15 years is crucial. Katie Crutchfield has always had a very specific vision for Waxahatchee. While it has certainly evolved over the years, having a group of a few core, trusted team members around her has been key to keeping Katie’s goals focused and achievable.” —Reynold Jaffe, Another Management Company; manager, Waxahatchee (Anti-)
The biggest benefit of being independent is…: “Being in control of your intellectual property, how you monetize it, release it and promote it. At the end of the day, you then own all of your own IP, to sell or continue working as you’d like to, on your own terms.” —Dean Wilson, manager, deadmau5 (mau5trap)
“For Djo, the most important aspect of releasing music is to allow for people to discover the songs and who is behind them on their own. By staying independent, he is under no pressure to rush his campaigns.” —Nick Stern, manager, Djo (AWAL)
Why is being independent important to you?: “Because being a musician means being a part of the music industry, it begins to entangle creativity and business — which can be incredibly difficult and painful for artists. Being independent, we are able to maintain creative control over the vast majority of what we do, and it’s something I would never consider giving up.” —Khruangbin’s Laura Lee Ochoa (Dead Oceans)
Laura Lee Ochoa
Scott Dudelson/Getty Images
The biggest benefit of being independent is…: “As an independent manager who represents independent artists, we are afforded autonomy both creatively and strategically since there is less pressure to hit markers of supposed success that are often informed by financial obligation versus artistry. The music must come first, in its most pure and passionate form. If you bet on yourself, you’re sure to win.” —Dawn White, You and Me, Inc.; manager, Khruangbin
The advice I’d offer any indie artist is…: “Surround yourself with a team that you trust and you know will put your career and the integrity of your music first. I couldn’t do anything I do without my team, from my label to management and beyond. From American Idol to moving to Nashville to being thrown headfirst into the unknown world of the music industry, I’m so grateful I had all of them there to guide me, my music and my career from the very beginning.” —Chayce Beckham (Wheelhouse/BBR Music Group)
The biggest benefit of being independent is…: “I loved being involved [at BBR Music Group] with a small group of passionate people who woke up every day with an ‘us against the world’ attitude. While they have had great successes with Jason Aldean, Jelly Roll and Lainey Wilson, that same passion and drive remains.” —Clarence Spalding, manager, Jason Aldean
Who is “indie”?: The artists featured in this story meet the guidelines of Billboard’s Top Independent Albums chart, which includes labels distributed independently or through the indie division of a major-label group as well as labels that are independently owned and control their masters but are distributed directly through Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment or Warner Music Group.
This story will appear in the June 8, 2024, issue of Billboard.
At just 10 years old, Christopher Brent Wood’s metamorphosis into indie disruptor Brent Faiyaz began.
As he collected CDs by D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill and Joe, among other R&B/hip-hop artists, the youngster would steadily pore over album liner notes, absorbing the behind-the-scenes details of how his favorite albums were made. By middle school, he had set up his first home studio, with a USB mic and downloaded software — the start of his shift from music fan to music-maker.
“I was making money selling beats; that’s how I got a lot of my friends when I was younger,” Faiyaz, 28, recalls today of his teenage years in the Baltimore area. “It’d be like grown motherf–kers coming to the house to get beats off me. My parents were like, ‘Who are these grown adults coming by the house? What’s going on?’ ”
Faiyaz’s parents had once pushed him to attend college. But eventually, that morphed into, “Can you just please graduate [high school]?” Faiyaz recalls with a chuckle, “because my grades were so bad. It was like you can do something all day every day, but if it’s not bringing no money to the house, they figured you needed a plan B or C. But music was all I wanted to do. So I kind of had to prove them wrong.”
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Faiyaz has done just that. Since he began releasing his own music on SoundCloud over a decade ago, he has upended the contemporary R&B scene with his raw, frank lyrics and ’90s-vibed alt-R&B sound — and become a bona fide mainstream hit-maker in the process. After gaining national attention with his guest turn (alongside Shy Glizzy) on GoldLink’s multiplatinum hit “Crew,” Faiyaz dropped his debut studio album, Sonder Son, in 2017. His loyal fan base continued to grow, and he broke through on the Billboard 200 in 2020 with his EP F–k the World, which bowed at No. 20; two years later, his second studio album, Wasteland, debuted at No. 2 on the chart, powered by the platinum singles “Gravity” (with Tyler, The Creator) and “Wasting Time” (with Drake and The Neptunes). Faiyaz has earned 4.7 million equivalent album units in the United States and 6.5 billion official on-demand U.S. streams for songs on which he’s the lead artist, according to Luminate, and he has charted 13 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, 20 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and 33 on Hot R&B Songs. Faiyaz’s solo catalog of songs on which he’s credited as a primary artist generated 2.16 billion on-demand audio streams (inclusive of user-generated content) in the U.S. over the past 12 months ending May 30, 2024, according to Luminate. That’s the most among acts whose catalogs are distributed independently and outside of the major-owned indie distribution system.
It’s Faiyaz’s unwavering work ethic, creative visual flair and keen entrepreneurial instincts that have helped him craft one of independent music’s biggest recent success stories. In 2015, he and his manager, Ty Baisden, co-founded the label Lost Kids, which released F–k the World and Wasteland, and their success caught the attention of music distributor UnitedMasters and its founder and CEO, Steve Stoute. The company partnered with Faiyaz in 2023 to launch creative agency ISO Supremacy, and Faiyaz’s first ISO album, Larger Than Life, arrived that October, reaching No. 11 on the Billboard 200. The same year, he embarked on his F*ck the World, It’s a Wasteland world tour, playing theaters and grossing $5.3 million over 18 shows, according to Billboard Boxscore.
“A lot of it was timing,” the soft-spoken Faiyaz reflects today over his lunch of Mongolian lamb at a tony Beverly Hills restaurant. “I was fortunate enough to be in a space where I had the mainstream hit record with ‘Crew,’ and then I also had the underground sh-t. So I was able to tackle the super music heads and the mainstream audience all at one time. By the time Wasteland dropped, it was just perfect timing.”
Wales Bonner suit and Ray-Ban sunglasses.
Austin Hargrave
Of course, for him to take advantage of such perfect timing, he had to put in the work first. After graduating from high school in 2013, Faiyaz (whose stage surname means “artistic leader” in Arabic and was inspired by a close high school friend who’s Muslim) relocated to Charlotte, N.C. While he worked jobs at a grocery store and Dunkin’, Faiyaz continued to record and upload music on SoundCloud for his budding fan base. That’s where his kindred indie spirit — and eventual manager and business partner — Baisden discovered him. But it was Faiyaz’s singing, not his rapping, that intrigued Baisden.
“I clicked on a song called ‘Natural Release,’ ” says Baisden, who broke into the business as a manager in 2008 before co-founding multisector firm COLTURE in 2018. “It was the only song that Brent was singing and had more plays than all the other songs. While it gave me a whole wave like Frank Ocean, the way Brent’s tone felt made it his own world. I was like, ‘Man, this is fire,’ because he raps how he talks but he doesn’t sing how he talks. It’s a completely different audio experience.”
But despite his love of R&B, Faiyaz didn’t initially see himself as “built for R&B singing. I wasn’t really a take-my-shirt-off-and-show-my-abs kind of guy [onstage], so I didn’t think I was suited for it. And Ty said, ‘That doesn’t necessarily have to be what you do.’ So I just took the things that I would have been rapping about and put it in a way where I could sing it.”
Givenchy shirt and jacket.
Austin Hargrave
Baisden flew to Charlotte to meet Faiyaz, and the pair ultimately joined forces as founding partners in Lost Kids, named for Faiyaz’s high school crew; he has the letters tattooed on his knuckles. “The whole ideology of Lost Kids came from [Brent],” Baisden says. He handles everything related to Faiyaz’s business; Faiyaz maintains control over all creative aspects of his career. (“He isn’t in the studio with me; he isn’t picking my singles,” he says of Baisden.) As 50/50 partners in Lost Kids, Baisden and Faiyaz have — beyond music and publishing — also invested in startup companies, real estate and the Show You Off grant program, which supports Black women entrepreneurs. In a full-circle moment, Faiyaz’s mother, Jeanette, is also involved in Lost Kids’ philanthropic efforts.
“If we hadn’t met each other,” Faiyaz says of Baisden, “we would both definitely still be successful in our respective lanes because we’re both so driven and focused with similar visions. We’re learning from each other, but we didn’t go into this trying to do each other’s jobs. That’s what makes our alliance so special.”
As he and Faiyaz started working together, Baisden laid down one cardinal rule out of the gate for independent success: “That budget is the Bible.” Indie artists especially “have to really understand that,” he says today. “Brent would get mad because I’d say, ‘We can’t afford that, it’s too much. We’ll go out of business.’ ”
“Oh, man, it was the worst,” Faiyaz recalls with a laugh. “I was so focused on creativity that my ideas were outrageous. For me, a budget limited my creativity; it was like, ‘Pop the balloon.’ ”
“The funny thing,” Baisden explains, “[is] that when you look back today at our 2018 video for ‘Gang Over Luv’ [an early Faiyaz single], it only cost $50,000. But we still had Brent on a dirt bike, flying on a plane, the plane blowing up… it was incredible for being shot independently. There weren’t a lot of videos, but those that were shot were good investments. And the [budget] backlash at the time grew a smarter executive.” Now Faiyaz says he knows not only how to work with a budget but “how to maximize off the bare minimum — probably one of the most important things I’ve learned.”
When Faiyaz began truly blowing up in 2020, he found himself among a formidable contingent of male crooners including PartyNextDoor, Bryson Tiller, Lucky Daye and fellow newcomer Giveon. His supple tenor, which effortlessly slides into falsetto range in a way that’s reminiscent of R&B’s ’90s heyday, helped him stake his claim.
“I love things that sound throwback but are unique,” says Grammy Award-winning producer No ID, who collaborated with Faiyaz on Wasteland. “Brent’s music gives me a lot of the energy I felt from what I call the basement crew back then with Jodeci, Timbaland and Static. It has a gospel overtone, but it’s not gospel. There’s a tension in it. But it’s not overly soft even when he says ‘soft’ things.”
Brent Faiyaz photographed April 11, 2024 in Los Angeles. Stüssy x Levi’s pants.
Austin Hargrave
That tension stems from Faiyaz’s raw, fearless lyrics, which explore subjects ranging from life post-pandemic and the pressures of fame to romance and self-love, paired with his melodious and innovative blend of R&B, Afrobeats, rap, pop and other sonic influences. “His music always has a little edge to it. I love witty lyrics and syncopation,” No ID adds. “It’s just a great mixture for me. And a lot of people don’t have that naturally.”
Because of that edge, especially in its lyrics, some listeners have labeled his music “toxic,” pointing to songs like “F*ck the World” (“Your n—a caught us texting/You said, ‘Baby, don’t be mad, you know how Brent is’ ”) and “WY@” from Larger Than Life (“I be doing sh-t I really shouldn’t do for real/That’s why I always tell you to come through for real”). But Faiyaz says he’s simply drawing on real life, whether his own experiences, those of friends or just “keeping my ear to the street and checking the temperature.”
“R&B music is soulful and reality-driven,” he continues. “I want to portray the good, the bad, the ugly… I want to have a song for every situation you could possibly be going through. Life can be toxic sometimes, and I have records for that. That word tends to be the narrative because of the shock involved when people say, ‘Man, I can’t believe you said that.’ But people who have been following my music know that for every toxic record, there’s a heartfelt record, a sweet record. But being toxic was never the vision or intentional identity I was trying to portray. I’m making songs that to me are true.”
The initially shy Faiyaz grows impassioned as he discusses his love of songwriting. Prince and Stevie Wonder first sparked it in him, but he also names Max Martin, Dolly Parton, Kurt Cobain and more from far beyond R&B and hip-hop as influences. “When it comes to songwriting, genre doesn’t matter,” he says. “I grew up on a lot of different music, and I’m big on lyrics. I love writing music because it’s cathartic, my biggest form of release. If I leave it on a song, I don’t have to walk around with it.”
Faiyaz has considered, more than once, what a nonindependent career might look like. Early on, he pitched himself to major-label A&R executives. “The idea of going to a label and doing a deal was only something that I knew to do because that’s what I’d seen done so many times,” he reflects. “They offered me deals that I wasn’t trying to sign: Giving me a percentage of some music that I made before I even came to [them] just didn’t sit right. There was no deep spiritual stance or me planting a flag of independence. It was just, ‘This deal doesn’t make sense, so I’m not going to do it.’ ”
By 2016, multiple labels under the majors were courting him. And following the one-two punch of F–k the World and Wasteland, they came calling again. At that point, it had been several years since Faiyaz had last met with executives on that side of the industry — so despite “already having a grudge” from that first experience, he was willing to hear them out. This time around, however, he kept another of Baisden’s key rules of independence in mind: Know your value.
“It kills me when labels sign an artist knowing who that artist is creatively, but then they try to dictate their music and other things,” he explains. “Nothing is going to stifle your creativity more than having to say yes to some lame sh-t that you don’t want to do or being told no to some really cool sh-t that you want to do. It’s really no deeper than that for me. So I went with my gut.”
Isabel Marant jacket, shirt, pants and shoes.
Austin Hargrave
That brought Faiyaz to UnitedMasters and Steve Stoute. “Brent was unapologetically independent prior to me meeting him,” Stoute recalls. “In fact, that was what made me so interested in him. I knew that he was turning down major labels left and right. He had built a very strong team and infrastructure with his manager, Ty. So what he was looking for was a partner to provide him financial capital to go into other ventures that were creative.”
In a partnership deal signed in May 2023 — which a source close to the situation told Billboard at the time was valued at nearly $50 million — the pair announced the launch of Faiyaz’s own creative agency specializing in “visual and sonic art”: ISO Supremacy (ISO stands for “in search of”). “I liked the model, the creative freedom,” says Faiyaz, who serves as CEO. “And I was able to keep working with the people I’d been working with.” At the agency, “from the artists we work with to the creatives and directors we have on board, everything is pretty much about just what we think is cool [or are] hearing word-of-mouth spreading about something that is fire — and then we see how we’re going to translate and elevate this sh-t to the world.”
“Brent is a very talented musician and visual artist,” Stoute says. “He’s a very intelligent businessman whose contributions to the music business and independent artists have been profound.” One of those artists is R&B/hip-hop singer-songwriter Tommy Richman, ISO Supremacy’s first signee — brought to Faiyaz’s attention by his high school friend and ISO partner/COO Darren Xu — through a joint venture with PULSE Records. (Faiyaz’s relationship with PULSE dates back to 2016, when he entered his first publishing deal with PULSE Music Group after moving to Los Angeles; he renewed it in 2022.) Following his August 2023 signing, Richman — also managed by Xu and who opened Faiyaz’s recent tour and appeared on Larger Than Life — rocketed to No. 2 on the Hot 100 in May with his first single, “Million Dollar Baby.”
“You soak in a lot,” Richman says of his time spent with Faiyaz. “I feel like if I didn’t move with Brent this past year — with the shit that’s happening right now — I would crash and burn. Being with him at clubs or shows, seeing how he interacts with people and how he carries himself, I picked up on a lot. You’d think that hanging out with somebody like that, you’d get a big ego. But honestly, it has humbled me more. He’s just a normal f–king guy from Maryland who just makes beautiful songs.”
As with Baisden, PULSE Music Group senior vp/head of creative Ashley Calhoun and now with Xu, Stoute and Richman, Faiyaz’s business interactions reflect how he has prioritized building long-term relationships as an independent artist. “I’m about the people more than I am about anything else,” Faiyaz says. “If I can run with you and kick it with you when there’s no business being discussed, then you’re somebody I want to do business with.”
Givenchy shirt, jacket, pants and shoes.
Austin Hargrave
Since wrapping his most recent tour in November, Faiyaz, who lives in Miami, has been enjoying some downtime. But that doesn’t keep him from enthusiastically reeling off a list of projects he’s currently developing, ranging from films, commercials and signing more artists to further expanding his clothing brand, NUWO (an acronym, in keeping with his indie ethos, for Not Unless We Own). He’s even picking up a long-forgotten passion again: drawing, which he last did in a class he received a scholarship for at the Maryland Institute College of Art when he was 8. When it comes to creation of any kind, Faiyaz says, “I love everything about the ideation process, every piece of it. Then once it gets to the point of consumption, I’m past it and moving on to the next.”
As our lunch winds down and the restaurant becomes quiet, our waiter returns with the culinary director in tow: It turns out that both are major-league Faiyaz fans. “Thanks for coming,” the director says with palpable excitement. “I wish you’d been at Coachella. Keep doing your thing; you’re killing it!”
Faiyaz seems surprised to be treated like a rock star. “Thank you, man. Appreciate you,” he responds politely, seeming to register a gamut of emotions that evolve from slightly surprised to humble to quietly moved as he agrees to the duo’s tentative request for a photo. But that brief exchange encapsulates just how far Faiyaz has come in his unwavering quest to own all facets of his career — and to telegraph that message to aspiring artists and listeners alike.
“My role musically and artistically, that’s not really up for me to interpret,” Faiyaz says matter-of-factly. “There are still a lot more things I want to learn. But now I’m realizing how important it was to break the mold so that people can see my story, see what we did and say, ‘All right, I can do that. It’s just another way to go about it. It doesn’t really have to be so black and white.’ That has been my role: to usher in this new wave of creative freedom.”
Additional reporting by Shira Brown and Carl Lamarre.
This story will appear in the June 8, 2024, issue of Billboard.
James Blake is “the freest [he’s] ever felt,” tells Billboard over a recent Zoom call.
After about twelve years spent signed to Polydor Records, the producer/singer is now independent and experimenting with new ways to release his music to “match the speed of the internet,” he says.
On the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, Blake released “Thrown Around,” his first single since he left Polydor. “I know it was an anarchistic move… Sunday’s a terrible day to release music, but I thought it was fun to try now that I can,” he laughs.
Part of Blake’s new post-label experiment includes paying creative collaborators both upfront (where applicable) and in “points,” or a percentage of the master recording royalties, so that everyone is “incentivized to push the song and to win together,” he says. Points on the master are typically only allotted to producers of a record, but Blake is going further, offering points to non-producing songwriters and his creative director, Crowns & Owls.
To pull it all off, Blake turned to Indify, a music company that lives by the slogan “artists are founders” and could benefit from raising capital for their releases similar to the way start-ups do. Instead of traditional label deals, Indify is a “service marketplace” for artists to meet strategic angel investors on a song-by-song basis, says CEO/co-founder Shav Garg. Interested acts select from an online leaderboard of angels – including music businesses like Thrice Cooked Media, Golden Kids Group and ATG and musically inclined Silicon Valley execs like Alexis Ohanian – to build their set of partners based on success metrics and the investors’ bios.
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Artists using Indify cede a percentage of streaming royalties for a given song until investors recoup the up-front funding and aid they offer. (Indify takes a 15% cut of the investor’s share of profits after recoupment and no investor is allowed to keep 50% or more of the streaming royalties after recoupment).
Founded in 2015, Indify is seen as a tool to “add gas to the fire,” as Garg puts it, on viral moments from independent artists. The company has had success stories include up-starts like Armani White, Pink Sweat$ and Anees, but Blake is by far the biggest artist to use the platform yet. “We’ve proven thus far that Indify can help artists go from, 20 to 70, but one of our goals has been taking an artist from 70 to 100, like major labels do,” says Garg. “I can tell James is willing and ready to lead the way for the next generation of artists and to take the jump, trying something like this first.”
Blake and Garg first bonded at a U.S. Open tournament several years ago and reconnected through Blake’s management when Blake began talking openly about his newfound independence and desire to handle his career differently going forward. Before “Thrown Around” dropped, Blake’s indie experiment included a partnership with superfans app Vault.FM to provide fans with unreleased demos for a monthly subscription. Garg and Blake aligned on the idea that “at a label, your music is subsidizing a million departments,” Blake says. “It’s a huge moving ship to steer, and it’s a bloated business with crazy overheads. I don’t want to pay for the CEO’s mansion in the Cayman Islands.”
Blake also felt there was a “lack of transparency” about how money was being spent on his behalf while signed to a label and that he didn’t have “much choice” in picking his team within the building, even if those assigned to him “didn’t really seem to understand” his project.
After going back and forth about what single to release as his first drop with Indify, Blake made “Thrown Around” and felt instantly that it was the right introduction to this new phase of his career. It’s easy to see why. The song (released May 26) and its video depict Blake as an artist desperate to get his music to go viral by any means necessary. At the end of the video, Blake is bloodied and bruised by all the ways he has dangerously attempted to feed the algorithm, and he ultimately learns that none of it was enough to sustain his art.
“James signed up online and used Indify just like anyone else does,” says Garg. Blake ultimately opted to pair with a combination of Good Boy Records and Stellar Trigger Marketing to build out his team for “Thrown Around” after finding them on the Indify leaderboard. Good Boy co-founder John Zamora says that “before the song came out, we already recouped the deal we did with James. We secured a pretty big synch, though I can’t say more than that.” Good Boy specialized in film/TV (or “synch”) licensing opportunities for Blake, but the company also connected with him over a shared interest in providing better compensation for songwriters.
In the last few years, songwriters’ dwindling payments in the streaming economy have made headlines, and a few indie labels have stepped in with a proposed solution to offer “points” for the songwriters who, unlike producers, typically don’t make money on the master recording side. As Billboard reported in December, this new cohort of companies includes Good Boy, The Other Songs, Facet Records and Nvak Collective. Some producers, like Good Boy co-founder Elie Rizk and Tre Jean Marie, have also been giving away some of their points to their songwriter collaborators. Now, with “Thrown Around,” Blake is joining the movement.
Stellar Trigger was brought into Blake’s Indify deal to aid with digital marketing. “Things have changed since I started,” Blake says. “Back then, it was quite easy to be mysterious. I mean, you have a whole generation of producers wearing masks. I think it’s pretty difficult to maintain that now and still get your music out there. It’s not the way it works anymore.”
Though Blake stopped short of wearing a mask, his early career characterized him as a mysterious musical genius with a “sad” disposition – an image he’s railed against in recent years. In a recent Instagram Reel, Blake wrote that he was “practicing looking sad for those who want me to be sad so that I make sad music forever,” in a cheeky dig at his fans.
“This is the most connected I’ve ever felt with the way my music is being pushed,” Blake tells Billboard. To brainstorm, he’s been in constant communication with Stellar Trigger co-founder Ryan Peterson to build the multimedia storytelling of “Thrown Around.” “We wanted it to be meaningful. There’s a lot of narrative here, with James leaving the major label and coming to independence,” says Peterson. “I’m constantly texting ideas back and forth with him.”
The story told in the “Thrown Around” music video was teased out, piece by piece, in meta social media posts about how artists have to make social media posts. Whether or not the song ever hits the Billboard Hot 100 is unclear, but Blake maintains that “Thrown Around” is still “more successful than any previous single campaign” of his career.
More importantly, it serves as proof that digital storytelling, lean budgets, equity incentives and the freedom to pick partners on a song-by-song basis can lead to creative and financial success in today’s market. Now, he’s in talks with his team about working together again for a follow-up single.
“I feel we’ve made something groundbreaking [with ‘Thrown Around’],” says Blake. “I’m excited for the future.”
Good Neighbours’ “Home” has been one of the biggest viral success stories of 2024 so far. Here’s how the duo made it happen.
Foundation
Before they were Good Neighbours, Scott Verrill and Oli Fox were literal neighbors in an East London studio space last year, intrigued by each other’s solo work bleeding through the metal windows. “We could constantly hear what each of us was playing,” Fox recalls, “and on a spare morning, we did a bit of free writing together.”
Those sessions hinged on shared influences — Verrill and Fox both draw from late-2000s indie–pop mainstays like MGMT and Passion Pit — and “Keep It Up,” one of the first songs the duo wrote together with its booming drums and yelped vocal hooks, formed a mission statement of sorts while the pair worked through demos in late 2023.
Discovery
In January, Good Neighbours recorded the oversize chorus of “Home,” a bleeding-heart, whistle-packed anthem, and decided to float the refrain on TikTok without finishing the rest of the song. “It started out pretty quickly — a few thousand plays — and we got excited and said, ‘If it hits 25,000, we’ll get a pint!’ ” Fox says.
Within a few hours, the “Home” clip had crossed the 1 million mark, and major labels were reaching out to the duo’s manager, Joe Etchells of Various Artists, who signed the act in September 2023. “Home” was quickly fleshed out to a full song, debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 in February and has earned 77 million streams through April 25, according to Luminate. Instead of grabbing that celebratory drink, Verrill and Fox got their worlds upended: “We’re constantly looking at each other and going, ‘This is insane,’ ” Fox says.
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Future
Last week, Good Neighbours announced a global joint venture with Capitol Records and Polydor Records. And after lining up headlining shows in the United Kingdom and Europe for the spring and festival gigs for the summer, Good Neighbours released “Keep It Up” in April as their second single and are finishing more material to be released later this year.
“We wrote a bunch of new demos in January, and we’ve got like 10 from last year — some of which are probably better than ‘Home,’ which is really nice,” Fox says. Still, after recording separately for years before joining forces, Verrill and Fox understand how rare a breakthrough like “Home” can be in the modern music industry. “The whole thing has been such a happy accident,” Verrill says. “We’re still trying to process it.”
This story originally appeared in the May 11, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Los Angeles-based musician mk.gee played back-to-back sold out shows this week at the Fonda Theater in Hollywood, and the performances were no-frills: no opener, no banter, no visuals.
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In fact, mk.gee could hardly be seen amidst the spotlight placed directly behind him for the entire show on Wednesday (April 24). He let his music do all of the talking instead, and while this description might sound uninspired, the real effect was anything but. mk.gee’s performance was more captivating and enigmatic than even his recorded music — a show that kept the spotlight fixed on the artist’s work rather than the artist himself.
After releasing his latest album, Two Star and the Dream Police, on Feb. 9, mk.gee (real name: Mike Gordon) has been amassing his own brand of mysterious indie stardom. He’s always been a musician’s musician, beloved by everyone from Frank Ocean to Anderson .Paak dating back to 2018’s sunnier album Pronounced McGee. But the singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer had yet to hit the radar of many current listeners until Two Star debuted.
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This is likely because he keeps to himself. It’s clear mk.gee is not chasing algorithms or clout or money. He rarely does interviews or shows his whole face in photos. The most he’s ever been seen really was when he played guitar in Dijon’s music videos for Absolutely, the acclaimed 2021 album that he co-wrote and co-produced, or the recent time he played on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Even then, viewers in the YouTube comment section were calling him a “Batman of Music.”
It’s refreshing — and shocking — to see a musician like mk.gee in 2024, and his elusiveness and focus on his craft is not something I believed could still work in an era of shameless and constant self-promotion. With mk.gee, the music is enough. What a relief that is.
He came with just two bandmates (Andrew Aged and Zack Sekof), a hard set-up to pull off, especially when the focal point of the performance is on the musicality of the artist on stage. Playing through songs from Two Star, the three musicians improvised over the tracks, patiently and incisively, bringing new emotional heft to songs that already oozed with it to begin with. Sometimes this would go on for minutes longer than the recorded version’s run time, especially after “Are You Looking Up” which marked the end of the set before he came back for an encore, and it was always felt like a gift to hear the trio keep going.
If the set could be compared to anyone else’s, it would probably be that of musical polymath James Blake or of Bon Iver’s 22, A Million performances, which have similarly used backlighting and an artful mix of programmed and ad-libbed playing.
While I was hoping to hear some tracks from Pronounced McGee and The Museum of Contradiction (2020), mk.gee’s set was much more uniform as simply a showcase of Two Star songs, and I could forgive those exclusions for the sonic consistency this choice brought to the show. All in all, mk.gee’s was an incredibly focused, sparse presentation that kept his musicianship centerstage at all times. It’s a must-see for concert lovers, especially those who seek live talent over visual pageantry.
See the setlist for mk.gee’s L.A. show on April 24 below.
“New Low”
“How Many Miles”
“Dream Police”
“You got It”
“Rylee & I”
“Dimeback”
“Candy”
“I Want”
“Are You Looking Up”
—
“Alesis”
“Candy”
In the mid-2000s, indie rock was booming, and major labels swooped in to sign many of the genre’s biggest acts. Two decades later, MGMT,The Decemberists, Death Cab for Cutie and Modest Mouse, among others, have emerged from those deals into a wildly different music industry. For artists who are coming out of long contracts, “it’s a whole new era,” says Kirk Harding, a longtime manager and co-owner of label and management company Bad Habit.
Recording contracts changed drastically between 2004 and 2024. There is also a new set of players for artists to choose from — not just the major labels and prominent indies, but a number of distribution companies that offer some level of services. “You can cherry pick what you want to be in your contract to some degree,” says Scott Brooks, the longtime manager of The Flaming Lips, which is currently without a label contract after fulfilling their deal with Warner Records. (Paramore is also a free agent.)
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“If we end up signing,” Brooks adds, “it’ll be a different kind of record deal than what we would have signed even a decade ago.”
Throughout the 2000s and into the 2010s, the majority of major label acts signed low-royalty deals and typically gave up ownership of three to five albums for a long period (often forever). On top of that, many agreed to what are known as “360 deals,” in which the label also participates in income from merchandise, sponsorships, ticket sales and more.
In those days, labels could get these kinds of terms because it was difficult, if not impossible, for artists to get national exposure without a record company’s help. Now, artists can build a global presence before partnering with any label. That means they have the negotiating power to ask for, and sometimes receive, terms that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. As a result, industry expectations around deal-making have shifted.
“I don’t think I’ve done a deal with anybody in the last few years where the artist hasn’t had at least 50% of the profit,” Harding says. “The new wars to wage are making sure that the deals and the reversions are short term, so that the artist can get through the deal and get back these new recordings quickly.” (If a band licenses its album to a label for 10 years, for example, after that time, the album reverts back to the band, usually conditional on recoupment of the deal.)
All that said, an artist’s leverage in record deal negotiations stems in large part from their ability to generate streams. And this doesn’t always work out in favor of veteran rock bands; rock is the fifth most popular genre when ranked by percentage of current streams, according to Luminate. “There aren’t as many options as one would think right now given what’s going on with rock music and streaming,” says Jordan Kurland, who manages Death Cab for Cutie.
Still, these acts have mostly proven that they can build and maintain an audience — especially on the road, a challenge for many artists who came of age in an era of passive streaming engagement. And some of them have a level of cultural cachet that’s attractive to labels, who always have to think about what will entice the next generation of signings. Friendly deal terms help, as does having artists on the roster that young acts look up to.
Whenever an artist who signed a traditional contract with a major label completes the deal, their old record company typically still has one hook in them because they still likely own the act’s previous sound recordings. “If the label wants you to stay, they have the power to say, ‘We can adjust the royalty rate on your catalog,’ or in rare cases, take your recordings out of perpetuity and set reversions so you eventually get them back,” Harding says.
“That always comes up now in renegotiations,” adds an executive at a prominent indie label. “Artists say, ‘Cool, we’ll re-sign with you, but we want those recordings back in 10 years.’”
This leverage is conditional, of course, on the label wanting to keep the band. In the case of The Flaming Lips, “after American Head, we started the conversation of, was Warner gonna sign us again?” Brooks recalls. “Is Warner even interested? It really came back that they weren’t, to be honest.”
Some veteran bands might still want to find a major label partner for particular services. While radio’s influence continues to diminish, promotion remains expensive, and the majors still have the most radio muscle. “Radio is still a big part of the Death Cab picture,” Kurland says. During “the last Death Cab campaign in ticket sales, for example, if you look at markets that no longer had an alternative radio station, it [negatively] impacted our shows.”
“Could you sell less records and keep more of the money?” Kurland asks. “Yes. But are there other aspects of your business that might suffer by doing that?”
Gandhar Savur, an entertainment attorney who represents Built to Spill and other bands, asks a similar question — but he’s more optimistic about the answer. “If they’re doing really good business as a band, they can sell less records but retain the lion’s share of income and make so much more money,” he says. “That’s why you’re seeing a lot of bands go into situations where they’re no longer doing major label deals or even your standard 50-50 indie deal. They’re looking for something that’s more akin to a label services deal — which is a distribution deal with some services added for publicity and promotion.”
This is the route taken by The Decemberists, who previously released five albums on Capitol, including The King Is Dead, which hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200. For its upcoming album, the band opted to sign with Thirty Tigers, which is distributed by Sony’s The Orchard and offers some services, including radio.
“We found an option that provides label investment and infrastructure without compromising on ownership, and that gives the band and their team real autonomy with the marketing,” says Jason Colton, who manages the band, via email. “It’s a lot of responsibility for a larger release, but ultimately, it’s more investment, more control and outright ownership than we were going to find in a more traditional deal.”
Outside of the majors and major-owned distributors, indie label executives say they have also seen an uptick in interest from veterans leaving majors in recent years. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs signed a deal with Secretly Canadian in 2022 after years of working with Interscope, for example, while PJ Harvey released an album on Partisan in 2023 after a 20-plus-year affiliation with Island Records. MGMT’s new album Loss of Life came out in February through Mom + Pop.
Potential label partners have their own calculations to make. “It’s hard for any label if you only have the new record and someone else has all the catalog, because a new record always drives catalog listening, but you’re not participating in the income,” the indie label executive says. “But there’s always been a thing where labels need and want important artists, even if they’re expensive, to attract other artists.”
“A lot of these bands are in a good position so they can get favorable terms,” the person continues. “Maybe they only do a one-record deal. The hope is we do a good job, the artist is happy, and we renew that contract. Over time, we work with them long term.”
Additional reporting by Melinda Newman.