Management
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When Davido released his fourth studio album, Timeless, on March 31, it marked a career peak for the Afrobeats star in the United States: At No. 37, it was his highest-charting album on the Billboard 200. It also debuted at No. 2 on the World Albums chart and placed five songs in the top 20 of the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats chart for a career total of 25 — vaulting him above Wizkid into third place among artists with the most entries on the chart. As of Aug. 3, Timeless has racked up 134.3 million on-demand streams in the United States, already outstripping the total number accumulated by his last album, 2020’s A Better Time.
In Nigeria, where Davido grew up and made his name, Timeless‘ success was nothing short of monumental. The album debuted at No. 1 on the country’s TurnTable Charts with 50.4 million on-demand streams in Nigeria in its first week of release — more than the rest of the 49 albums that comprised TurnTable’s Official Top 50 Albums chart that week combined — and remained there for 10 straight weeks and in the top five for 17 weeks. It also set a record when eight of the album’s tracks debuted in the top 10 of TurnTable’s Official Nigeria Top 100 chart, including each of the top four slots. At the midyear mark, it was the biggest album in Nigeria in 2023 with 185.6 million streams despite being released at the end of March, while the rest of the top 10 albums of the year to date had been released prior to 2023.
The success of Timeless was not just a huge moment for Davido but a massive achievement for his Nigerian management company, The Plug. Founded in August 2016 by music executives Asa Asika and Bizzle Osikoya (with live events and branding executive Tobi Mohammed coming on as a third partner in 2022), The Plug started out with the goal of managing producers, DJs and songwriters and has since grown into a full-fledged music company that incorporates management, distribution, publishing, live events, booking and a branding agency (it also represents some of the biggest Nigerian athletes on the planet). The company’s management roster extends beyond Davido (who, as of June 2022, The Plug co-manages outside Africa with LVRN) to include artists like Ckay (whose “Love Nwantiti” was the first-ever No. 1 on the Billboard Afrobeats Chart upon its launch in March 2022), Victony, Bella Shmurda, King Promise, Focalistic, Boj and the super-producer Sarz. The Plug’s live events division created and produces the largest music event in Nigeria, the Mainland Block Party, while its branding division — under Mohammed’s TopBoy moniker — regularly executes campaigns for the likes of Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Pepsi, MTV and more.
“Our goal is to be the biggest independent management and distribution company from Africa,” says Osikoya. “We need to get to a level where we’re not just only working with the people in music and sports alone, but people in fashion, in film. And that means us scaling to the next level of, when anybody is looking to come to Africa or partner with anyone in Africa, The Plug is the only one they think about.”
The story of The Plug begins, in part, with Davido. The Atlanta-born, Lagos, Nigeria-raised Afrobeats superstar began his career in the early 2010s with Asika as his manager, before the two parted ways for several years as Asika focused on his StarGaze Entertainment company. At the same time, Osokoya had his own company, B Entertainment, and was also working with the esteemed Nigerian record label Mavin Records, founded by legendary Nigerian entrepreneur and artist Don Jazzy. When Asika and Osokoya happened to meet up in New York, the idea came to return to Nigeria and join forces as The Plug.
Asika and Osikoyo initially set out to help those producers, songwriters and DJs who largely worked behind the scenes and began to build the company slowly, starting with DJ Obi. But by November, Davido came around asking to work with Asika again — “and the rest was history,” as Osikoyo puts it.
But at that point, that history still had to be created — and Davido and The Plug immediately embarked on one of the most successful single years for an Afrobeats artist at the time. That came off the back of four huge singles, including “If” — named Song of the Year at the 2018 Headies Awards, Nigeria’s biggest music awards show — and “Fall,” which became the first Nigerian song to reach 100 million views on YouTube. Davido would go on to win Best African Act at Britain’s 2017 MOBO Awards, Best African Act at the 2017 MTV EMAs and Best African Act at the 2018 BET Awards.
“We came up with this whole campaign that everyone called Back To Basics, where we approached his career like he was starting out fresh, like a brand new artist,” Asika says. “Everyone always references 2017 as a benchmark; it was probably the biggest year an artist has had on the African continent, ever.”
Around the same time, Mohammed, through his agency TopBoy, was formulating the idea for the Mainland Block Party, which he conceived as a monthly festival for those who lived on the mainland in Lagos. (Lagos, the partners explain, is divided into the mainland and the island, with the latter more of a cultural and event hub and the former more akin to the outer boroughs of New York City.) “When I moved back to Nigeria, I realized there was a social gap between the mainland and the Island,” Mohammed says. “But loads of cool people lived there. So I was like, we should start something here and we’re going to try to make sure it’s cool.”
The first edition of the Mainland Block Party occurred in April 2018, at a burger spot called, fittingly, Burg. (Mohammed calls it “the coolest burger restaurant on the mainland.”) The first edition drew 150 people; the second, 300 people including Osikoya, who began to promote it on social media and brought it to Asika’s attention. Largely through word of mouth, it soon grew to 800 people — at which point Burg kicked the festival out — then to 4,000 and, by December 2018, 8,500 attendees, who came out to see largely rising local Afrobeats artists — “no serious headliner, just vibes,” as Mohammed puts it. At that point, he, Asika and Osikoya decided to expand the festival’s footprint, and today there are Block Party festivals in seven cities in Nigeria and Ghana — including both mainland and island editions in Lagos — with the flagship event held every December. It’s since become the biggest festival in Nigeria by annual footfall, and last December it hosted 20,000 people with Ghanaian star Black Sherif headlining.
Black Sherif performs at Mainland Block Party in Lagos in 2022.
Courtesy of The Plug
“I’m not going to lie and say I envisioned this growth; everybody who starts something great would hope that it becomes something great, but you can never tell how deep it goes,” Mohammed says. “We’ve gone from Mainland Block Party to creating a global festival now that we’re calling The World Is a Block, which is speaking to the fact that one of the messages of the Mainland Block Party is also the inclusiveness of it. A place where you don’t need to go to the club and get a bottle, you can have 10 dollars and come dance and have fun.”
In 2022, The Plug and TopBoy officially merged, bringing the Block Party and TopBoy’s agency under The Plug, and officially making Mohammed The Plug’s third partner. In the interim, The Plug has been focused on growth and expansion, building out its artist management roster while adding several new verticals to its offerings, including publishing; distribution, under head of music David Edogame; and sports, under head of Plug Sports Lanre Vigo. (The partners make a point to note that The Plug is not a label and doesn’t represent its artists in more than one area; a management client does not go through the company’s distribution network, for example.) It distributes artists such as Zlatan, Fave and Qing Madi, as well as the catalogs of Davido and Mayorkun prior to their respective deals with Sony. This December, the partners expect some 24,000 people at the Block Party in Lagos before expanding to the United States and the United Kingdom.
Notably, The Plug is indispensable to the inner workings of the Nigerian music industry, which operates differently than the music business in the rest of the world due to the particular intricacies of the market, which include its lack of structure and local allegiances. (Artists like Burna Boy and Davido, who have global major label deals, handle their operations in Africa separately.)
“With the success we’ve been able to attain, we’ve been able to build relationships with people who have been in these positions, who we can ask about some of the opportunities that have come our way,” Asika says. “It’s been a lot of learning on the job, being our own biggest critics of ourselves, to the point where we have to sit down with ourselves sometimes and be honest, like, ‘Are we doing this wrong? Are we wasting our time?’”
Now, the goal is further expansion — not necessarily in services, but in reach. Osikoya specifically mentions opening offices across the African continent as a goal within the next three years, while the growth of Afrobeats generally around the world has meant that new partnerships, like the one with LVRN for Davido, are possibly on the horizon, as well as new initiatives for their artists across the board.
And several of their current artists have landed big hits of late — Victony has risen to the biggest heights of his career in the past year on the strength of his massive single “Soweto,” while King Promise’s “Terminator” reaches an all-time high on the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart this week, and Ckay’s “Love Nwantiti” remains in the top 10 after 73 weeks. The possibilities are right in front of them now — and their influence is beginning to extend beyond what they can do for their clients into the next generation of the business itself.
“Now, we have more and more people whose parents have seen the success of people in the industry and are allowing their kids to be able to go to university to study things related to the music business,” Osikoya says. “Before, most parents just wanted you to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer. Now, people are coming back to Nigeria saying, ‘I studied the music business, I want to work at a label, I want to work at a distribution company, a marketing company, a PR firm.’ These things are helping develop the industry better.”
Multi-faceted entertainers Billy Ray Cyrus and FIREROSE have signed with Scott Adkins for exclusive management representation, and with Nick Meinema of Action Entertainment Collaborative for global agency representation.
Adkins also manages country singer-songwriter and Country Music Hall of Fame member Tanya Tucker and is president/CEO of public relations firm Adkins Publicity. Meinema’s Action Entertainment Collaborative also represents Trace Adkins, Terri Clark, James Barker Band, Sawyer Brown, Thompson Square and more.
“Billy Ray Cyrus is royalty in all aspects of the entertainment business who continues to reign as a true visionary, and FIREROSE is a multi-talented gem whose talent blew me away the moment I heard her stylistic voice. I’m thrilled to continue representing both artists in a management capacity after working with Cyrus for more than eight years,” Adkins said via a statement.
“We’re thrilled we got the call and opportunity to represent Billy Ray Cyrus and FIREROSE, and are excited to put into motion the plan they have for their future, while building off of Cyrus’ indelible career as a bonafide hitmaker and entertainer, as we embark into the next chapter with FIREROSE,” added Action Entertainment Collaborative founder Meinema.
Cyrus and FIREROSE recently issued their new duet, the Diane Warren-written “Plans.”
“Like our song says, ‘It’s a new day.’ ‘New Day’ was FIREROSE and my first Top 20 radio hit together. It sowed the seeds for a lot of change still yet to come. A new beginning. This moment in time marks not only a new chapter but to be honest, it’s a brand new book,” Cyrus said in a statement.
“I am honored and thrilled to be represented by Scott Adkins and Nick Meinema,” FIREROSE added. “I’m very much looking forward to this next exciting stage of my career and taking my artistry to the next level with this power team. There’s a great synergy in our creative vision and trajectory for my artistic goals.”
Cyrus earned his breakthrough hit in 1992 with “Achy Breaky Heart,” which enjoyed a five-week run at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Hot Country Songs chart beginning on May 30, 1992. One week later, his Some Gave All album hit the summit on Top Country Albums for the first of 34 total weeks, setting a precedent at the time for a debut album. He followed with country hits including “Some Gave All,” “It Won’t Be the Last,” and “It Could’ve Been Me.”
He went on to diversify his career, taking on acting roles in series including Doc and Still the King, as well as the Disney Channel series Hannah Montana with his daughter, singer-songwriter-actress Miley Cyrus. In 2019, he united with Lil Nas X for a remix of “Old Town Road,” which spent 19 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and is now certified 17-times multi-platinum by the RIAA.
FIREROSE and Cyrus previously collaborated on the song “New Day,” while FIREROSE is known for her indie-pop tracks “Fragile Handling,” and “Way Out,” which have each earned more than 1 million views on YouTube.
See the official video for the couple’s song “Plans” below:
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When Travis Scott decides to do something, he usually goes big.
And with his latest album, he decided to go colossal, with a 60,000-person concert unveiling his latest release, Utopia, at Rome’s iconic Circus Maximus, the ancient stadium that used to serve as a chariot racing venue during the Roman Empire. The event came together in less than a week and served as a capstone to the rollout for what became the biggest debut week for a hip-hop album this year, and the third-biggest week of any album at all in 2023, moving 496,000 equivalent album units.
Even more remarkable for an album in a genre that heavily over-indexes in streaming, half of the units moved for Utopia came from sales, as Scott continues to be one of the most innovative artists in music with his sales strategies. Helping him pull all this off has been his manager, Cactus Jack GM David Stromberg, who earns the title of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
Here, Stromberg talks about the huge first week for Utopia, the challenges in pulling off that show at the Circus Maximus and why artists should be celebrated for their approach to merchandising and sales. “A24 releases merch for their big movies, Disney and Marvel create massive product lines around their blockbusters, fans line up for jerseys and official merch at every sporting event,” he says. “But strangely in music, it’s now considered a negative towards overall consumption and metrics behind a project. I feel record-breaking artists who are able to move merchandise at an elite level should be celebrated at a time when branding, creativity and marketing [are] generally nonexistent in the music industry.”
This week, Travis Scott’s Utopia debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 496,000 units, the third-biggest debut week of any album this year and by far the biggest for any hip-hop album. What key decisions did you make to help make that happen?
Our small core team has been together since the start of Travis’ career. Cactus Jack is essentially an independent label and polymath-driven creative agency — we oversee everything from marketing strategy to design and execution. I also handle everything on the business end. For this project, Travis really wanted to lean into building a strong visual language. Producing his film CIRCUS MAXIMUS on an insanely tight timeline, shooting in exotic locations around the world and premiering the album within a film in theaters nationwide was a massive undertaking but definitely set up the project in a unique way. We are all super proud of the final product and it was amazing to see the world’s reaction.
This is his first album since 2018’s Astroworld, which also posted around 500,000 units in its first week. After five years, how did you work to set up this release to the point that it nearly equaled his last?
While the numbers are powerful and have important historical context, our focus is always primarily on the music and world-building. ASTROWORLD was such a seminal moment in culture, we wanted to level up that energy and recapture the feeling of event albums, which are clearly lacking in music lately. UTOPIA‘s first-week global streaming numbers actually almost doubled ASTROWORLD, Billboard just quantifies merch bundles differently now than in 2018 [in terms of sales]. On a global consumption level, it’s safe to say it actually far surpassed ASTROWORLD.
Of those units, about half came from streaming and half came from sales. What was the strategy around each side of that, particularly the sales side?
One thing that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough when judging music consumption data is the inherent disadvantages hip-hop faces in manufacturing physical music product. Due to the fluid nature of rap collaboration, leak culture and last-minute changes, vinyl lead time always far exceeds album delivery dates for rap. Pop artists are usually able to turn in their albums five to six months early and manufacture a significant amount of vinyl with a robust retail plan in place. Vinyl often ends up accounting for well over 50% of these pop artists’ first-week totals, whereas hip-hop is judged entirely on streaming. In an even playing field, rap stars are going to far out-stream even the biggest names in pop music, but for whatever reason they aren’t graded on the same sales curve. Going into this rollout we wanted to crack the code — we successfully manufactured our own vinyl and CDs in record time and built an e-com plan to leverage day-and-date physical music for the first time in modern mainstream rap. It was a really ambitious plan but thankfully everything came together smoothly. Huge thank you to recent Billboard cover hero Larry Jackson for his invaluable guidance and strategy throughout this whole process.
How important are direct-to-consumer sales and merch to an artist like Travis?
Man… I’d love to eventually have a deeper conversation around this topic at large. For some reason, direct-to-consumer and merch is used as a negative connotation against artists like Travis, oftentimes by artists or labels doing the exact same thing in their online stores to diminishing returns. Why stigmatize artists with extremely active fan bases who want to engage and support the album, even at a much higher price point than just a la carte music? Since the inception of rock and roll, merch has always been an important part of supporting your favorite artists. A24 releases merch for their big movies, Disney and Marvel create massive product lines around their blockbusters, fans line up for jerseys and official merch at every sporting event. But strangely in music, it’s now considered a negative towards overall consumption and metrics behind a project. I feel record-breaking artists who are able to move merchandise at an elite level should be celebrated at a time when branding, creativity and marketing [are] generally nonexistent in the music industry.
How did you choose the Circus Maximus for that performance, and what were the challenges in pulling it off?
Ancient worldwide settings were an early reference point for this album. Travis was particularly interested in civilizations that transcended technological and cultural limitations to reach new heights. Part of the film is essentially a live performance from the ancient Pompeii amphitheater ruins. We have a couple other Wonders of the World locations held for possible performances, currently studying timing and logistics. With the Circus Maximus show we basically put it on sale, designed the stage, produced the livestream ourselves and sold 60,000 tickets in less than a week. It was a crazy challenge but one of the most rewarding and epic shows of his live career. The energy and hearing the album live for the first time in that setting was an unforgettable experience and iconic way to conclude the first week of UTOPIA rollout.
How are you working to keep the momentum for this release going in the weeks and months to come?
I don’t want to say too much, but there is a lot in the works. Definitely continuing to build the UTOPIA world in unexpected ways. We just released the CIRCUS MAXIMUS film on Apple Music after a week of exclusivity in theaters. We’ve been thinking a lot about touring in different, innovative ways and utilizing new technologies in live performance. And Travis is always working on new music.
Eight managers, who have guided the careers of everyone from Nirvana to Robert Goulet, have been named as 2023 inductees to the Personal Managers Hall of Fame. Two of the managers, George Shapiro and Shirley Grant, are being honored posthumously.
The 2023 inductees will join 50 current Hall of Fame members, which include Sid Bernstein, Bernie Brillstein, Brian Epstein, Ken Kragen, Doc McGhee, Patricia McQueeney, Dolores Robinson, Jack Rollins and David Sonenberg.
“The Personal Managers Hall of Fame celebrates illustrious careers in entertainment, music, sports and talent management,” Clinton Ford Billups Jr., national president of the sponsoring National Conference of Personal Managers (NCOPM), said in a statement. “The 2023 inductees reflect the contributions, ethics and history of personal management that the Hall of Fame acknowledges and honors.”
Nominations are solicited nationwide from the personal management community. Inductees are selected by the national board of officers of the National Conference of Personal Managers, the nation’s oldest trade association committed to the advancement of personal managers and their clients.
The 2023 Personal Managers Hall of Fame red carpet reception and induction ceremony will be held Wednesday, Oct. 25 at the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
More information and tickets for the Personal Managers Hall of Fame is available at www.PersonalManagersHallofFame.org.
Here’s the full list of 2023 inductees to the Personal Managers Hall of Fame.
Phil Brock – CEO of Studio Talent Group, which for more than 25 years has represented actors for commercials, film, television and theatre, including Richard Moll, Mary Woronov and Emmy winner Pat Harrington Jr. (One Day at a Time). Brock was elected in 2020 as a member of the Santa Monica (Calif.) City Council.
Chris DiPetta – Veteran talent manager, television producer and owner of Atlanta comedy club The Punchline. For more than three decades, Chris DiPetta has managed the career of Billy Gardell, actor, comedian and star of the CBS sitcoms Mike and Molly and Bob Hearts Abishola.
Danny Goldberg – Has worked in the music business as a personal manager, record company president, publicist and journalist since the late 1960s. His current management clients include The Waterboys and Martha Wainwright and three-time Grammy winner Steve Earle.
Vera Goulet – For more than three decades, managed the career of her late husband Robert Goulet, who won a Grammy as best new artist of 1962 and a Tony for best actor in a musical in 1968 for The Happy Time. The singer/actor died in 2007.
Shirley Grant – During a career spanning more than four decades, guided the careers of Jonas Brothers, Keshia Knight Pulliam, Christina Ricci, Allison Smith and JD Roth, as well as Broadway stars Alex Boniello and Michael Lee Brown. Grant died in 2020. (Posthumous inductee)
Susan Joseph – A personal manager, concert promoter and branding consultant. Her clients have included songwriter Diane Warren, actress Nell Carter, singer Laura Branigan and actress Pia Zadora.
George Shapiro – A champion of comedy who guided the careers of Carl Reiner, Andy Kaufman, Peter Bonerz, Marty Feldman, Gabe Kaplan, Robert Wuhl, Bill Persky & Sam Denoff, Austin & Irma Kalish, and Norman Barasch. Shapiro died in 2022 at age 91. (Posthumous inductee)
David Spero – A music manager who has overseen the careers of Bad Company, Dickey Betts, Petula Clark, Billy Bob Thornton, Yusuf / Cat Stevens, Survivor, Don Felder, Patty Smyth, Joe Walsh and many others. Spero is also a 1970s rock-radio pioneer and a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame board of directors.
Australian singer and songwriter Kita Alexander is the latest addition to the Lemon Tree Music roster, Billboard can reveal.
Alexander signs with the Australia-based artist management company for the world, and will be guided by LTM senior artist manager Elise Naismith.
Kita’s catalog “is anthem after anthem and her new music is no exception,” Naismith comments. “Off the back of her sold out debut headline tour earlier this year, I look forward to empowering Kita as she enters her Queen era, here in Australia and beyond.”
To celebrate the new deal, Alexander today (July 27) releases her new single “Date Night” (via Warner Music Australia), a collaboration with homegrown country star Morgan Evans.
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Based in Byron Bay, Alexander’s profile contributes to grow off the back of several high-profile gigs and new releases, including the introspective “7 Minutes In Heaven” and the belter “Queen,” both of which enjoyed rotation on national youth broadcaster triple j.
Championed by triple j from the early phases of her career, Alexander would go on to achieve commercial radio liftoff with the Hit and Nova networks.
Global combined streams top 145 million, and include the EPs Like You Want To and Hotel, the ARIA gold-certified singles “Damage Done” and “Like You Want To,” and platinum-certified “Between You & I”.
Earlier in the year, she teamed up with Australian DJ Fisher on stage at Coachella. The live dates keep coming, and include a performance this Friday, July 28 at the FIFA Fan Festival, set to be held in Brisbane, Australia following the home nation’s Women’s World Cup group match against Nigeria.
Led by co-founders and directors Regan Lethbridge and David Morgan, LTM’s roster includes award-winning homegrown artists Tash Sultana, Tones and I and Budjerah.
“I’m so excited to announce that I’ve signed with Lemon Tree Music,” Alexander says in a statement. “I’ve been self-managed for the last year and a half waiting until I found the perfect fit. I have wanted to align myself with an Australian based management company that has those international ties to really grow my music and brand. Cannot wait to see what we can achieve together.”
Management firm Wasserman has unveiled a deal to buy CSM Sport & Entertainment, the UK-based agency.
Terms of the purchase agreement were not disclosed, but Casey Wasserman’s lifestyle marketing and management business is looking to grow its presence in the pro sports business arena worldwide. The move comes as Hollywood talent agencies look to increase representation of marketable pro sport leagues and players as they seek entertainment and endorsement deals.
CSM, which arranges partnerships between marketing brands and rights holders, recently did event marketing and hospitality services for Major League Baseball games in London between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs, and handled event marketing for The All England Lawn Tennis Club, the organizers of the Wimbledon pro tennis competition.
The proposed transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2023, Wasserman said. Founded in 2002, the firm represents sports and entertainment figures, musical artists, brands and properties worldwide.
Wasserman operates across six continents, 23 countries and more than 45 cities, including Los Angeles, New York and London and battles for market share in some areas against agencies like CAA and WME as they have also raised their presence in the global sports arena to represent media rights, athlete representation and sponsorship deals.
In 2020, Wasserman acquired the hockey-focused agency Acme World Sports as well as Lithuanian basketball agency BBaltics. And Casey Wasserman is part of LA28, which helped organize Los Angeles’ bid for the 2028 Olympics.
Since 2016, when the company rebranded from Wasserman Media Group to Wasserman, the firm has expanded further into culture, media and entertainment, adding creative and marketing agencies like Laundry Service and Boris Agency, and launched a social audience data platform called Unlock.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Myke Towers has signed a management deal with Brandon Silverstein’s S10 Entertainment, Billboard has learned. The signing — which is in partnership with Orlando “Jova” Cepeda (One World Music) and Jose “Tito” Reyes (Casablanca Records) — comes on the heels of Myke’s viral hit song “LALA,” which topped Spotify’s Top 50 Global chart and entered at […]
Dutch producer AFROJACK has signed with Moe Shalizi and The Shalizi Group for management. The Grammy-winning electronic artist joins a stacked dance roster that includes Alesso, Jauz and Marshmello, witih Shalizi guiding the career of the latter artist from unknown producer to global brand. “Moe Shalizi’s past work speaks for itself, excited to see where […]
Ozuna has signed with Scooter Braun‘s SB Projects, Billboard has learned. The management deal is a partnership with Edgar Andino, founder and CEO of Andino Marketing Group. The Puerto Rican star joins a SB Projects roster that includes Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato, among others. The company also previously managed Colombian powerhouse J Balvin, who parted ways with SB in June 2022 and is now signed to Roc Nation.
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“We’ve been following Ozuna’s career for years and we’re excited to be bringing him into the family to work with him and Edgar,” Jennifer McDaniels, president of management at SB Projects, said in a statement. “Ozuna’s music is unmatched. His ability to work across genres including reggaeton, Latin pop, and more, is phenomenal. With unique songs offering fresh perspective and beautiful sounds, we’re thrilled to amplify his artistry with this partnership.”
“Working with Ozuna over these past years, one thing is for certain, we always go big,” added Andino. “For us, Scooter and SB Projects align with our vision. They are the perfect partners to help in our continued approach and take Ozuna to the next level of his career. We cannot be more thrilled and cannot wait for everyone to see what we have coming next.”
A key figure in Ozuna’s team, Andino has helped the singer-songwriter land global deals that range from NFT collaborations to releasing a song for the Call of Duty video game. Most recently, he led negotiations for Ozuna’s inclusion in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Official Soundtrack, performing “Arhbo” with rapper GIMS. The uplifting song, which they performed at the World Cup’s closing ceremony, peaked at No. 1 Billboard‘s Latin Airplay chart.
In May, he released Afro, a seven-track EP where he experiments with Afrobeats. It followed his 2022 studio album, Ozutochi, which landed at No. 5 on the Top Latin Albums chart. Ozuna is set to embark on his Afro Tour across Europe this summer, which has 16 confirmed dates, including stops in France, Spain, Italy, Israel and Holland. The monthlong trek kicks off July 7 in France and wraps Aug. 6 in Spain.
Paladin Artists announced on Thursday that veteran agent Bruce Solar has joined the company, effective immediately. He’ll focus on expanding the company on a global scale. Solar will be based in Los Angeles and brings his roster of clients with him, including Blondie, Cake, Psychedelic Furs, The Zombies, Radical Face, Eels, Fantastic Negrito, The Monkees […]