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Amid the offerings at the LA3C festival that took place in downtown L.A. this past weekend (Nov. 11-12), a presentation from the Saudi Arabia Music Commission put forth a broad view of the music industry currently being developed in the country.
Hosted by VIBE editor-in-chief Datwon Thomas, panelists included Paul Pacifico, CEO of the Saudi Music Commission; Ahmad Alammary, chief creative officer for the Saudi electronic music festival Soundstorm; Gigi Arabia, the founder/CEO of Saudi heavy metal organization Heavy Arabia; Mexican-American songwriter, producer and academic Fernando Garibay, who has worked in the Kingdom; and Saudi singer-songwriter Tamtam.
Saudi Arabia has seen significant social changes in the last decade, as the government has eased restrictions around formerly prohibited activities like playing music in public and co-ed gatherings. These new freedoms have helped lay the groundwork for the formation of a music industry, with the bulk of the panel discussion focused on how this industry is currently being built from scratch.
“We have huge pent-up supply of creativity and music,” said Pacifico, a Brit who joined the Music Commission as CEO in January 2023. “We have huge pent-up demand among audiences that have grown up wanting to go to festivals, concerts, events, to listen to music and enjoy themselves.”
“But we lack enablers,” Pacifico continued. “So over the next one year, three years, five years, it’s going to be all about building the structures that connect those dots that allow people to express themselves creatively and to build platforms that will enable Saudi artists to tell their stories in a way that will be heard around the world.”
“A lot of people working in the [global music] industry ask how we can fix our industry, or how we can rethink our industry,” added Garibay, “but I don’t think we’ve ever had in the history over the past 100 years a chance to think about, ‘How would you start over? How would you start from a new perspective?’”
The discussion emphasized that while Saudi Arabia does not yet have venues, a collecting society and other essential infrastructure, this clean canvas is allowing key players to, Alammary said, “shape it the way we want to learn from the lessons around the world and actually serve artists.”
Pacifico cited the major opportunities for artists in Saudi Arabia with respect to the country’s demographics, saying that “70% of the people are under 35 years old, and the country has 98% Internet penetration. So you have a young, connected, dynamic and unbelievably energized population.”
The panelists agreed that this audience and the emerging industry combined are creating huge opportunities for Saudi artists, as formerly underground scenes are coalesced and, as Alammary said, “unveiled.” These formerly underground scenes include those around genres like electronic music, the focus of the Saudi mega-festival Soundstorm that launched in 2019, along with hip-hop, heavy metal and more.
“All of the events took place in super unconventional places,” Arabia said of the Saudi metal scene before music-related restrictions were lifted. “We have something in Saudi called rest houses, little houses in the middle of nowhere for people to rest in if they’re going on a road trip, where events took place.”
“We’re still growing it event by event,” Arabia added in regard to the country’s current aboveground metal scene. “With the help of the Music Commission and its leadership, now we have been able to go and represent it in the genre globally.” She foresees Saudi Arabia becoming a “hotspot for metal heads” in a fashion similar to the Nordic region.
The Music Commission exists under the Saudi Ministry of Culture, a government entity focused on expanding the country’s entertainment sector through endeavors into music, sports, film and more. These entities exist as part of Vision 2030, the Saudi government’s plan, it says, to diversify the country’s economy, society and culture. (The LA3C panel did not touch on the challenges of building an industry amid the still-existing restrictions of the Saudi government, which does not protect freedom of speech and which, despite some recent advancements, still imposes myriad restrictions on women.)
“There’s an incomplete picture. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing,” Pacifico said of the country’s current industry, “But we see record labels coming up, we see management companies growing. The most amazing thing is the whole music industry is going through an accelerated time of massive change, and Saudi Arabia as a country is going through a massively accelerated time of change. So nothing’s taken for granted… and we can just think again about how to do things better, quicker, more efficiently.”
The presentation also included performances from Tamtam, Saudi pop artist Mishaal Tamer — who released his debut EP in 2020 via RCA Records and opened for OneRepublic on tour this past summer — and Riyadh-based producer and songwriter NTITLED.
LA3C was built to highlight communities creating culture around the world. LA3C created a paid partnership with the Saudi Music Commission to highlight the cultural shift in the commercial entertainment sector and with regional artists that have a presence in the United States and Saudi Arabia. LA3C is owned by Penske Media Corporation which is also the parent company of Billboard.
K-pop giant JYP Entertainment has signed a multi-year global strategic pact with Live Nation to produce tours for all artists on JYP’s roster, it was announced Monday (Nov. 13). Under the deal, Live Nation will produce tours for established JYP artists including TWICE, Stray Kids, iTZY, Xdinary Heroes (XH) and NMIXX as well as emerging […]
Nepal’s government in the capital of Kathmandu decided to ban the popular social media app TikTok on Monday, saying it was disrupting “social harmony” in the country, home of Mount Everest. The announcement was made following a Cabinet meeting. Foreign Minister Narayan Prakash Saud said the app would be banned immediately. “The government has decided […]
Over the past few years, we have been living in a music business in which, it’s often said, hits can come from anywhere around the world. Often, however, the hits we’re talking about have musical and production elements of pop, hip-hop and R&B — only with a twist or in another language. This is great. Unless you want the world to sound a little weirder, in which case it’s still great but you might wonder what else is out there.
As it happens, there’s a country that often seems to specialize in arty, off-kilter music — Iceland. Ever since the Sugarcubes emerged as what we used to call “college rock” darlings in the late 1980s, the Nordic country has exported more than its share of adventurous music: Björk, who emerged from the Sugarcubes as a solo act; Sigur Rós; Gus Gus, and more recently Laufey and Daði Freyr. (I originally heard this as “Daddy Feyr,” which says something about how our musical world is shrinking — but it’s actually his given name.)
The challenges of exporting acts from Iceland are significant: Few international music companies have offices there, the language isn’t spoken much outside the island, and there isn’t exactly much of a touring market in a country of 372,000 — far fewer people than saw Taylor Swift in Los Angeles this year. One of the important investors in the music business there is actually the government.
Last week, at the Iceland Airwaves festival and conference in Reykjavík, I got some sense of how that works and saw some a handful of Icelandic acts that could build solid global careers. (The festival flew me to Reykjavík to moderate a panel, with no expectation that I would cover the event, and I didn’t plan to do so.) None of them sound like they’re chasing the next streaming hit, which I found refreshing.
Since 2006, in fact, former Sugarcubes drummer Sigtryggur Baldursson has played a significant role in the international marketing of Icelandic music — first as part of Iceland Music Export, then since 2012 as managing director for its successor organization, Iceland Music. The organization coordinates grants and provides support for acts “to help people market music from here on their own terms,” Baldursson says. “We help labels and independent artists market their music better, but also to create better support for it.”
The direct results have been encouraging. But music has also helped brand Iceland, drawing tourists to a country with a vital culture as well as beautiful landscapes and hot springs. Björk is the most famous person in the country — by a kilometer.
Starting in January, Iceland is amping up its efforts. During the pandemic lockdown, the music business created a coalition to lobby the government for support, which eventually resulted in the creation of a new office that will fold two smaller organizations into the existing Iceland Music. As part of that change, Baldursson will step down as CEO in favor of María Rut Reynisdóttir. “The establishment of the new office,” Reynisdóttir says, “is a major milestone for the Icelandic music scene.”
All of the Nordic countries have “music export” organizations, and the ones in Finland and Norway are bigger because there’re less private investment in music than in Denmark and Sweden. “Formally opening the music center is an important milestone for music and musicians in this country,” says Lilja Dögg Alfreðsdóttir, Minister of Culture and Business Affairs. (Iceland, uniquely as far as I can tell, has one combined ministry for both business and culture.) “The music center can become one of the cornerstones of music life and industry.”
It’s hard to imagine this kind of government investment in music in the U.S., where it would quickly become a political clusterf—, with the disciples of Kid Rock facing off against those of Maren Morris. European countries are also more accustomed to public funding of the arts, including television and high culture institutions like opera. This isn’t necessarily the best solution overall — the U.S. still drives pop culture. But it works for them. One reason the U.S. drives pop culture is that it’s a big enough, rich enough country that private investment can pay off.
That’s one reason smaller countries subsidize their culture businesses — so they don’t get overwhelmed. France, famously, protects its film business, and many countries have radio airplay regulations that reserve a certain amount of time for local artists. Iceland even funds its book business to prevent local-language literature from being swamped by English authors.
That kind of thinking puts Iceland in an interesting situation. On one hand, most of the country’s pop music isn’t in Icelandic — it limits the potential audience. But much of it still has a certain spare kind of artiness — what’s Icelandic for je ne sais quoi? It’s often pop but not poppy, arty but not inaccessible. It’s too diverse to be considered a definable style but much of it has a certain aesthetic.
Iceland Airwaves is also a music festival, so I was able to check out some artists as well. Along with some acts from elsewhere, I enjoyed the off-kilter pop of local star Briet, the haunting electronic soundscapes of Kónguló, and, especially, the furiously arty punk of Gróa, which reminded me of the Raincoats.
Realistically, their combined potential to go viral seems pretty low, but that’s fine — Baldursson points out that most Icelandic acts depend more on playing live, anyway. These kinds of acts, Baldursson says, “they shoot from here out into the stratosphere.”
Korean artist MIDNATT made history earlier this year by using AI to help him translate his debut single “Masquerade” into six different languages. Though it wasn’t a major commercial success, its seamless execution by the HYBE-owned voice synthesis company Supertone proved there was a new, positive application of musical AI on the horizon that went beyond unauthorized deepfakes and (often disappointing) lo-fi beats.
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Enter Jordan “DJ Swivel” Young, a Grammy-winning mixing engineer and producer, known best for his work with Beyonce, BTS and Dua Lipa. His new AI voice company Hooky is one of many new start-ups trying to popularize voice cloning, but unlike much of his competition, Young is still an active and well-known collaborator for today’s musical elite. After connecting with pop star Lauv, whom he worked with briefly years before as an engineer, Young’s Hooky developed an AI voice model of Lauv’s voice so that they could translate the singer-songwriter’s new single “Love U Like That” into Korean.
It’s the first major Western artist to take part in the AI translation trend. Lauv wants the new translated version of “Love U Like That” to be a way of showing his love to his Korean fanbase and to celebrate his biggest headline show to date, which recently took place in Seoul.
Though many fans around the world listen to English-speaking music in high numbers, Will Page, author and former chief economist at Spotify, and Chris Dalla Riva, a musician and Audiomack employee, noted in a recent report that many international audiences are increasingly turning their interest back to their local language music – a trend they nicknamed “Glocalization.” With Hooky, Supertone and other AI voice synthesis companies all working to master translation, English-speaking artists now have the opportunity to participate in this growing movement and to form tighter bonds with international fans.
To explain the creation of “Love U Like That (Korean Version),” out Wednesday (Nov. 8), Lauv and Young spoke in an exclusive interview to Billboard.
When did you first hear what was possible with AI voice filters?
Lauv: I think the first time was that Drake and The Weeknd song [“Heart On My Sleeve” by Ghostwriter]. I thought it was crazy. Then when my friend and I were working on my album, we started playing each other’s music. He pulled out a demo. They were pitching it to Nicki Minaj, and he was singing it and then put it into Nicki Minaj’s voice. I remember thinking it’s so insane this is possible.
Why did you want to get involved with AI voice technology yourself?
Lauv: I truly believe that the only way forward is to embrace what is possible now, no matter what. I think being able to embrace a tool like this in a way that’s beneficial and able to get artists paid is great.
Jordan, how did you get acquainted with Lauv, and why did you feel he was the right artist to mark your first major collaboration?
Jordan “DJ Swivel” Young: We’ve done a lot of general outreach to record companies, managers, etcetera. We met Range Media Partners, Lauv’s management team, and they really resonated with Hooky. The timing was perfect: he was wrapping up his Asian tour and had done the biggest show of his life in South Korea. Plus, he has done a few collaborations with BTS. I’ve worked on a number of BTS songs too. There was a lot of synergy between us.
Why did you choose Korean as the language that you wanted to translate a song into?
Lauv: Well, in the future, I would love to have the opportunity to do this in as many different languages as possible, but Seoul has been a place that has become really close to my heart, and it was the place of my biggest headline show to date. I just wanted to start by doing something special for those Korean fans.
What is the process of actually translating the song?
Young: We received the original audio files for the song “Love U Like That,” and we rewrote the song with former K-Pop idol Kevin Woo. The thing with translating lyrics or poetry is it can’t be a direct translation. You have to make culturally appropriate choices, words that flow well. So Kevin did that and we re-recorded Kevin’s voice singing the translation, then we mixed the song again exactly as the original was done to match it sonically. All the background vocals were at the correct volume and the right reverbs were used. I think we’ve done a good job of matching it. Then we used our AI voice technology to match Lauv’s voice, and we converted Kevin’s Korean version into Lauv’s voice.
Lauv: To help them make the model of my voice, I sent over a bunch of raw vocals that were just me singing in different registers. Then I met up with him and Kevin. It was riveting to hear my voice like that. I gave a couple of notes – very minor things – after hearing the initial version of the translation, and then they went back and modified. I really trusted Jordan and Kevin on how to make this authentic and respectful to Korean culture.
Is there an art to translating lyrics?
Lauv: Totally. When I was listening back to it, that’s what struck me. There’s certain parts that are so pleasing to the ear. I still love hearing the Korean version phonetically as someone from the outside. Certain parts of Kevin’s translation, like certain rhythm schemes, hit me so much harder than hearing it in English actually.
Do you foresee that there will be more opportunities for translators as this space develops?
Young: Absolutely. I call them songwriters more than translators though, actually. They play a huge role. I used to work with Beyonce as an engineer, and I’ve watched her do a couple songs in Spanish. It required a whole new vocal producer, a new team just to pull off those songs. It’s daunting to sing something that’s not your natural language. I even did some Korean background vocals myself on a BTS song I wrote. They provided me with the phonetics, and I can say it was honestly the hardest thing I’ve ever recorded. It’s hard to sing with the right emotion when you’re focused on pronouncing things correctly. But Hooky allows the artist to perform in other languages but with all the emotion that’s expected. Sure, there’s another songwriter doing the Korean performance, but Lauv was there for the whole process. His fingerprint is on it from beginning to end. I think this is the future of how music will be consumed.
I think this could bring more opportunities for the mixing engineers too. When Dolby Atmos came out that offered more chances for mixers, and with the translations, I think there are now even more opportunities. I think it’s empowering the songwriter, the engineer, and the artist all at once. There could even be a new opportunity created for a demo singer, if it’s different from the songwriter who translated the song.
Would you be open to making your voice model that you used for this song available to the public to use?
Lauv: Without thinking it through too much, I think my ideal self is a very open person, and so I feel like I want to say hell yeah. If people have song ideas and want to hear my voice singing their ideas, why not? As long as it’s clear to the world which songs were written and made by me and what was written by someone else using my voice tone. As long as the backend stuff makes sense, I don’t see any reason why not.
Increasing competition from other international markets is placing the United Kingdom’s long-held success as one of the world’s biggest exporters of music under threat, warns a new report from umbrella trade organization UK Music.
In 2022, music exports contributed 4 billion pounds ($4.9 billion) to Britain’s economy, according to the organization’s annual This Is Music study, which measures the economic impact of the U.K. music industry across live, record sales, publishing, merch and public performance revenue.
That figure is a 60% rise on 2021’s export total of 2.5 billion pounds ($3 billion at today’s currency rates) by Billboard’s calculations, although UK Music says that changes in the way that it collates data means that direct comparisons with previous years are not an accurate measure of growth.
Overall, the U.K. music industry contributed 6.7 billion pounds ($8.2 billion) to the country’s economy in 2022, up from 4 billion pounds in 2021, based upon the gross value estimates of money generated through music sales, concerts, recording studios, touring and music tourism — roughly equivalent to pre-tax profits and salaries.
According to figures released earlier this year by U.K. labels trade body BPI, the global success of Harry Styles, Glass Animals and Ed Sheeran helped British music exports climb to a record high of 709 million pounds ($910 million) in 2022 — the highest annual total since BPI began analyzing labels’ overseas income in 2000.
Whereas BPI’s numbers are based purely upon label trade revenue, UK Music’s export figures comprise all income generated overseas by British music companies and creators, including recorded music, publishing, international touring by homegrown artists and foreign visitors attending U.K. gigs and festivals (so-called music tourism).
UK Music reports that over 37 million people attended live concerts and festivals in the country in 2022, while the total number of people working in the British music industry last year rose to 210,000, up from 145,000 in 2021 when the coronavirus pandemic was still affecting the sector. In 2019, there were 197,000 people employed across the U.K. music business, states the This Is Music report.
Meanwhile, nontraditional revenue generated by audio-visual projects, such as concert films and biopics, as well as income from music-related TV productions and deals with hardware manufacturers, were up 96% year on year, reports UK Music, which declined to provide financial figures, but said it was an example of a small-but-growing income stream as the industry diversifies.
UK Music interim chief executive Tom Kiehl says the sector’s return to growth after the downturn brought on by the pandemic is welcome news, but cautioned that more support is needed from government if the United Kingdom is to maintain its longstanding status as the world’s second-biggest exporter of music, behind the United States.
“The U.K.’s competitors are increasingly well funded and can often count on far more support from their governments,” says Kiehl. He identified South Korea, Australia and Canada as three rival markets where national governments have invested heavily in music and cultural export offices to help grow their overseas markets.
In response, UK Music is calling upon British policymakers to implement a number of measures to boost growth, including tax credits for music businesses and securing a post-Brexit cultural touring agreement with the European Union.
“Otherwise,” warns Kiehl, “we risk the U.K. being left behind in the global music race.”
The United Kingdom is the world’s third-biggest recorded-music market behind the United States and Japan, with sales of just over $1.8 billion in trade value, according to IFPI’s 2022 Global Music Report.
By 2017, nightlife venues in Berlin were closing so quickly that the phenomenon had been dubbed clubsterben — “club death.”
As a result, the city — where nightlife is so woven into the social fabric that the local government has its own club commission — began scrambling to save venues, which were shuttering due to increased gentrification. One of the agencies they called for help was VibeLab, an Amsterdam-based consulting and advocacy agency that works to protect nighttime economies and cultures by using the language most city officials know best: data.
In Berlin, the company’s research resulted in the creation of a club cadastre, or a real-time map indicating the value, extent and ownership of nightlife venues in the city as they relate to taxation.
“The city would know where new development was happening, but they wouldn’t have a clue what the neighboring clubs were before giving out [a] new development permit,” says VibeLab co-founder Mirik Milan. “They didn’t have a tool to see if a cultural or independent space need[ed] protection from this development.”
Milan says the cadastre was a significant step in building the influence of the Club Commission and the nightlife industry with local government, helping expand the Commission’s operating budget from three to seven million euros over the last five years. The cadastre has also provided advocacy organizations with time to start campaigns to protect spaces before development permits are signed off on by the city.
Since launching in 2018, VibeLab has also created such tools for cities including Montreal, New York City, Tokyo and Riyadh, along with a forthcoming analysis of Nashville. On November 27, the company will present its report for Sydney to the government of New South Wales, with officials including John Graham – who oversees the territory’s nighttime economy – having already pledged their support to the report’s outcomes.
Reports, which can be completed in as little as five months and typically cost between $75,000 to $160,000, are commissioned by various agencies in each respective city. While specific goals shift from place to place, all reports are ultimately meant to give local officials a better idea of the scope and value of that city’s nightlife culture. (To wit, the VibeLab website proclaims the organization to be “defenders of the dark.”)
Mirik Milan
Once commissioned, members of the 10-person VibeLab team fly to town. Their first step is connecting with locals who can offer intel on what goes on when the sun goes down.
“These are maybe not the highest-ranking operators,” says Milan, “but people that really know what the scene is about: music journalists, small independent promoters, passionate people that go out often.”
The VibeLab team interviews these people while also aggregating data on neighborhood populations, land prices, census statistics, public transportation and more. A report on the size, value and general health of the scene – called a “creative footprint” – is then prepared.
These footprints foster initiatives like the Berlin cadastre, which helped local officials see that “a dot on the map is a business that supports 200 jobs and makes that neighborhood flourishing and Interesting and is probably why the developer wanted to do something there,” says Milan. “It’s very much about creating awareness and education.”
Protecting nightlife ecosystems is a cause Milan has professionally championed since his tenure as the night mayor of Amsterdam, effectively launching the position in both the city and others around the world. Serving from 2014 to 2018, Milan helped create 24-hour venue permits and worked on a crime reduction initiative around the city’s Rembrandtplein plaza. He also assisted officials in New York City, London, Paris and beyond to create similar roles and nighttime governance structures, which are meant to create a dialogue between municipalities, clubs, festivals, event promoters and residents. (Currently, 15 U.S. cities have night mayors.)
The VibeLab team is steeped in this work. Co-founder Lutz Leichsenring has been the spokesperson and executive board member of the Berlin Club Commission since 2009, and Asia Pacific director Jane Slingo is the co-founder of Sydney’s Global Cities After Dark summit, the director of the city’s Electronic Music Conference and a longtime artist manager. Crucially, the entire team is passionate about going out dancing.
“When you’re in an advocacy role [like night mayor],” Milan says of the difference between his former and current positions, “you often jump on every fire: a club that’s under pressure, a festival that has sound issues, or an act of violence. With VibeLab, we wanted to be ahead of the curve, strategizing about how we could ensure cities make the right decision before it goes wrong.”
Jane Slingo
The cultural and economic stakes are real. VibeLab data shows that in bigger cities, one in seven or eight people work in the nightlife industry. When venues close, these workers are out of jobs, artists have fewer options on where to play and nightlife culture, particularly independent and underground music culture, is stifled.
“The business model of cities works against preserving nightlife culture, because the model is to develop the land,” says Milan. “But what they’re forgetting is if they root out the reason why the land got valuable, you push creative communities further to the outskirts or just wipe it out completely. And that is very difficult to build back.”
VibeLab’s creative footprints have found that a few tactics on how to best protect these communities bear out globally.
“We see in our reports that the venue ladder is essential,” says Milan. “It’s very important to have a talent development pipeline. You need spaces [that hold] 150 people where artists can do their first gigs.”
Such a ladder would provide artists with places to play at every phase of their development, from a tiny club to a mid-size room to an arena. While creative footprints don’t differentiate between independent and corporate-owned venues, the smaller and often independent spaces are most likely to close amid real estate developments and economic downturns.
VibeLab reports have also discovered the efficacy of cultural grants that include micro funds, which earmark relatively modest chunks of money – between $5,000 to $20,000 – for artists to get albums mixed, pay for short tours and more. “Really often, cultural funding only ends up at institutions and with already established artists or musicians,” says Milan, but funding “smaller entities that don’t already have a track record is very important for building up a lively scene.”
Lutz Leichsenring
With venues around the world feeling the ongoing squeeze of rising rent and gentrification (the National Independent Venue Association reported that more than 25 U.S. clubs permanently closed in 2022), creative footprints also advocate for venues to become multidisciplinary spaces that can host a variety of functions and which are open daily, rather than the Thursday to Saturday schedules many of these spaces currently operate on.
The diversification of such spaces, VibeLab posits, will likely also create a better connection between venues and the locals who live near them. This relationship is likely to help these locals, who might otherwise register sound complaints and the like, better understand the value of a space and even start going there themselves.
Footprints also advise that more public funding be given to these spaces, so they’re not so reliant on alcohol sales. Reports have also found positive correlations between good public transportation, a large population of young people and a high density of music venues.
“A report is always a vehicle for a bigger process,” says Milan. He says a report’s direct effect is how it illustrate gaps, opportunities and policy incentives to officials, while also revealing blind spots or preconceptions city governments might have about nightlife.
Ultimately, VibeLab’s work is meant to protect an industry that, Milan says, is “still very much demonized” due to misconceptions about what happens in nightlife spaces and about how much nightlife culture contributes to any given city’s economy and quality of life.
“We are very passionate about the transformative power that nighttime culture and [artistic] communities have on cities,” says Milan. “We see ourselves as translators, connecting creatives, businesses, governments and institutions to boost creativity in local communities.”
MTV pulled the plug on the 2023 MTV EMA Awards on Oct. 19, just over two weeks before the show was set to be staged in Paris. The network attributed their decision to the “volatility of world events.” But on Sunday (Nov. 5), which would have been the EMAs date, MTV released the winners list, saying, “as fans worldwide voted for their favorite categories including best artist, best song and more, MTV is recognizing the following artists with 2023 MTV EMAs.”
Taylor Swift was the big winner, with three awards – best artist, best live and best video for “Anti-Hero.” Surprisingly, the award for best US act eluded her. That went to Nicki Minaj, who also won best hip-hop.
Jung Kook and Måneskin were also double winners. Jung Kook won best K-pop and best song for “Seven” (featuring Latto). Måneskin won best rock and best Italian act.
Rema was the winner in the newly-added best Afrobeats category.
David Guetta, who was born in Paris, the intended site of this year’s show, won best electronic.
This year’s event was to have been broadcast live to more than 150 countries from the Paris Nord. It would have marked the first time the ceremony has been held in the City of Light since 1995.
This marked the first time the MTV EMA Awards have been canceled since it was launched in 1994. Even during the pandemic, the show went on as scheduled.
MTV released the following statement on Oct. 19: “Given the volatility of world events, we have decided not to move forward with the 2023 MTV EMAs out of an abundance of caution for the thousands of employees, crew members, artists, fans and partners who travel from all corners of the world to bring the show to life. The MTV EMAs are an annual celebration of global music. As we watch the devastating events in Israel and Gaza continue to unfold, this does not feel like a moment for a global celebration. With thousands of lives already lost, it is a moment of mourning. Voting is continuing and the winning artists will receive their MTV EMA Awards. We look forward to hosting the MTV EMAs again in November of 2024.”
Here’s the complete list of 2023 MTV EMA nominees, with winners marked. The winners for biggest fans and best group had not been identified at the time of publication.
Best Song
Doja Cat – “Paint the Town Red”
WINNER: Jung Kook feat. Latto – “Seven”
Miley Cyrus – “Flowers”
Olivia Rodrigo – “vampire”
SZA – “Kill Bill”
Taylor Swift – “Anti-Hero”
Rema, Selena Gomez – “Calm Down”
Best Video
Cardi B feat. Megan Thee Stallion – “Bongos”
Doja Cat – “Paint The Town Red”
Little Simz – “Gorilla”
Miley Cyrus – “Flowers”
Olivia Rodrigo – “vampire”
SZA – “Kill Bill”
WINNER: Taylor Swift – “Anti-Hero”
Best Artist
Doja Cat
Miley Cyrus
Nicki Minaj
Olivia Rodrigo
SZA
WINNER: Taylor Swift
Best Collaboration
Central Cee x Dave – “Sprinter”
David Guetta, Anne-Marie, Coi Leray – “Baby Don’t Hurt Me”
WINNER: KAROL G, Shakira – “TQG”
Metro Boomin, The Weeknd, 21 Savage – “Creepin’”
PinkPantheress, Ice Spice – “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2”
Rema, Selena Gomez – “Calm Down”
Best New
Coi Leray
FLO
Ice Spice
WINNER: Peso Pluma
PinkPantheress
Reneé Rapp
Best Pop
WINNER: Billie Eilish
Dua Lipa
Ed Sheeran
Miley Cyrus
Olivia Rodrigo
Taylor Swift
Best Afrobeats
Asake
Aya Nakamura
Ayra Starr
Burna Boy
Davido
WINNER: Rema
Best Rock
Arctic Monkeys
Foo Fighters
WINNER: Måneskin
Metallica
Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Killers
Best Latin
WINNER: Anitta
Bad Bunny
KAROL G
Peso Pluma
ROSALÍA
Shakira
Best K-pop
FIFTY FIFTY
WINNER: Jung Kook
NewJeans
SEVENTEEN
Stray Kids
TOMORROW X TOGETHER
Best Alternative
Blur
Fall Out Boy
WINNER: Lana Del Rey
Paramore
Thirty Seconds to Mars
YUNGBLUD
Best Electronic
Alesso
Calvin Harris
WINNER: David Guetta
Swedish House Mafia
Peggy Gou
Tiësto
Best Hip-Hop
Cardi B
Central Cee
Lil Wayne
Lil Uzi Vert
Metro Boomin
WINNER: Nicki Minaj
Travis Scott
Best R&B
Chlöe
WINNER: Chris Brown
Steve Lacy
Summer Walker
SZA
Usher
Best Live
Beyoncé
Burna Boy
Ed Sheeran
Måneskin
SZA
WINNER: Taylor Swift
The Weeknd
Best Push
November 2022: Flo Milli
December 2022: Reneé Rapp
January 2023: Sam Ryder
February 2023: Armani White
March 2023: FLETCHER
WINNER: April 2023: TOMORROW X TOGETHER
May 2023: Ice Spice
June 2023: FLO
July 2023: Lauren Spencer Smith
August 2023: Kaliii
September 2023: GloRilla
October 2023: Benson Boone
Biggest Fans
Anitta
Billie Eilish
BLACKPINK
Jung Kook
Nicki Minaj
Olivia Rodrigo
Sabrina Carpenter
Selena Gomez
Taylor Swift
Best Group
aespa
FLO
Jonas Brothers
Måneskin
NewJeans
OneRepublic
SEVENTEEN
TOMORROW X TOGETHER
2023 MTV EMA Best Local Act Nominees:
Best African Act
Asake
Burna Boy
Libianca
Tyler ICU
WINNER: Diamond Platnumz
Best Asia Act
WINNER: BE:FIRST
BRIGHT
Moria
Tiara Andini
TREASURE
Best Australian Act
Budjerah
G Flip
WINNER: Kylie Minogue
The Kid LAROI
Troye Sivan
Best Brasilian Act
Anavitoria
Kevin O Chris
Luisa Sonza
Manu Gavassi
WINNER: Matue
Best Canadian Act
Charlotte Cardin
Drake
Jamie Fine
WINNER: Shania Twain
The Beaches
Best Caribbean Act
Eladio Carrion
Mora
Myke Towers
Rauw Alejandro
WINNER: Young Miko
Best Dutch Act
WINNER: FLEMMING
Idaly
Kriss Kross Amsterdam
S10
Zoë Tauran
Best French Act
Aime Simone
Aya Nakamura
WINNER: Bigflo & Oli
Louane
Ninho
Slimane
Best German Act
Apache 207
AYLIVA
WINNER: Kontra K
Luciano
Nina Chuba
Ski Aggu
Best Hungarian Act
WINNER: ajsa luna
Analog Balaton
Beton.Hofi
Co Lee
Hundred Sins
Best India Act
Dee MC
DIVINE
Mali
WINNER: Tsumyoki
When Chai Met Toast
Best Italian Act
Annalisa
Elodie
Lazza
WINNER: Måneskin
The Kolors
Best Israeli Act
Anna Zak
Liad Meir
Noa Kirel
Nunu
Shira Margalit
Best Latin America North Act
Danna Paola
WINNER: Kenia Os
Kevin Kaarl
Siddhartha
Natanael Cano
Best Latin America Central Act
Blessd
WINNER: Feid
Manuel Turizo
Ryan Castro
Sebastian Yatra
Best Latin America South Act
Bizarrap
Duki
Fito Paez
WINNER: Lali
Nicki Nicole
Best New Zealand Act
BENEE
JessB
Jolyon Petch
L.A.B.
WINNER: SIX60
Best Nordic Act
Alessandra
WINNER: Käärijä
Loreen
Swedish House Mafia
Zara Larsson
Best Polish Act
WINNER: Doda
Kasia Nosowska
Mrozu
Sanah
Vito Bambino
Best Portuguese Act
Bárbara Bandeira
WINNER: Bispo
Carolina Deslandes
Marisa Liz
PIRUKA
Best Spanish Act
Abraham Mateo
Álvaro de Luna
Lola Índigo
Quevedo
WINNER: Samantha Hudson
Best Swiss Act
Danitsa
WINNER: Gjon’s Tears
KT Gorique
Monet192
Stress
Best UK & Ireland Act
Calvin Harris
Central Cee
PinkPantheress
Raye
Sam Smith
WINNER: Tom Grennan
Best US Act
Doja Cat
WINNER: Nicki Minaj
Olivia Rodrigo
SZA
Taylor Swift
Global Citizen and pgLang have teamed up to create a new touring circuit throughout Africa titled Move Afrika: A Global Citizen Experience. To kick off the initiative, Kendrick Lamar will headline Move Afrika: Rwanda at the BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda, on Dec. 6. Lamar’s pgLang company will serve as the Curator of Move Afrika […]
LONDON — Currently languishing near the bottom of the fourth tier of English football, Forest Green Rovers don’t have the global profile, colossal riches or superstar players of the world’s top teams. But despite their small stature, the Rovers enjoy one major bragging right: they’re the first European soccer club to be sponsored by Rock & Roll Hall of Famers the Grateful Dead.
“For us, it’s a perfect match,” says the California band’s archivist and legacy manager, David Lemieux. “Forest Green Rovers is a team that really follows Grateful Dead values, which is to say that we’re both conscious of the world around us and we want to make sure that we leave it a better place than when we arrived.”
Grateful Dead’s decades-long promotion of environmental causes is well-known throughout the music business, but Forest Green Rovers’ eco credentials are equally impressive.
Based in the small town of Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, just over 100 miles outside London, Forest Green Rovers Football Club has been recognized by both the United Nations and football’s international governing body, FIFA, as “the world’s greenest football club.” The team and its owner, Dale Vince, have won praise for pioneering sustainable practices like using renewable energy to power its 5,000-capacity ground, transporting players in an electric bus and serving vegan food to players, staff and fans.
Forest Green Rovers Chairman Dale Vince at a Labour Party conference in Liverpool on Oct. 8, 2023.
OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images
The idea to partner Grateful Dead with Forest Green first landed on Lemieux’s desk 18 months ago when it was presented to him by the retail and licensing team at Warner Music Group’s services division WMX, which looks after the group’s merchandising rights outside of touring and online. (Grateful Dead’s music catalog is handled by WMG’s Rhino Records, which also runs the band’s Dead.net website, while Warner Chappell Music represents the act’s publishing interests globally, in conjunction with the Grateful Dead’s company, Ice Nine).
At the time of WMX’s pitch, Lemieux wasn’t familiar with Forest Green Rovers, which has spent much of its 134-year history competing outside the top level, with its best-ever finish coming in the 2021/22 season when the club was crowned champions of League Two (they were relegated 12 months later). But after researching the club and its energy industrialist owner, he says it was a natural fit for the two organizations to team up on a clothing merch deal that sees Grateful Dead’s iconic green skull logo featured on a range of Forest Green co-branded sporting wear, t-shirts and hoodies, produced by U.K. sustainable clothing business I Dress Myself.
“We love to partner with cool people, cool companies and cool organizations who are trying to make a positive difference,” says Lemieux, a self-confessed “hippy Deadhead” who has worked for the legendary California-formed group for 25 years and been a follower of English football since the late 1990s, when he studied in the United Kingdom and would regularly attend matches.
Courtesy of Warner Music and Forrest Green Rovers.
Financial terms of the deal with Forest Green have not been disclosed, although Lemieux describes it as “not a huge money-maker for anyone.” (The most expensive clothing item on sale in the Forest Green online store is a “Grateful Dead Lightning Hoodie” featuring the green skull motif that costs around $75.00.)
For custodians of Grateful Dead — which officially disbanded in 1995 following the death of guitarist and songwriter Jerry Garcia but has continued to tour in various incarnations, most recently as Dead & Company, featuring original members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart — the tie-up with Forest Green is the latest in a vast and ever-growing line of merch and licensing deals helping keep the Grateful Dead brand alive.
At present, the band has deals with more than 100 merch partners and more than 750 products on sale in over 50 territories, spanning everything from water bottles to cosmic mushroom foraging tools to camping equipment to Grateful Dead-branded skis and snowboards, as well as an extensive range of t-shirts and clothing.
Historically, the bulk of those merch deals have been with companies in North America, Grateful Dead’s biggest market for touring and record sales. But Lemieux says he’s now seeing an increasing number of licensing offers come in from Japan, England, South America and other international territories.
“Brand awareness is growing and it’s growing fast in the international markets,” says Lemieux. He credits Warner Music’s licensing teams in New York and England for working hard to find “best in class” partners.
“At the heart of everything Grateful Dead do is sustainability, so when we work on projects for them, whether it’s a multi-million-dollar deal or a small project, they need to know about its sustainable nature,” says WMX licensing and record retail account director Alex Mitchell, who oversaw the merch deal with Forest Green Rovers.
Courtesy of Warner Music and Forrest Green Rovers.
Mitchell says the season-long partnership with the club (with an option to renew next year) is one of several licensing deals WMX are working on to “make the Grateful Dead story better known” in the United Kingdom and Europe beyond “just being a cool band t-shirt.”
Sports and music brand tie-ups are, of course, nothing new, and Grateful Dead has struck similar deals in the past (the band famously sponsored Lithuania’s cash-strapped 1992 Olympic basketball team and more recently held one-off brand partnerships with various baseball, basketball and ice hockey clubs in North America). But Forest Green marks its first real foray into the world’s most popular sport.
The deal comes at a time when soccer’s profile in the United States continues to climb, especially among young Americans, fueled by the arrival of global superstars like Lionel Messi to Major League Soccer and the crossover success of Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso and the hit FX series Welcome To Wrexham, which documents the fortunes of Wrexham A.F.C (who play in the same league as Forest Green) and its Hollywood actor owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.