Management
Elton John had an ulterior motive for making his latest album, Who Believes in Angels?, a collaboration with his good friend Brandi Carlile.
The icon wanted to help the nine-time Grammy winner expand her global footprint. “My ambition for her with this album was to break her internationally,” John told Billboard prior to the album’s release. “She’s a well-known artist in America, but in the rest of the world, she has a lot of work to do.”
Mission accomplished. The album, which came out April 4, debuted at No. 1 on the U.K. Official Albums chart, giving Carlile her first No. 1 on the tally and her first to reach the chart’s top 40.
“This is a major milestone and career highlight for Brandi,” says Phantom Management’s Catherine Carlile, Carlile’s manager and wife, who helped orchestrate the campaign. “This is her first ever No. 1 album, and to have achieved this honor with her absolute hero and friend Elton John makes this accomplishment even more profound.”
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In the U.S., the album opened at No. 9 on the Billboard 200, marking the 22nd top 10 for John and the fourth for Carlile.
The album — produced by Andrew Watt and featuring songs written by John, Carlile and Bernie Taupin — also tops both Billboard’s Top Rock Albums and Top Rock & Alternative Albums charts, and starts at No. 2 on Top Album Sales chart and Indie Store Album Sales chart, and No. 3 on Vinyl Albums chart.
Carlile began building her U.K. audience last July when she opened for Stevie Nicks at BTS Hyde Park before an audience of 60,000, then followed with her own headlining acoustic show at the 2,000-seat Drury Lane Theater.
Her extensive U.K. tour in June builds on those dates. “Brandi is a hugely successful touring artist in the U.S., but hasn’t toured in the U.K. for a long time, so we knew we needed to water that garden beyond those two appearances in London,” Catherine Carlile says. “We also knew that Brandi’s album with Elton would shine the spotlight on her globally, so we announced her U.K./[European] tour in February, which sold out instantly.”
The U.K. album campaign was orchestrated by Phantom in conjunction with John’s management team, John’s husband/manager David Furnish and Rachael Paley at Rocket Entertainment, as well as British publicity team DawBell and Universal U.K., and culminated in a live event at the London Palladium on March 26, which featured actor Dan Levy conducting a Q&A with John and Carlile, and the pair playing several songs with a full band. The evening aired on CBS in the U.S. on April 6, and will air on ITV in the U.K. on Saturday (April 19).
“The Palladium special was a total triumph and no small feat,” Catherine Carlile says. “Having partners like Fulwell Entertainment who know exactly how to capture the electricity of live music performances and deliver authentic and moving TV was a dream come true for us.”
The album’s two singles released in the U.K. — “Who Believes in Angels?” and “Swing for the Fences” — have reached a radio audience of more than 175 million, Catherine Carlile says, further building singer Carlile’s U.K. exposure.
Following this summer’s U.K. dates, which include a globally broadcast performance at the Glastonbury Festival, and playing in continental Europe, Carlile will “hopefully [play] other markets — Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South America, etc.,” Catherine Carlile says. “It’s such a gift for an artist of Brandi’s stature to have an opportunity to reach an undiscovered audience outside of the U.S. at this stage in her career. And it’s a challenge she fully embraces.”
Carlile is working on her next solo album, which Catherine Carlile says has been teed up perfectly by Who Believes in Angels?.
“After being uplifted and endorsed by one of the greatest artists of all time, we cannot wait to show the world who Brandi is as an artist, performer, and songwriter,” she says. “This is her moment to shine on what will probably be the most highly anticipated album of her career.”
Activist Artist Management has named climate activist Wawa Gatheru its 2025-2027 Foundation Fellow.
As part of the fellowship, Gatheru will receive a $20,000 grant and access to a professional team of pro-bono representatives — including management, publicity, legal, business management, agency representation, partnerships and strategic alliances, digital marketing, and content creation representatives — to further her environment-focused work. Activist will also appoint a pro-bono Fellowship Advisory Council of specialists in relevant areas to support Gatheru’s work.
Funding for the grant comes from Activist Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit established by Activist Artists Management to fund advocates and initiatives that protect vulnerable communities and the environment. The announcement comes via Activist founding partners Bernie Cahill and Greg Suess, who serve as co-chairs of Activist Foundation, along with Caitlin Stone Jasper, partner/head of activism for Activist Artists Management. Stone Jasper will also oversee Gatheru’s fellowship.
A Rhodes Scholar and longtime youth climate activist, Gatheru is the founder of Black Girl Environmentalist, a national organization dedicated to empowering Black girls, women and gender expansive people across the climate sector. She sits on boards and advisory councils for organizations including Greenpeace USA, EarthJustice, Climate Power, the National Parks Conservation Association, Good Energy and Sound Future. She was also recently named as a 2025 Sierra Club Trail Blazer Award recipient alongside Quannah Chasinghorse, Bill Nye, William Shatner and Dr. Jane Goodall.
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“I am honored and excited to receive this fellowship from the Activist Foundation,” said Gatheru in a statement. “This support is invaluable. It will allow me to expand my work at the intersection of environmental justice and youth empowerment. I am grateful for their belief in my vision, and I look forward to collaborating with the team at Activist to drive meaningful progress toward a more sustainable and just future for all.”
“Wawa is one of the most impressive young leaders I’ve ever encountered,” added Stone Jasper. “Her vision, her voice and her commitment to building an inclusive climate movement are exactly what the world needs right now. Our whole team is thrilled to welcome her to the Activist family and support the powerful work she’s doing.”
The Activist Foundation created the Activist Artists Fellowship in 2020 to support young activists working to create real change on the world’s most pressing issues. Activist Artists clients include The Lumineers, Bobby Weir, Dwight Yoakam, the Grateful Dead, Dead & Company (co-managed by Irving Azoff and Steve Moir), Leif Vollebekk, The Pretty Reckless, Young the Giant, and Michael Franti & Spearhead.
After finishing the last of seven concerts at GNP Seguros Stadium in Mexico City March 30 as part of her Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran tour, Shakira announced she would return to Mexico in August. Her encore will bring her total shows played in the country to 22, a record for a single tour. Shakira initially played 11 stadium shows in Mexico, selling them all out, and eventually announced additional shows for August and September, including one more stop at GNP Seguros Stadium. Her eight performances there will be a record.
It’s the latest success in a string of them for the Colombian star. Last week, Billboard reported that, for the month of February, Shakira topped the monthly Top Tours chart for the first time, earning $32.9 million from 282,000 tickets sold that month, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore.
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Shakira follows Bad Bunny, Los Bukis and RBD among Latin artists who have topped the monthly ranking, making her the first solo Latin woman to hit No. 1. This also marks the first time Shakira ever tops the chart, which launched in 2019, after she finished her previous outing, 2018’s El Dorado World Tour.
All those tickets sold are particularly sweet success for Shakira, who not only hadn’t toured in six years, but hadn’t had this level of success with her recorded music, either. Since 2019, as is by now very well known, the global superstar split up with her longtime partner, Gerard Pique, moved from Barcelona to Miami, turned her heartbreak into chart-topping songs, and now, at 47 years old and as the mother of two children, is in the midst of what will be the biggest tour of her career.
At her side is manager Nadine Eliya, who after working with Shakira in different capacities for years, took over management in 2023 after the Colombian star moved to Miami and started releasing new music. While that was a project in and of itself, Shakira’s new tour, a massive endeavor that kicked off last month in Brazil, is the Colombia’s star most ambitious move yet. Originally slated to be an arena tour, Shakira scrapped those plans last fall, following reaction to her new album Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran (Sony Music Latin), and announced she was doing stadiums instead. And while she had to cancel three South American dates —two for production issues and one due to illness — her Mexico run has more than made up for lost time.
Given the extraordinary resurgence of Shakira, spotlighted by her No. 1 spot on Top Tours for February, Eliya is Billboard’s Executive of the Week. Here, she speaks about crafting Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran, and its impact on the touring market.
You’ve had many Shakira highlights in the past year, but these Mexico concerts feel particularly significant. Is that the case?
These Mexico concerts were so rewarding in so many ways. It’s nice to see a Latin American city leading on a global scale as a concert city market, and only reinforces the massive growth we’ve been seeing in the Latin market over the last 10 years. To be breaking such significant records 30-plus years into your career is a testament to Shakira’s longevity and the care we’ve taken to keep creating music that draws new fans while deepening the connection with the ones who have accompanied her all along the way.
Shakira went from having a much-publicized split with her longtime partner two years ago to now leading Billboard’s tour recap for the month. What was the biggest challenge in achieving this?
The biggest challenge, I think, was being able to channel the pain into productivity, into growth, into a tool for connection. I think her music last year has struck a chord with so many women who felt like she gave a voice to their same feelings and frustrations and made them feel seen.
I think people may think, it’s Shakira, she’s a global star, this is easy…
Ha! Every new leg of a stadium tour brings its own challenges, and every achievement only brings ideas for new goals we want to reach. It’s a misconception that when you get to the top, you relax. It only makes the stakes higher. And I’m bad at relaxing.
What has been the biggest challenge in putting together this stadium tour?
The biggest challenges were bringing a production of this size to Latin America, which had never been done before in many of the markets we visited. Also, thinking big picture about where we want to be at the end of it, the milestones we want to hit, and how we plan to get there.
What can you tell us about the concept of the tour?
It’s all about female archetypes, connection and empowerment. If you notice, many of the interludes, that are a CGI-animated Shakira — an industry-wide first — center around an archetype: the warrior, the mother, the primal she-wolf. The idea was to take the fans on this journey with her and to walk out feeling uplifted and empowered. And I think she delivered beyond anyone’s expectations, including her own.
What were your expectations when you started to plan, and what are they now?
I think we expected to surprise fans with a big show but we didn’t expect how emotional the reaction would be and what a movement it’s become, this experience of attending her concert.
A couple of weeks ago, Shakira also released the music video to “Ultima,” a very melancholy ballad that looks back at her relationship. Why now?
We filmed that video a while back, but we wanted to release it at a time that had meaning to it. It felt like a beautiful bookend to a year after the release of such a personal album and sharing it from a very different place than when the song was written, after the live [version] of the song has connected with so many on tour. It was a gift for the fans who offered so much support through a difficult time.
Kiley Donohoe has launched Greenhouse Management, with an artist roster that includes “Cowgirls” hitmaker Ernest, as well as artists and hit songwriters Chandler Walters, Rhys Rutherford and Cody Lohden.
Donohoe previously worked at Big Loud since 2018, starting in digital marketing and working with artists over the years including Morgan Wallen, Florida Georgia Line, Ernest and Chris Lane. Four years ago, she transitioned into management, taking on the role of Ernest’s manager.
Donohoe says she plans to keep Greenhouse’s roster small, in order to focus on each artist, telling Billboard, “I want to be able to have the bandwidth for all my clients and super-serve them and work with people I believe in and trust, and who believe and trust in me. It’s not about how large [the company] can get, but working with great people.”
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Greenhouse Management’s title was inspired by the time Iowa native Donohoe spent as a child working in her grandparents’ backyard greenhouse.
“I was thinking about my roots and values of being transparent, like a greenhouse, and what shaped me,” Donohoe says. “I was talking to [hit songwriter, artist and Songs & Daughters leader] Nicolle Galyon about the company name and this new chapter and she suggested the name. It is so important to me to be transparent and to stay true to who you are. I try to stay true to that as a manager.”
“Kiley has always had the artist best interest in mind and will continue to develop into a great manager,” Ernest said in a statement. “I look forward to seeing what the future brings, and I know that her artists are in good hands.”
Chandler Walters, Rhys Rutherford, Greenhouse Management CEO / Manager Kiley Donohoe, Cody Lohden, Matt Schneider
Courtesy Photo
Walters added, “The first one to take care of you and the last one to let you down. I’ve known Kiley since I moved to town; she’s held the keys to my sanity, and it only makes sense for us to tackle my artist career!”
Ernest, who last year released a musical love letter to his hometown with the album Nashville, Tennessee, has earned multiple ACM, CMA and Grammy nominations, including his current ACM nominations for artist-songwriter of the year, as well as being a co-writer on the ACM song of the year-nominated song “I Had Some Help,” recorded by Morgan Wallen and Post Malone. Lohden has toured with artists including ERNEST, Bailey Zimmerman and Walker Hayes, while Rutherford has contributed writing to songs recorded by Zimmerman (“Is This Really Over?”), Ernest feat. Morgan Wallen (“Hangin’ On”), Kashus Culpepper (“Talk With Me”) and George Pippen (“Rest of Our Life”). Walters is also a co-writer on “I Had Some Help,” and has six cuts on Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion album, seven cuts on Ernest’s Nashville, Tennessee album (including the Jelly Roll collaboration “I Went to College, He Went to Jail,” and is part of Post Malone’s touring band, playing pedal steel. Lohden and Rutherford both have their own new music coming.
Billie Eilish and Finneas have hired new management. The siblings are now being managed by Sandbox Entertainment’s Jason Owen, whose clients include Brandi Carlile, Kacey Musgraves, Kelsea Ballerini and more. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Eilish and Finneas were previously managed […]
Private equity firm Silver Lake has completed its acquisition of 100% of the stock of sports and entertainment giant Endeavor to take the company private in a deal that values it at $25 billion, the firm announced on Monday (March 24).
As part of the deal, Endeavor stockholders will receive $27.50 in cash per share, which represents a 55% premium to the company’s closing price of $17.72 on Oct. 25, 2023 — the day before Endeavor announced Silver Lake’s plans to take the company private.
Endeavor, which owns the talent agency WME, marketing agency 160over90, brand licensing agency IMG Licensing and more, will be renamed WME Group. Endeavor is the largest company in the media and entertainment sector ever to be taken private by a private equity sponsor, Silver Lake said in a press release.
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Silver Lake co-CEO Egon Durban said his firm has never sold a share in Endeavor since its first investment in the company in 2012, and over that time, Endeavor’s “revenue has grown by twentyfold.”
“Silver Lake has previously invested on six separate occasions to support Endeavor and now, with this latest investment, it is the single largest position in our global portfolio,” Durban added.
Endeavor founder and former CEO Ari Emmanuel will move into the role of executive chairman of WME Group. On Monday, Emmanuel cashed out a portion of his ownership stake in the company for $173.8 million, per a regulatory filing first reported by Variety. Patrick Whitesell, who was previously executive chairman of Endeavor/WME received a $100 million payout, Variety reported.
Following the deal Endeavor will hold on to its majority stake in TKO Group Holdings, a separately traded sports and entertainment company whose assets include wrestling promotor WWE and Ultimate Fighting Championship. The valuation of $25 billion includes TKO’s assets.
In addition to WME, 160over90 and IMG, Endeavor’s portfolio includes Pantheon Media Group, live event hospitality firm On Location and sports betting data firm OpenBet.
Led by co-CEOs Durban and Greg Mondre, Silver Lake has $104 billion in combined assets under management, and its portfolio includes stakes in companies including Oak View Group, Fanatics, TEG, Waymo, Stripe, Plaid, SoFi and Madison Square Garden Sports.
When Playboi Carti released his long-awaited third album, Music, in the early hours of March 14, it was met with a tidal wave of interest — its songs immediately flooded the daily Spotify and Apple Music streaming charts, and it immediately became Spotify’s most-streamed album in a day in 2025. And the album — his first in nearly five years, since 2020’s Whole Lotta Red — will likely become his second No. 1 on the Billboard 200 when it officially debuts on the chart next week.
It’s been a long time coming, and fans were certainly ready. And Carti has been building anticipation for the release for an extended period, teasing songs on social media, putting up billboards in Los Angeles, dropping singles seemingly at random and debuting new tracks in live performances, including at Rolling Loud earlier this month. That was all according to plan. “It was always kind of teasing and never fully announcing, keeping fans engaged in the mystery until we finally announced the new album was dropping,” says Carti’s manager, Opium Records president/CEO Erin Larsen. And now, with Music poised to become the biggest release of Carti’s career, Larsen has earned the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
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Here, Larsen breaks down some of the strategies behind the rollout of Music, and how the team helped build anticipation for the album. “Carti’s a perfectionist,” Larsen explains. “He wants to take his time building out the music and the world around it and really developing the sound for the album.”
This week, Playboi Carti released his latest album MUSIC, becoming the most-streamed album in a single day in 2025 on Spotify and likely leading to his second No. 1 album on the Billboard 200. What key decisions did you make to help make that happen?
Our pre-release campaign started in 2023 and that was the first time he revealed the “I AM MUSIC” logo alongside the first song release on Instagram. We focused on consistent branding throughout the longer campaign and creating different moments that tied in like the NBA jerseys, “I AM MUSIC” out of home, key press moments, teasing records during live performances, etc. It was always kind of teasing and never fully announcing, keeping fans engaged in the mystery until we finally announced the new album was dropping.
This is Carti’s first album in almost five years. Why the gap in projects, and what effect do you think that extended time between projects had on the anticipation for this eventual release?
Carti’s a perfectionist. He wants to take his time building out the music and the world around it and really developing the sound for the album. The music is a larger representation of his creative vision and I think every project he’s offered something different. He remains at the forefront of conversation when fans are wondering what direction sonically he’ll go with this album and we tried to create moments along the way to bring them into that process.
Playboi Carti photographed by Matthew Salacuse on Aug. 2, 2024 at Seret Studios in Brooklyn.
Carti has been teasing songs from this project in a variety of different ways, releasing videos solely to social media, performing unreleased songs at shows and dropping singles out of nowhere. How has that strategy helped to build towards the eventual release of the project?
This felt like an innovative approach on how to drop music. We didn’t play snippets. We dropped an entire song on YouTube or Instagram and fans tapped into those platforms to hear them because they weren’t available on DSPs. In the process, he built the hype up around the sound of the album, and we were able to see which tracks really resonated with people. The strategy really opened the conversation and made the fans feel like a part of the process.
After such an extended wait, and after a series of billboards that helped sow breadcrumbs, Carti announced the project’s release date the day before it came out. Why did you guys consider that to be the best way to announce it?
The “I AM MUSIC” branding became so integral in the rollout because it was synonymous with an upcoming Carti moment. We built the anticipation and continued to create moments to keep fans captive and engaged throughout the rollout. I think this approach intrigued new fans as well.
How do you build on this momentum moving forward for Carti?
We’re going to continue to drive awareness to the project, build the songs with strategic moments and continue to engage the core fans. His music always resonates well live and brings his vision to life, so touring will be impactful. We’ve got great partners at Interscope and will work with them to expose the music to different audiences, build records at radio, use digital marketing and socials as well as branding opportunities.
What moves the needle for an artist in 2025?
Beyond great music I would say authenticity, building a strong brand and finding a way to organically connect with your audience.
Noah Cyrus has signed with Range Music for management, the company announced on Friday (March 14). In linking up with Range, Cyrus joins a roster that includes Jack Harlow, Shaboozey, Rita Ora, Pentatonix, Saweetie, Midland and PARTYNEXTDOOR. She was previously with TaP Management. “I had some really impressive meetings with Matt [Graham] and the team, […]
Breakaway, the company behind the touring dance event Breakaway Music Festival, is launching a label and management division focused on emerging artists called Breakaway Projects. The first wave of signees to the label, which is partnered with The Orchard for distribution, includes a fresh collection of electronic producers such as Surf Mesa, Jaded, Evan Giia, […]
Wale Davies first met Nigerian singer Tems in 2018, shortly after she released her first single, the stirringly plaintive “Mr. Rebel.”
“Initially it was informal; I just liked her song, I was just helping her put it on sradio and connecting her with people in the industry in Nigeria,” says the artist-turned-manager. “I’m always attracted to music that makes me feel something, so when I heard the first single, what I felt was somebody singing for their life — she meant every word she was singing in that song.”
Davies, who co-manages Tems with Muyiwa Awoniyi, has been with the singer ever since — and has watched her grow into one of the biggest African artists on the planet. To name just some of her accolades: She’s landed 28 songs on the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats chart, including 10 top 10s and two No. 1s; she’s collaborated with the likes of Drake, Beyoncé and Future and covered Bob Marley’s classic “No Woman, No Cry” on the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack; she reached the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 in 2021 with a feature on Wizkid‘s inescapable hit “Essence,” which got a remix from Justin Bieber; she’s earned eight Grammy nominations, and became the first Nigerian to ever win two Grammys after taking home best African music performance for her single “Love Me JeJe” earlier this month; and this week, she became the first African female artist to hit 1 billion Spotify streams for her feature on the Future and Drake song “Wait 4 U,” which samples her 2020 single “Higher.” That’s to name just a few of her accomplishments.
It’s been a rapid-fire rise in just a few years for the singer, and one she’s had to handle in the public eye. “Just seeing her grow as a human being, first, has been the most remarkable thing,” Davies says. “She’s had a lot of fame thrust on her super early, and her adjusting to those changes and how everything came, and now working with the record label and getting global attention and big artists reaching out to you, and social media and all these different platforms and people, seeing her adjust to that and learn and grow and work on herself has been the most impressive thing.”
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Now, all that success helps Davies earn the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week. Here, he discusses Tems’ rise as an artist, the work that went into her 2024 debut album Born In the Wild, the record-breaking success of “Wait 4 U” and the rise of African music in the U.S. “I’ve worked in the music space in Nigeria for quite a long time, and I’ve never seen anybody grow and accelerate that quickly,” Davies says. “Seeing the change of where she was to where she is now, and the confidence and how she’s grown as a person, is as close to a miracle as I’ve ever seen.”
This week, with “Wait 4 U,” Tems became the first African woman to hit 1 billion streams on Spotify. What key decisions did you make to help make that happen?
For Tems, her music is very personal to her and comes from a very personal place. So initially when we got the call [about the song sample], the first thing she said was, “What do you think?” And I said, hearing what they’ve done with the song, they honored it in a good way and it would appeal to a whole bunch of different, new people, and if the goal is to have people feel something from your music, as long as the music still represents that, and it opens the door to new people to hear it, I think it’s a great idea to do it. And she loved Future as well, she just wanted to see how that marriage would work, and it turned out beautifully. And with all the structure and all the business behind the scenes with the song, my job is to make sure that everything is done for the benefit of my artist, and making sure that, yes, we are coming from Africa, and yes, these are big global superstars, but that we’re well represented at the table as well.
You mentioned the sample is “Higher,” which is off her first EP For Broken Ears, which came out five years ago now. What is it about that song and that EP that has given it such staying power?
One of the things I noticed very early on in Tems’ music is, each time I listened to her songs, I found new things and loved them even more. And that’s very rare with records, because after a while you can hear a record too many times. And even going on tour with her, having been in the studio with her working on these records for years, and then hearing them live, they still sound fresh and new, and I still feel something every time. I think people are trying to tap into their emotions and tap into things, and when music allows you a safe space to do that, it has a quality that’s timeless and lasts. The best music, you remember the first time you heard that song, and that’s timeless music. And that’s what it does — it evokes emotions, it helps you place it. So for me, “Higher” does that as well. It’s such a beautiful song. I heard it from voice note to this version to “Wait 4 U,” and each iteration of the song has been great.
“Wait 4 U” won her a Grammy, and then she just won another with “Love Me JeJe” a few weeks ago. That makes her the first Nigerian to have ever won two Grammys. What’s the significance of that for you?
We never really started out with the intention of global stardom or anything, she just really wanted to sing. She would joke at the beginning, “If I didn’t meet you guys, I would just be happy to sing in hotel lounges, just for people to hear my music.” But the way it’s gone and the way it’s grown and the way it’s resonated with people, what the Grammys do is they solidify the fact that you can still make music that is true to yourself and have it recognized globally.
“Love Me JeJe” was a strong choice for us to be the lead single from the project because it referenced something nostalgic to us, because the original “Love Me JeJe” song was one that we all grew up with in Nigeria, our parents loved the song, and so for us to be able to pay homage to that song was really special. We spoke afterwards — the original guy who sang the song, Seyi Sodimu, is also now a Grammy winner, 21 years after. So it was also giving him his flowers for doing something remarkable at a time when there wasn’t that much light being shown on our music and where we’re from. It just gives people the opportunity to dream — yes, you can get this global acclaim. And for us, it being the first song that she’s done herself by herself to win a Grammy, it just shows that the work is being seen and felt.
This song is off Born In the Wild, her official debut album. How did you want to roll that out and market it? And did you feel like you needed to introduce her with this project?
She had her first two EPs, she had “Wait 4 U,” she had “Free Mind,” “Essence” was a big song as well; all of this was without actually putting out a debut album. The phrase we would laugh about while we were recording was just trying to figure out a way to dance like you’re still in your little studio by yourself. Now we’re in bigger studios and there’s more opinions and more people. So it was trying to, first of all, block out all that noise and allow the artist to just be themselves, and then helping sometimes when they have internal noise telling them to do this or that. So it was trying to do something that felt really true to Tems. She listens to loads of different music, she creates loads of different music, and I think with the EPs you got certain glimpses of what types of music she makes, and with the album she wanted to lay it all out: Here are the different influences I have, some of them might be reggae, some of them might be Nigerian songs, some of them might be Sade Adu. So in all those different worlds, how do you connect that seamlessly?
And it was also important for us that we started the project back home. For us, we feel like there’s a lens through which people are able to look at Africa, look at an African woman and look at what a modern African looks like through Tems, whether through the way she portrays herself or carries herself, or through her music as well. So it was important that the first look we gave from the album was “Love Me JeJe.” We shot the video in Lagos, she was on a flatbed going through Lagos, which was surreal in itself because of the traffic in Lagos. It was a crazy moment.
Starting with “Essence,” she’s really been at the forefront of African music’s rise in the United States in the past couple years. How do you feel that’s progressing?
My theory is that we’re in a world now where we’re constantly looking for new things, consciously and subconsciously. I feel like with music you were hearing a lot of versions of the same thing you’ve heard before, and I think it came to a point, to me, where people started looking outwardly. Initially, I felt like the U.S. was very insular: U.S. music, U.S. charts. But once they started listening to new things, what people found was that there’s similarity and threads in everything. It’s called Afrobeats, but a lot of the songs Tems does are R&B songs. All of us grew up on American music, but also on Nigerian music and Jamaican music. Our music is more or less like a melting pot of all of our influences growing up, and I think there’s definitely a part of that that people will relate to because they’re mostly global references, and then you’re hearing Nigerian sounds that you may have never heard before which sounds new. So I think the rise of African music is extremely needed, and what people will realize is that they will find there are more artists in different genres playing in different spaces and different lanes, and it’s really a beautiful thing.
What’s next for you guys?
Tems has different ways she wants to express and showcase the music, so we’re finding different ways of how to push out the music. The project is already out, but what does it sound like reimagined, with different musical elements added to it or stripped back from it? She’s interested in exploring that more. At the same time, she’s always recording and working on new music. She’s got an interest in film, so that’s something we’re exploring.
And then on the business side, we’re trying to figure out, how do we utilize this position we’re in to create more opportunities back home? Our vision is in a lot of ways very global, but also very Africa-focused. Right now, we’re putting together an initiative to support young women producers on the continent, what that will look like, and that will be rolled out very soon. We just got involved in the sports world as well; that’s mainly to see how we can bring opportunities in sports back home to young people because we come from a place where we have to create opportunities for the younger generation ourselves. So that’s where our head’s at, and Tems is always recording. So there will be new music and new recordings and new versions of Born In the Wild out soon.