Record Labels
In a stylish, cozy office in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, a dozen or so Ninja Tune employees sit around a conference table, everyone locked in on their laptops.
There’s a quiet hum of productivity as staffers work on the daily tasks that add up to the label’s prolific output — work that has helped define and expand electronic and indie music culture since Ninja Tune’s creation 35 years ago.
Founded in London by Matt Black and Jonathan More, who together made music as Coldcut, Ninja Tune now employs a staff of roughly 100 that primarily works in London and L.A. Given that geographic reach, Marie Clausen, Ninja Tune’s managing director of North America since 2022, calls 7:30 a.m. PT — which is 3:30 p.m. in London — the hallowed “golden hour” of each day.
“That’s the time for us to connect,” Clausen says while sitting in the office’s upstairs lounge area, where the walls are hung with album covers from Bonobo, Thundercat, Bicep, ODESZA and many of the other acts who’ve helped define the label’s roster and creative ethos since 1990.
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Originally from northern Germany, Clausen cut her teeth in the Berlin rave scene before eventually relocating to L.A. She now oversees an operation that includes the label, publishing company Just Isn’t Music and Ninja Tune Production Music, a library of stock music whose year-over-year revenue recently rose by 20%.
These latter two entities help subsidize the still fully independent Ninja Tune label. Recent synchs include music by the rising Brooklyn electronic outfit Fcukers featured in an Apple Keynote presentation; label artists TSHA, Logic1000, Machinedrum and many more having their music placed in projects spanning video games, film and TV; and a recent contract that secured the largest individual synch deal in the company’s history. While the track and brand are confidential, the campaign generated over $1 million — highlighting, Clausen says, “the scale and potential of our synch business.”
Ninja Tune also encompasses a collection of sublabels and partners including Flying Lotus’ influential Brainfeeder imprint, ODESZA’s Foreign Family Collective, Counter Records and Big Dada, with the team thus altogether touching a wide swath of artists and genres.
“Music and culture are the fires that keep us all going,” Clausen says. “That’s the real essence; that’s the texture; that’s what sticks, and then you build the business around it to amplify it.”
As Ninja Tune marks its 35th anniversary, Clausen reflects on the label’s recent successes, competing with the majors and more.
What are some of Ninja Tune’s biggest successes from the last few years?
One of the biggest milestones is continuing to work with team ODESZA on everything we’ve achieved over the years. I started working with them about 10 years ago, and obviously, we landed a No. 3 Billboard 200 album [with A Moment Apart in 2017]. Last year, they sold out three Madison Square Garden shows, which was an amazing milestone for them. Then we had several Grammy Award [nominations] and several gold and platinum records. [In 2021], we also brought their label, Foreign Family Collective, into Ninja Tune. That whole relationship just continues to be really strong, and it’s an amazing team. They’re very ambitious, very forward-thinking and very fan-first.
Then during COVID, we released Thundercat’s It Is What It Is album on Brainfeeder. That was another massive milestone. The record came out in April 2020 during the height of COVID, and we had to pivot many, many times throughout the campaign. He’s an incredible artist to work with — very, very talented. Ultimately, it also led to a lot of great chart success and a [best progressive R&B album] Grammy win for Thundercat.
What about on the broader business side?
Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen continued growth across the business, specifically in streaming. We went from the streaming revolution to the social media revolution, and now we head on into AI [artificial intelligence]. With Ninja Tune, we’re always trying to face this with a really open mind and keep an eye on where consumption is going and lead the business into that.
How does this approach extend the ethos of the label’s earlier days?
Back in the day, Matt Black and Jonathan More already had a very innovative, forward-thinking approach. They played with CD-ROMs, they had video mashups. They did something called Pirate TV, which is like what Instagram Live is now. It’s ingrained in the DNA of the company to really lean into new technologies and innovation.
Marie Clausen
Sarah Golonka
Tell me about the current state of your roster.
We have a very stylistic, diverse roster. We already talked about ODESZA and Thundercat, who are incredible and who we continue to work with. Black Country, New Road just released a new album called Forever Howlong that reached top three in the U.K. and sold [11,000] physical copies in the U.S. in its first week alone, after we set up over 150 listening parties and had a very bespoke campaign and an artist who really leaned in.
Then there’s Barry Can’t Swim. He’s amazing. He’s releasing his sophomore album, Loner, this summer, and his career has exploded since he launched his artist career three years ago. He had record attendance at Glastonbury last year and already received a Mercury Prize and a BRIT Award nomination. Here in Los Angeles, in April of last year, he played the El Rey, which is just under 1,000 capacity. Then last weekend, he sold out two shows at the Shrine with a combined 10,000 capacity.
It’s a wonderful team to work with, really forward-thinking, and the sound is incredibly warm and also very clubby and really sticks. There’s also amazing art that goes with it, and he’s an artist that has a fantastic sense of humor and keeps it fresh.
An artist like Barry Can’t Swim could presumably sign with a lot of different labels. What brings him to Ninja Tune?
We have a very ambitious team that, if they get a no, [they] turn it into a yes. We’re really dedicatedto building artist careers. We also handle every campaign and every artist we work with [gets] a very bespoke, white-glove treatment.
Someone like Barry is receiving full attention from the team. We have several offices across the world. There are just under 100 worldwide Ninja Tune employees. We are experts in physical and digital marketing. We know how to run e-commerce. We are really good at [customer relationship management] strategies.
We also know how to market toward different niches and then bring [those niches] into the mainstream. That’s one of the areas we’ve been successful in over the last couple of years.
Whether you look at Maribou State or some of the other artists we work with, it’s not necessarily music you would say is made for the mainstream, but [we can help guide] its way into the mainstream. Having that sort of superpower to know how to drive that forward and drive artist careers is one of our strongest selling points.
Your artist nimino had a big moment last year when his track “I Only Smoke When I Drink” went viral. As a label, how do you capitalize on that virality and harness it into something long-lasting?
We were really able to break him in the sense that when his single started going viral on TikTok, nobody really knew of him yet. We worked very closely with his management team and really leaned in on all the different aspects of the marketing campaign and were very ambitious in all areas.
[The result] has been just incredible to see. He played Coachella this year. His profile on Spotify went from roughly 500,000 monthly plays to 5 million within something like 50 days. It was really fun to work with a moment like that and then lean in and drive it forward.
What competitive advantage does being independent give you?
We’re quick to adapt. In some ways, we’re like the mailman; we are delivering one record after the next, but technology is changing so fast that we need to continue to rethink all the time. We have this very fresh, innovative mindset, and that allows us to pivot really quickly.
Do you feel you’re competing with the majors?
One hundred percent we are competing with the majors. It’s not our goal to compete with the majors. Our goal is to just be the best service to our artists and drive the company forward, but obviously, if you’re working at the forefront of the market, then you are competing. There are always majors around that are equally trying to sign our records, but that’s great. It keeps us on our toes, and it means we can deliver really good results. We’re challenged by that and that’s wonderful.
What are the keys to building a strong team?
It sounds cheesy, but I feel very blessed to work with the team that I do. I find that I’m learning a lot from everyone all the time, especially the younger generations, because they have such different views. The key is nurturing really talented people. We have some [employees] that were coming out of college that now have thriving careers. We’re empowering them, and there’s so much we can learn from them.
It’s also about being fluid while also offering structure. To increase our productivity, we set a rule that meetings are ideally not longer than 15 minutes. We call those micro meetings, and it really has changed the way we work. It helps everyone to really stay on track while we are also supporting hybrid work and all the different things it takes to work together in 2025.
In 2025, is there one thing that’s moving the needle for artists more than any other?
Obviously, we are working in an environment that’s very oversaturated. We see a massive amount of content. One challenge we have is the stickiness of content because there’s so much that’s competing.
One of the main things we see that works really well is to have a proper superfan strategy and to make sure that every time a music lover comes across your music one way or the other, whether it’s via TikTok or a streaming platform, Bandcamp, whatever it is, there is a strategy to get that fan or potential fan into your funnel.
Then it’s being very original with your art and your creativity and being easily identifiable for what you stand for and giving the fan a reason to fall in love with you and put your poster up on the wall. From that superfan strategy, the key points are to then look at [having] great social media, great live shows and great art that ideally is non AI-able.
This story originally appeared in the June 7 issue of Billboard magazine.
If owning two versions of four of her Big Machine albums presents a challenge to Taylor Swift, it’s a great problem to have. Then again, it might not be a problem at all.
At first blush, it might seem that Taylor Swift’s decision to purchase her Big Machine master recordings presents her with a difficult decision. Does she emphasize the original versions or the high-profile re-recordings that many fans have purchased and streamed? Then again, Swift isn’t necessarily forced to choose between the two versions of her catalog. Conversations with multiple music industry veterans revealed there are many options for monetizing the Big Machine releases and getting the most out of her investment.
Swift’s immensely successful re-recordings, given the name “Taylor’s Version,” have amassed 15.8 million track equivalent albums (TEAs) in the U.S. so far, according to Luminate. But despite driving her fans to those re-recordings, the four Big Machine versions have continued to perform well. Year to date, the original versions of Fearless, Speak Now, Red and 1989 have a total of 331,000 track equivalent albums in the U.S. — about 40% as much as the re-recorded albums.
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When Shamrock owned the Big Machine masters, Swift effectively had veto power over requests for synch licenses. If a music supervisor wanted a track from one of her Big Machine albums, Swift, who is either the sole songwriter or a co-writer on every track, could refuse to grant permission for the publishing rights. And she announced her intention to do just that in an interview with Billboard after Ithaca bought her catalog in its 2019 Big Machine acquisition, saying she would license her music for movies and commercials only if she owned the master rights. That’s why a 2020 Match.com ad used a re-recording of “Love Story,” not the Big Machine original.
Owning the Big Machine masters opens the door for more synch licenses. Whether the music supervisor wants the original or the re-recording, Swift, as the sole owner of both versions, has a financial incentive to put her songs in ads, films, TV shows and movie trailers, says Bryan Calhoun, a marketing consultant. “I would say, ‘Hey, let’s go crazy. I own this stuff. Let’s go hard.’ And I would have some people dedicated to really being aggressive about going and getting licenses.”
Owning her Big Machine catalog will also create more synch opportunities because some directors and music supervisors will want Swift’s original versions. Michael Hausman, manager of Aimee Mann and ‘Til Tuesday, says Mann re-recorded her song “Wise Up” to keep 100% of the revenue. “It worked out well,” he says. “Most people probably could never tell the difference.” But some music supervisors “just don’t like the idea of a re-record and they want the original,” he adds, “even if there’s no difference” between the two.
Swift’s most fervent fans supported her re-recordings and, in some cases, showed solidarity in her feud with Scooter Braun, whose Ithaca Holdings acquired Big Machine, by avoiding the Big Machine originals. Her four Taylor’s Version re-recorded albums, stuffed with additional material and released in multiple variations, have sold a combined 6 million units to date in the U.S. across digital download and physical formats, according to Luminate. Sales and streaming executive Adam Abramson believes that Swift would similarly find a welcome response to reissues of the original albums.
“While the Swifties were happy to accept the re-records at that time so that they did not have to buy or stream the original, ‘problematic’ versions, I think most will be thrilled to be able to listen to the original albums as they were recorded at those respective points in Taylor’s life,” says Abramson.
Album reissues tend to coincide with anniversaries, and owning her Big Machine catalog gives Swift the opportunity to celebrate her original albums’ 20th anniversaries. Her self-titled Big Machine debut — which was not re-recorded — will turn 20 next year, followed by Fearless in 2028, Speak Now in 2030, Red in 2032 and 1989 in 2034. That gives Swift eight years to repackage her first five Big Machine albums. And considering how well her four re-recorded albums sold, it’s reasonable to think Big Machine anniversary editions could see a similarly strong response from fans.
Owning two versions also gives Swift additional streaming revenue. While Swift has pushed her re-recordings, the Big Machine versions had the benefit of inertia. The four original Big Machine albums have accumulated 406 million on-demand streams in the U.S. in 2025. That’s about two-fifths of the streams from the re-recorded albums, but that many streams — worth 293,000 TEAs — will generate well over $2 million in annual royalties in the U.S. alone.
News of the Swift purchase is an opportunity for digital service platforms (DSPs) to take advantage of fans’ interest, says Adamson. “I would not be surprised, and have already started to see, the DSPs highlighting her newly owned catalog again.” Indeed, on Wednesday (June 3), just four days after Swift announced the acquisition, Apple Music took to Instagram to encourage subscribers to delve into Swift’s entire catalog.
There’s also the lesson of Garth Brooks, who bought his Capitol Records masters in 2005 and took them off streaming and download stores. Brooks tightly controlled the availability of his catalog, first licensing the recordings to Walmart in 2005, then to Amazon in 2017. Brooks has also made deals with select retailers — Bass Pro Shops, Cabela’s, Dollar General — to sell his box sets. Downloads of his music were also made available at GhostTunes, an online music store launched by Brooks in 2014. Brooks could do whatever he wanted because he owned the masters.
Swift could take the Brooks route and do exclusive deals with digital and e-commerce platforms. But it seems more likely that she will capitalize on her unique ability to motivate consumers and maximize her catalog’s availability across all sales and streaming channels. Swift can arguably squeeze more out of her catalog than any one DSP or e-commerce platform, and she’ll do more with it than an investor like Shamrock. “It’s more valuable in her hands than in somebody else’s hands,” says Calhoun.
Music Corporation of America (MCA) has promoted Rob Femia to chief operating officer, adding COO to his duties as executive vp of business and legal affairs. The label group’s imprints include EMI Records Nashville, Lucille Records, Mercury Nashville and MCA Nashville, representing artists including Eric Church, Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood, Chris Stapleton, Dierks Bentley, Alan […]
Rainy Monday mornings are rarely settings for celebration. But on this one, The Orchard CEO Brad Navin has 48,000 reasons to smile: The vinyl edition of Bad Bunny’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS has finally shipped, returning the album to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with the largest vinyl sales week since Luminate began tracking data in 1991.
It’s the Puerto Rican star’s fourth straight Billboard 200 chart-topper, all of which have been released through his label, Rimas, in partnership with The Orchard, the services company that launched as a digital distributor in 1997. After an initial investment in 2012, Sony bought The Orchard outright in 2015, and since — through smart mergers and competitive acquisitions of companies like IODA, RED and AWAL, as well as a global outlook and a top-tier services offering — it has become the U.S. market leader among all distribution companies, boasting an 8.9% current market share for 2025 through May 15, according to Luminate, nearly triple its next-closest competitor.
For the past 15 years, Navin — who joined the company initially in 2003, rising to interim CEO in 2010 before taking over the post full time shortly after — has steered that ship, navigating it through the streaming revolution, the globalization of the business and, more recently, the democratization of music that has led to distribution becoming the industry’s hottest sector, with dozens of new startups and millions in private equity funding flooding the space.
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Still, as Navin notes, “No one has invested in the independent sector more than The Orchard has in the last 15-plus years. We have helped our clients sign artists, grow their business, grow rights within their business, expand where their business might be located — there is not a client in The Orchard that has not grown dramatically while they’ve been with us.”
From the start, The Orchard did things differently. Co-founders Richard Gottehrer and Scott Cohen started the company years before the iTunes Store revolutionized digital downloads and quickly took a global approach. “For years, it was difficult for independent artists to get noticed and get distribution, and early on, we realized it almost didn’t matter where you were from or what language you were speaking — music was music,” Gottehrer says. “It’s a universal language and sharing that was important.”
The past decade has proved that to be prescient: In April, the RIAA reported that Latin music revenue in the United States surpassed $1 billion for the third straight year, and The Orchard is on the front lines of that through partnerships with Rimas (which itself recently bought a stake in Dale Play), Double P Records and the recent acquisition of Altafonte. The company, which maintains 50 offices on six continents, “gives you the tools to think big and not be restricted in your deal or resources,” says George Prajin, who co-founded Double P Records with Peso Pluma.
“[They] prioritize making sure that their partners can reach everyone worldwide,” says Tunde Balogun, co-founder and CEO of LVRN, which signed a distribution deal with The Orchard after exiting its joint venture with Interscope Records. “Whether it’s a genre or a region, it’s amazing to experience how they partner with entrepreneurs and artists and back them and help them grow.”
And as part of Sony, The Orchard has only strengthened its position. “A lot of the new companies springing up in the space are owned by investment vehicles or backed by finance money, and it’s not really clear what their long-term proposal is,” The Orchard president/COO Colleen Theis says. “We serve the independent community, and that’s always going to be our client base and our focus.”
With this proposition, The Orchard continues to attract new clients, from traditional partnerships to its 2022 investment in Rimas to taking stakes in Fat Possum and Mass Appeal. “Sometimes modern automation tricks us into believing these service providers are all the same, but when done right, it’s a far more complex operation than most people realize,” says Tyler Blatchley, co-founder of Black 17 Media, in which The Orchard has taken a minority stake.
“The deals we’ve done over the years have always been very strategic: a specific genre, a specific region of the world, a specific synergy or enhancing the value proposition that’s going to benefit our clients and our reach,” Navin says. “Is there a great operator or a great entrepreneur there that we want to be a part of what we’re doing? That’s where my motivation lies and that’s how we’ve done our deals historically: working with great operators.”
Brad Navin with Mass Appeal CEO Peter Bittenbender (left) and co-founder Nas.
Courtesy of The Orchard
You’ve been at The Orchard for more than 20 years. What was it like when you first got here?
We were a digital distributor before there was digital. It was pre-iTunes, let alone iPhone. I give the founders, Richard Gottehrer and Scott Cohen, a lot of credit — they had this understanding that the world was going to go online in some capacity. At the time, we were flipping over CDs and typing in label copy. That’s what digital meant for us back then.
It had to get more sophisticated to keep up with the volume and what was going to happen next. We wanted to control our own destiny, so we built around technology. And that became our great advantage because it taught us how to build a platform of services and the ability to integrate what’s next, without us needing to know what was next, necessarily. And that ethos exists today.
What did you feel The Orchard needed when you took over as CEO in 2010?
The team before me had the vision to go out all over the world — that music from everywhere matters. And now we live in a time where music from anywhere can stream everywhere. But we hadn’t yet built out our own technology. We were wildly unprofitable, we were in a terrible reverse merger from back in 2007-08, [and we were in a] total state of flux in management and what we were doing. And I came and said, “We need to build this out; here’s how I think it will transform the company.”
Sony invested in 2012 and then bought The Orchard in 2015. How did that work?
In the early days, there was some trepidation about being acquired by a major: Do they understand the independent sector? Do they understand all things digital and what’s going on? But as Richard said on the heels of the transaction, “We were bought by a f–king music company. Not by a bank, not by some people looking to liquidate.”
We had a company with the size that they are on a global level that was going to make sure that IP [intellectual property] was protected, that the value of music and how it’s going to be represented in a streaming world, or a short-form video world, would be represented in the right way, and that, ultimately, The Orchard and our clients were going to benefit. And that’s going to include whatever’s next, like [artificial intelligence]. As long as the creators are in the monetary chain and protected, I don’t know if I care what it is, necessarily.
Even in 2015, 50% of your business was outside the United States. How has that early global focus paid off?
To go into markets all over the world, where there are massively important catalogs and repertoire of varying genres, was an opportunity. As the [digital service providers] began to expand their reach and launch in those markets, we were sitting right there with all this music already available. You’ve got to be part of the local music scene and culture for the value proposition of artists and labels and the local music services. But we also need to be able to move music regionally and globally as it starts to happen. And that’s the way we function.
You said distribution used to be the unsexy part of the business. Now everyone wants to be in distribution. What changed?
The independent sector has always been about partnership, pushing the envelope on marketing, or the next format, or new ways to promote. Basically, they’ve always been willing to f–k with stuff while the big IP companies want to hold back. And as artists become empowered, they start to question: “What’s the definition of a label? What do I need going forward?” That’s a big reason why the industry’s been shifting. The definition of a label, or an artist services company, or a distribution company — it’s all in flux.
What are you focused on now?
If I think about North America, in this last year, Kelsea Ballerini on Black River Entertainment is an example of how the independent sector supports artist development. You could say the same thing in a completely different form for G*59 and $uicideboy$ and their roster. Music that I think the industry wasn’t really aware of but their fans were aware of, that’s the power of the artist being able to be out there, building audiences and driving it forward — it’s stunning. Black 17 and the whole phonk thing that’s been going on — when you work with great entrepreneurs all over the world, there’s new categories of music that we didn’t go out and look for that are happening. This is what’s going on in our sector of the business that’s so exciting.
How many different levels of service do you offer?
It’s not just the different levels. If they want us to f–k off and just put their music out, we can do that. If they want us to hold hands and really be in bed working up to that street date, we’ll do that. There’s no one size fits all at all. There can’t be.
Does that affect the deals you do, to keep them flexible?
To some degree, but not to a wide degree. The influx of outside capital into the music industry the last 10 years, and large competitors being born out of other majors or large, stand-alone distribution companies, whatever you want to call it — competition is great. We thrive off of it. Imitation is the best form of flattery. What is concerning, though, is … there’s a lot of irresponsible deals that have entered the marketplace: low margin, high capitalization. The artists deserve to be in control. They deserve to get paid.
This story appears in the June 7, 2025, issue of Billboard.
When Faye Webster is back home in Atlanta, she likes to visit Oakland Cemetery. “I always go there when I’m home from a tour and just walk around by myself,” she says.
It’s not that the cemetery is the final resting place of any of her loved ones, or that Webster enjoys checking out the tombstones of Atlanta’s rich and famous, like musician Kenny Rogers or golfer Bobby Jones, who are both buried there. She just sees it as “a peaceful, safe space” to find silence amid her increasingly chaotic life.
Last year, Webster, 27, released her fifth album, Underdressed at the Symphony, and played 77 shows to support it — a lot by anyone’s measure, but a touring itinerary that was particularly challenging for Webster. Despite her fast-growing success, the soft-spoken homebody has never loved the spotlight. “Navigating it is tough, but I had a friend give me the advice to call someone I love after the show every day to remind myself of what’s real,” she says. “So I asked my mom, ‘Hey, can I call you at 10:10 every night?’ Now we always do it.”
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She has other ways of making the road feel like home — like the added comfort of having her older brother Jack as her guitar tech; her best friend, Noor Kahn, on bass; and her bandmates of many years by her side. (Her other elder brother, Luke, handles her merchandise and graphic design.) She also has a go-to warmup routine for shows. “I always get everyone together and we recite the battle of the bands prayer from School of Rock: ‘Let’s rock, let’s rock today!’ Then we go onstage,” she says.
Originally, Webster had asked to meet at the cemetery for this interview, but with heavy rain projected in the forecast, we decide to talk over matcha and baked goods at a nearby café instead. Between bites of a guava pastry, Webster says that when she gets the rare opportunity to be at home, she spends time with friends and family or tends to her many hobbies, which include — but are not limited to — yo-yo, tennis, Pokémon, the Atlanta Braves and Animal Crossing. And, she says with a laugh, “I have so many collections of so many different things. So many dumb things.” Her house is littered with it all. “I was collecting alarm clocks for a while, then I filled a full shelf and I was like, ‘OK, there’s no more space.’ I did my yo-yo shelf, too. I have tons of vinyl. Now I need something new to collect, so I’m buying CDs,” she explains. Her latest purchase? A copy of Alison Krauss and Robert Plant’s Raising Sand from Criminal Records in Atlanta.
“I remember the first time I heard her sing when I was a kid. I thought, ‘I didn’t know people could sing like this,’ ” Webster recalls of Krauss. “She has this very soft, angelic, pristine voice. When I first heard her sing I thought, ‘I want to be her.’ ”
Faye Webster
Christian Cody
Webster self-released her debut, Run and Tell, an earnest and straightforward Americana record, in 2013 when she was just 16. Back then, her voice was still developing and didn’t yet have the bell-like clarity and melancholic whine that she is beloved for now. Soon after, Webster’s path crossed with the Atlanta hip-hop scene when she started photographing and hanging out with the young rappers signed to tastemaking indie label Awful Records. Around this time, she also grew closer to another emerging local rapper, Lil Yachty — whom she ultimately collaborated with on Underdressed single “Lego Ring.” With Awful, “It started as just a friendship for months, and then it grew to me signing there,” says Webster, who was an oddball addition to the label as its first non-rap artist.
But for Webster, it didn’t feel strange at all — she was just putting out music with help from her friends. “I loved my experience with Awful. I think, to this day, what I learned there was about creating this sense of family and community. I still hold those values today,” she says.
After releasing 2017’s Faye Webster with Awful, she moved to indie powerhouse Secretly Group and its Secretly Canadian label. There, she steadily accumulated millions of fans as she released 2019’s Atlanta Millionaires Club, 2022’s I Know I’m Funny haha and Underdressed. (Secretly also now distributes her self-titled album.)
Her career hit hyper-speed about two years ago when she scored surprise TikTok hits with “I Know You” and “Kingston” — which were about 7 and 5 years old, respectively, when they took off. Those viral moments shifted her audience away from indie-loving Pitchfork dudes and toward a younger, more female crowd; her recent shows have been marked by throngs of adoring fangirls. Ironically, Webster isn’t even on TikTok — and she barely posts on social media in general.
“Faye is amazing — and somewhat of a contradiction as an artist,” says Secretly Group vp of A&R Jon Coombs, who, with his team, signed Webster to Secretly. “She bucks industry trends by not being online that much, but she still has great social media success. She’s someone who is so impossibly cool, yet she likes traditionally uncool things like yo-yoing and gaming. All of these things combined make her a really compelling and singular artist.”
To connect her whimsical hobbies to her much more serious music career, Webster introduced custom yo-yos as merch in collaboration with Brain Dead Studios, which is run by her friend and creative director Kyle Ng. (“Individuality and being her own character adds so much to her as a musician,” he says.) She also incorporated Bob Baker Marionettes into the Ng-directed “But Not Kiss” music video; founded an annual yo-yo invitational in Berkeley, Calif.; started an active Discord server with a dedicated channel to all things Minions; and has repeatedly covered the Animal Crossing theme at her gigs.
“I look out at shows now and see people dressed up like Minions and having fun and singing and I think, ‘This is so beautiful. This is why I do it,’ ” Webster says. “I really appreciate that my music can resonate with anybody. That’s all I’ve ever wanted — for somebody to feel they can relate to my work.”
Faye Webster
Christian Cody
Her hobbies also seep into her songs, like Underdressed’s “eBay Purchase History” or Funny’s “A Dream With a Baseball Player,” which is about her lasting crush on Atlanta Braves star Ronald Acuña Jr.
“She has this ability to pack a short story into a single line,” Coombs says of her lyricism. From “The day that I met you I started dreaming” (“Kingston”) to “You make me want to cry in a good way” (“In a Good Way”) and “Are you doing the same things? I doubt it” (“Underdressed at the Symphony”), Webster’s economical songwriting often repeats phrases on a loop, each refrain cutting to a deeper emotional core. Her expertly crafted productions — Wurlitzer keys, smooth Southern-rock guitar and plenty of pedal steel — seal the deal.
For Webster, “initial reactions” and “gut feelings” are the anchors of the songwriting and recording process. “To me, I’m just like, ‘Oh, that sounded good! Let me say it again…’ However the song plays out is sometimes just the way it’s supposed to happen,” she says.
As part of that instinctive approach, Webster has historically recorded songs soon after writing them. “I just like to do things in the moment,” she says. “When writing a song, I’ve often texted my friends, my band, and tried to get everyone together while it’s still fresh.” She typically self-records her vocals at home and the rest in nearby Athens. Most recently, however, she tried recording Underdressed at famed West Texas studio Sonic Ranch.
“That was our first experience going somewhere new,” she says. “My producer [Drew Vandenberg] was like, ‘What if we go somewhere else?’ And I was like, ‘OK, if it’s you and it’s me and it’s Pistol [pedal steel player Matt Stoessel] and all the band, it shouldn’t matter where we go.’ ”
Now, as she works on her next album, Webster is taking another leap of faith: signing her first major-label deal with Columbia Records, where she’ll join a roster that includes Beyoncé, Vampire Weekend and Tyler, The Creator (whose Camp Flog Gnaw festival she performed at last year). When asked why she signed there, she pauses, taking a sip of matcha as she thinks. “It comes back to that initial gut, that initial intuition,” she finally answers. “[Columbia] feels like where I belong right now and that’s where I’m supposed to exist.”
Faye Webster
Christian Cody
Perhaps it’s thanks to the flexibility her time on indie labels offered, or the support system it allowed her to build — but so far, Webster has deftly navigated the music business without sacrificing her personality, her community or her privacy, and she doesn’t see that changing under Columbia. “I think throughout this process [of signing the new deal], I’ve been very up front and honest. I was like, ‘Don’t be surprised if I say no to a lot of things.’ I think being honest and having an understanding of each other is really important in any relationship.”
“I know it’s a buzzword, but Faye is just so relentlessly authentic,” says her manager, Look Out Kid founder and partner Nick O’Byrne. “Over the years, I’ve seen she’s not interested in doing anything that feels unnatural to her, and from talking to fans, I know that they’re smart and they see that in her, too.”
When I ask Webster if this signing is an indication that she is more comfortable in the spotlight now, she quickly replies “no” with a laugh. “I think I’m just always going to be this way.”
This story appears in the June 7, 2025, issue of Billboard.
Big Machine Label Group is set to celebrate its 20-year anniversary with a Big Machine 20 concert in downtown Nashville on Aug. 29, featuring performances from Sheryl Crow, Riley Green and Brett Young.
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The free-to-the-public celebration’s will kick off the rebranded Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix NTT INDYCAR Series Championship weekend, and will include the fifth annual Freedom Friday event to honor military members, police, fire, first responders and frontline members. In 2024, the Freedom Friday event drew 118,000 attendees to Nashville prior to the NTT INDYCAR Series event.
“This year’s event has even more meaning as we celebrate 20 years of Big Machine,” said BMLG founder, chairman and CEO Scott Borchetta in a statement. “Nobody could’ve predicted our incredible success in a city we love so much. This is our thank you to Nashville and all the fans of our amazing artists and their music. This is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime event and one we’ll never forget!”
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Other performers on the lineup include newcomer Preston Cooper, as well as artists who have been part of Big Machine Label Group’s two-decade history, including The Band Perry, Danielle Peck, Danielle Bradbery, RaeLynn, Jimmy Wayne and Jack Ingram.
Borchetta launched Big Machine in 2005, following roles at labels including MCA Nashville and DreamWorks Universal. The label’s current roster includes Tim McGraw, Midland, Thomas Rhett, Rascal Flatts, Brantley Gilbert, Carly Pearce, RaeLynn, Jackson Dean and Lady A.
Along the way, the label has also been an advocate for artists’ rights, with Borchetta launching the “Music Has Value” campaign and working with terrestrial radio broadcasters to earn sound-recording performance royalties for the label and its artists.
The label’s biggest alum, Taylor Swift, is not named among the Big Machine 20 event’s participants. Swift has not been aligned with the label since leaving for UMG’s Republic label in 2018 and following the 2019 sale of Big Machine Label Group — including the pop superstar’s recorded catalog — to Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings. In 2021, HYBE bought Ithaca Holdings. Swift recently regained ownership of her master recordings.
Sony Music has named Clio Massey and Matt D’Arduini as co-presidents of Arista Records, succeeding David Massey, who announced his retirement as president and CEO in April. The newly appointed leaders, both Arista veterans, are based in New York and will report directly to Rob Stringer, chairman of Sony Music Group.
In a statement, Stringer emphasized the “seamless transition” from Massey to Massey/D’Arduini and praised the duo’s complementary strengths and vision for the iconic label. “Clio and Matt are dynamic and forward-thinking executives who are best placed to build on the artist development they have been involved with in the first phase of the new Arista,” Stringer said. “Their skills complement each other neatly and as a partnership will lead to an exciting future for the label.”
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Massey got her start at Liberal Arts Music in 2013 and later joined Sony/ATV Music Publishing, where she worked in A&R from 2014 to 2018, signing notable songwriters such as Maggie Rogers and Geoff Warburton. She then joined Work of Art Publishing to collaborate with her father, David, and by 2020, was named general manager of WoAP as well as vice president of A&R at Arista. She’ll continue to oversee Work of Art Publishing, the company said.
“I look forward to continuing the work with the great artists and exceptional team at Arista, alongside Matt,” said Massey. “We’re excited to help shape and grow our group into its next chapter.”
D’Arduini has been a big part of Arista since its 2018 relaunch, contributing to the success of artists like Måneskin and Paul Russell, as well as playing a role in the soundtrack for The Idea of You. Prior to joining Arista, he spent 10 years at Robins Entertainment and six at Island Records, where he collaborated with David Massey on projects for artists including Nick Jonas, Demi Lovato and Shawn Mendes.
“We are eager to expand on Arista’s progress and reach over the last few years, cultivating even more talent at our company,” he said. “We’re also grateful for the leadership at Sony Music who believe in this organization and will help us advance our creative core.”
With new co-presidents in place, Arista believes it is positioned to build on its momentum and drive continued growth. The label has recently broadened its global roster, signing and nurturing rising stars such as Damiano David, JP Saxe, Lola Brooke, Jonah Kagen, and Sunday (1994).
Founded by Clive Davis in 1974 and home to icons like Whitney Houston and Carlos Santana, Arista was retired in 2011 and later revived by Stringer and the David Massey in 2018 with Davis’ blessing.
Over the weekend, Bloomberg broke the news that the Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group are in talks with Suno and Udio to license their music to the artificial intelligence startups. If the deals go through, they could help settle the major music companies’ massive copyright infringement lawsuit against Suno and Udio, filed last summer.
Billboard confirmed that the deals in discussion would include fees and possible equity stakes in Suno and Udio in exchange for licensing the music — which the two AI firms have already been using without a license since they launched over a year ago.
That sounds like a potentially peaceful resolution to this clash over the value of copyrighted music in the AI age. But between artist buy-in, questions over how payments would work and sensitivities on all sides, the deals could be harder to pull off than they seem. Here’s why.
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You need everyone on board
Ask anyone who’s tried to license music before: it’s a tedious process. This is especially true when a song has multiple songwriters, all signed to different companies — which is to say, almost all of pop music today. Since any music that is used as training data for an AI model will employ both its master recording copyright and its underlying musical work copyright, Suno and Udio cannot stop at just licensing the majors’ shares of the music. They will also need agreements from independent labels and publishers, too, to use a comprehensive catalog.
And what about the artists and songwriters signed to these companies? Generative AI music is still controversial today, and it is foreseeable that a large number of creatives will not take too kindly to their labels and publishers licensing their works for AI training without their permission. One can imagine that the music companies, to avoid a revolt from signees, would allow talent to either opt-out of or opt-in to this license — but as soon as they do that, they will be left with a patchwork catalog to license to Suno and Udio. Even if a song has one recording artist and five songwriters attached to it, it only takes one of those people to say no to this deal to eliminate the track from the training pool.
Is the expiration date really the expiration date?
Licensing music to train AI models typically takes the form of a blanket license, granted by music companies, that lasts between one and three years, according to Alex Bestall, CEO of Rightsify, a production music library and AI company. Other times it will be done in perpetuity. Ed Newton-Rex, former vp of audio for Stability AI and founder of non-profit Fairly Trained, previously warned Billboard that companies that license on a temporal basis should look out for what happens when a deal term ends: “There’s no current way to just untrain a model, but you can add clauses to control what happens after the license is over,” he said.
Attribution technology seems great — but is still very new
Many experts feel that the best way to remunerate music companies and their artists and songwriters is to base any payouts on how often their work is used in producing the outputs of the AI model. This is known as “attribution” — and while there are companies, like Sureel AI and Musical AI, out there that specialize in this area, it’s still incredibly new. Multiple music industry sources tell Billboard they are not sure the current attribution models are quite ready yet, meaning any payment model based on that system may not be viable, at least in the near term.
Flat-fee licenses are most common, but leave a lot to be desired
Today, Bestall says that flat-fee blanket licenses are the most common form of AI licensing. Given the complexities of fractional licensing (i.e., needing all writers to agree) with mainstream music, the AI music companies that are currently licensing their training data are typically going to production libraries, since those tend to own or control their music 100%. It’s hard to know if this model will hold up with fractional licensing at the mainstream music companies — and how they’ll choose to divide up these fees to their artists.
Plus, Mike Pelczynski, founder of music tech advisory firm Forms and Shapes and former head of strategy for SoundCloud, wrote in a blog post that “flat-fee deals offer upfront payments but limit long-term remuneration. As AI scales beyond the revenue potential of these agreements, rights holders risk being locked into subpar compensation. Unlike past models, such as Facebook’s multi-year deals, AI platforms will evolve in months, not years, leaving IP holders behind. Flat fees, no matter how high, can’t match the exponential growth potential of generative AI.”
There’s still bad blood
The major music companies will likely have a hard time burying the hatchet with Suno and Udio, given how publicly the two companies have challenged them. Today, Suno and Udio are using major label music without any licenses, and that defiance must sting. Suno has also spoken out against the majors, saying in a court filing that “what the major record labels really don’t want is competition. Where Suno sees musicians, teachers and everyday people using a new tool to create original music, the labels see a threat to their market share.”
Given that context, there is a real reputational risk here for the labels, who also represent many stakeholders with many different opinions on the topic — not all of them positive. For this licensing maneuver to work, the majors need to be able to feel (or at least position themselves to look like) they came out on top in any negotiation, particularly to their artists and songwriters, and show that the deals are in everyone’s best interests. It’s a lot to pull off.
Early in 2024, Clipse prepared to play a new album for their label, Def Jam. While these types of playbacks can be routine, this one was freighted with extra significance: The rap duo composed of brothers Pusha T and Malice had not released an album together since 2009.
Their comeback soon hit a speed bump. One song on the new album featured a guest verse from Kendrick Lamar, who spent part of 2024 in a venomous back-and-forth with Drake. And, as Pusha T recently told GQ, Lamar’s presence on the Clipse track made Def Jam’s parent company, Universal Music Group, uncomfortable.
“They wanted me to ask Kendrick to censor his verse, which of course I was never doing,” Pusha T told the publication. “And then they wanted me to take the record off [the album].”
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Clipse refused to make the requested changes, leading to the unravelling of Pusha T’s association with Def Jam — his label home for over a decade. Even though the rapper still owed Def Jam albums, he paid a seven-figure sum to get out of the deal, according to longtime manager Steven Victor. “If you’re an artist, your whole life is to create art and put it out,” Victor says. “If someone’s telling you that you can’t do that, or you have to do it within the confines of whatever box they put you in, that’s like creative jail.” (Reps for Universal Music and Def Jam did not respond to requests for comment.)
Pusha T has his own antagonistic history with Drake, which culminated in the scathing 2018 diss record “The Story of Adidon”; Victor says Pusha T’s verses have been facing strict label scrutiny ever since. Meanwhile, the fallout from Lamar’s battle with Drake is still ongoing: The latter has sued Universal Music Group, accusing the company of defamation over Lamar’s track “Not Like Us.”
Victor spoke with Billboard about the end of Pusha T’s relationship with Def Jam, and finding a new home for the rapper — and the Clipse album — at Roc Nation.
When you started to hear objections to the Lamar verse on the Clipse album, where were they coming from?
UMG has this department where they review lyrics. So it was that department. The real reason [that department] is there is to protect the artists and the label from lawsuits for copyright infringement. They do it for all the labels. Some labels adhere to it closer than others.
Let’s say you interpolate somebody else’s song. [That department] is there to make sure that the song is properly cleared. It’s not meant to be like, “You said XYZ about XYZ artist, so we’re not going to release this music.”
While you’ve been working with Pusha, have you ever had challenges with that department before?
In the beginning, no. But starting in 2018, yeah.
That’s the year Pusha released “The Story of Adidon.” He put that on SoundCloud, and it’s never been officially released on streaming services. Was that a way of getting around any internal objections?
Part of the reason, yeah, to avoid that. [Also] we never actually properly cleared it.
Pusha T mentioned two songs in his interview with GQ, Rick Ross’ “Maybach Music VI” and Pop Smoke’s “Paranoia,” where his verses were ultimately cut. Was that because of the same department’s scrutiny?
Yes. What happened on the Pop Smoke song is that UMG thought that he was dissing Drake on that song. He wasn’t, but they thought he was. Pop Smoke was released on my label [Victor Victor], and obviously I managed Pusha. So they came to me and said, “We’re not going to put this out now, unless you get Pusha to change these lyrics.” Even though it has nothing to do with Pop Smoke, they’re like, “Either he changes these lyrics, or we’re not putting the album out.”
What happened to freedom of speech? First of all, he’s not dissing Drake. But how do you get to tell him to just change his lyrics or you’re not putting this album out?
From what Pusha told GQ, this Kendrick verse they’re concerned about on the new record is not dissing Drake, either.
Yeah, I don’t know what their concern is. But they were like, “There’s a line here; we think it’s controversial; [Kendrick] needs to change it, or we’re not putting it out.” We’re not going to ask him to change the verse. You guys are wrong. Stop looking at this this way. None of this makes any sense.
It got to the point where the conversation became, “You can’t keep stopping this guy from being able to put out his art.” He’s a rapper. Every time he puts out an album or a song, you can’t listen to it to make sure that he’s not dissing somebody before you put it out. He has to think about what he’s saying before he’s saying it in the hopes that you might not think that he’s saying the wrong thing? Who could live their life like that?
I went to them and I said, “Let us put the song out somewhere else since you guys have an issue with it. You guys won’t have to stand behind whatever complications come from it. We’ll put the song out somewhere else, and we’ll license it back to you guys when the album comes out.” Their response was, “How about you just find somewhere else to put out Clipse? Just pay something to us and put it out somewhere else.”
My thing was, we can’t do that — Pusha and the Clipse are one thing. [At this point], he clearly doesn’t trust you guys. You guys haven’t been good stewards of his career.
So they said, “Find another deal, and let’s figure out a business.” They didn’t drop us. They were like, “Pay us this money” — which was an exorbitant amount of money, a s—t ton of money — “and we’ll let you out the deal.” That’s what happened. We paid them the money, an insane amount of money. It wasn’t, like, $200,000. It was a lot of money for an artist to come up with. They bought themselves out of the deal.
How many solo albums did Pusha have left on his deal with Def Jam?
I don’t really want to talk about that part. He had like three albums left.
So you had to pay seven figures to get out of the deal?
Yeah.
How quickly were you able to get another deal in place?
It happened simultaneously [with getting out of the previous deal]. It took a couple of weeks for us to figure out the paperwork. Again, it was a lot of money — we kept on going back and saying, “Can we pay you this amount of money and a part of the profit? Can we figure out a deal where we pay you as the guys make money from the new release, instead of coming up with this large sum of money [right now]?” They said no. They were like, “We want our money, and we want some of the profits.”
Once I knew that we had, in principle, a deal in place with Def Jam [to leave], I got on the phone with Jay-Z. I was like, “Look, this is what’s happening. We’ve been talking about doing X, Y, Z, together. There’s an opportunity here to do this album. What do you think?”
He hit me back right away, like, “You just made my day. Let’s figure it out. What do we need to get it done?” I went back to Pusha, and said, “Listen, Jay’s gonna give us a very artist-friendly deal, we get to own the masters, and they’ll put the marketing power of Roc Nation behind it. You guys are friends. It’s a great outcome.” We worked out the deal in less than 24 hours.
You had to pay Def Jam a lump sum to get out and also give a cut of what you make off the new record?
Yeah, we had to give them a cut also, which is insane. But the good thing about it is that Pusha is in control of his future. Now he has three deals in three different places. At the beginning of his solo career, we put out records independently with Mass Appeal; he owns those records. Then we did the deal with G.O.O.D. Music/Def Jam; when Kanye left Def Jam, we worked out an agreement with him where he gave Pusha his masters back on the G.O.O.D. Music side. And now we did this deal with Jay.
Pusha is having way more success creatively, financially and professionally, than he did at the peak of his career, which was when [Clipse’s] “Grindin’” came out. Smart and steady wins the race.
What appeals to you about taking the independent route?
I still think there’s a place for major record labels. But if you can get away with being at a place that understands the culture that you’re in a lot more, moves more nimbly, and you can get the same resources that you would from a major, why would you go to a major, especially with the way the deals are structured?
You can get everything and more from somebody that not only looks like you, but behaves like you, has the same mindset as you. You’re not dealing with layers and layers of corporate bureaucracy and nonsense. And all artists are not treated equally in the major record label system.
One thing you still hear about the majors is that, to the extent that radio matters, they have the muscle there, and they also have an international presence that’s hard to replicate.
Cap. I call cap. I’ve done it on a smaller scale and on the larger scale. All you need is a team. You can hire and you can outsource a great international team, a great radio team. For some artists it’s definitely more beneficial to be part of a major record label. But you don’t need to be on a major record label to find success.
Obviously Pusha T and Def Jam had a long relationship. Is it tough to see it end this way?
Pusha has been signed to Def Jam for almost 15 years. We’ve been there for a long time; we’ve seen different regimes come and go. But at the end of the day, if a relationship is not working, for whatever reason, it doesn’t make any sense to stay there, regardless of how much you might like it or might feel comfortable. And I don’t know if the amount of attention, focus and detail that we were looking for [on this album rollout] would have happened there anyway.
Is this the start of a potentially closer relationship between Victor Victor and Roc Nation?
I’d say so. There’s a lot going on, a lot of moving parts. But the focus right now is definitely this Clipse album.
GYRO Group has appointed music executive Matthew Rogers as its new chief commercial officer (CCO), marking a major leadership move for the Australian-owned digital music distribution and artist services company.
Rogers, who spent 14 years as chief operating officer at UNIFIED Music Group, brings a wealth of experience in scaling independent music businesses globally. In his new role, he will be instrumental in driving the growth of DistroDirect, GYRO Group’s hyper-local boutique distribution and catalogue management system, which now powers over 500 micro-distributors across 40 markets on six continents.
“We are incredibly excited to welcome Mat to the GYRO Group family,” said CEO Andy Irvine.
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“His extensive experience in driving growth and his deep understanding of the independent music landscape will be invaluable as we embark on the next phase of development for DistroDirect and the wider group. Mat’s strategic insights, global networks and commercial acumen will be crucial in achieving our ambitious goals.”
The appointment follows a significant track record: During his time at UNIFIED, Rogers oversaw the company’s transformation from a seven-person Australian operation into a 100-person international enterprise with offices across Australia, North America and Europe. He played a key role in building the heavy music label UNFD and developing STL Tones into a major player in music software and plugins.
Rogers was also pivotal in UNIFIED’s early response to the landmark Raising Their Voices report in 2022, helping to implement progressive strategies around mental wellbeing, workplace safety and industry culture.
He has served over seven years on the board of the Australian Independent Record Labels Association (AIR), as well as four years on the board of the Worldwide Independent Network (WIN), including two years as vice president.
“The move marks a homecoming for Rogers, who returns to a Brisbane-based company nearly 20 years after relocating interstate,” said CMO and co-founder Vivienne Mellish. “GYRO Group is proudly headquartered in Queensland, creating global opportunities for independent artists so we’re absolutely pumped to welcome Mat back to where it all started for him. His track record speaks for itself, and we are confident that his leadership will further strengthen our commercial strategies and market presence. We are thrilled to have his expertise on board.”
“I am thrilled to be joining the dynamic team at GYRO Group at such a pivotal time,” added Rogers. “Having witnessed the company’s impressive growth and commitment to the independent music community, I am eager to contribute my experience to further develop DistroDirect and support GYRO Group’s ambitious international expansion plans. Joining a Queensland-based company after many years interstate feels like a natural and exciting next step.”
With offices across Australia, the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Brazil, the Philippines and India, GYRO Group now represents several brands including GYROstream, DistroDirect, GROUP SPEED and Soothe Sounds. Independent artists using GYRO services have secured ARIA wins, Grammy nominations, No. 1 records and global chart placements. Notable names on their roster include Dom Dolla, ONEFOUR, WILLOW, The Amity Affliction, Lithe, Emma Memma and more.