Record Labels
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Roc Nation and its music distribution wing, Equity Distribution, have merged to form Roc Nation Distribution, sources tell Billboard. As part of this new formation, all artists currently signed to Roc Nation the label will be under ROC Nation Distribution.
Sources add that ROC Nation Distribution will continue to sign artists and offer myriad services similar to those provided by Equity Distribution. Established in 2019, Equity Distribution works with independent artists who wish to retain ownership of their masters. Under the leadership of president Krystian Santini, Equity offers a range of services including in-house marketing and publishing administration. Notably, they have worked with independent artists like Mach-Hommy and Tinashe and brought Jay-Z‘s 1996 debut album, Reasonable Doubt, to streaming services in 2019.
As part of the move, Shari Bryant, co-president of Roc Nation’s record label, has stepped down from her post. Bryant became co-president alongside Omar Grant in 2019 after former label president Benny Pough departed. Bryant and Grant signed new acts to the label during their tenure, including Maeta, Ambre, Reuben Vincent and Kalan FrFr.
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Roc Nation was originally founded in 2008 as a joint venture with Live Nation to cover Jay-Z’s touring and future recordings; the company signed its first artist, J. Cole, the following year. Since then, Roc has expanded into a full-service entertainment company, with management, sports, publishing and distribution divisions, as well as a long-running festival, Made In America; the company also has a deal with the NFL to oversee the programming for its Super Bowl Halftime Show and its social justice initiatives. Over the years, the label released several chart-topping albums from Jay-Z, J. Cole, Rihanna and a slew of others; the roster had more recently included artists such as Rapsody, Vic Mensa, Belly, Snoh Aalegra, and Jaden and Willow Smith.
In March, Maeta landed her first No. 1 on Billboard‘s Adult R&B Airplay chart with the success of “Through the Night” featuring Free Nationals. Grammy-nominated MC Rapsody released her new album, Please Don’t Cry, through Roc Nation and Jamla Records in May with features from Erykah Badu and Lil Wayne.
Roc Nation Management remains formidable, boasting names such as Megan Thee Stallion and Lil Uzi Vert. In June, Megan released her eponymous album, which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200; it featured her Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper, “Hiss.” Tinashe, also managed by Roc, regained momentum this year when she notched a hit with “Nasty,” her first Hot 100 entry as a lead artist since 2014’s “2 On.” The management division also reps DJ Khaled, J Balvin, Yo Gotti, Robin Thicke, Mustard, Christina Aguilera and more, according to its website.
For most of the last decade, three labels have dominated the U.S. recorded music business: Universal Music Group’s Republic and Interscope, and Warner Music Group’s Atlantic. So on Aug. 1, when Warner announced that as part of a management shakeup it had appointed Elliot Grainge as CEO of Atlantic Music Group, the move came as a surprise. Co-chairmen Julie Greenwald and Craig Kallman had led Atlantic for two decades, through the hardest years of the music business, to become two of the most respected executives in the industry. Now, after two years of declining market share, leadership will pass to a 30-year-old executive who comes from outside the major label system.
Within a week, Greenwald, who had been elevated to chairman of Atlantic Music Group, announced that she plans to leave at the end of January. (Kallman, one of the all-time A&R greats, will stay on as CEO of Atlantic Records, under Grainge.) And the entire business seems to be wondering, What does this mean? It’s a big gamble for WMG CEO Robert Kyncl. Grainge, the son of UMG chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge, has an impressive track record of success on a smaller scale, but not much on the kind of scale major labels usually operate. What’s going on?
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The obvious answer is that this is the acceleration of a youthquake in the music business. Streaming payouts are determined disproportionately by younger listeners who spend more time online. The industry’s top executives aren’t getting any younger, and the music business has never been much for succession planning.
One industry executive I spoke with asked sarcastically if I thought Grainge was familiar with Ruth Brown, the R&B icon who had so many hits in the 1950s that Atlantic was nicknamed “the house that Ruth built,” in a nod to Yankee Stadium. I have no idea, but I also know that most young listeners don’t, so, as much as it pains me to say this, maybe that doesn’t matter so much. Greenwald is now regarded as an industry leader, but she wasn’t so much older than Grainge is now when she became president of Island Records in 2002.
Grainge does seem to have a skill for identifying artists who are building an audience online and putting resources behind them in a smart way. Is his 10K Projects, which became part of WMG last year, a model for the label of the future? He hasn’t built the careers of any household-name superstars, which has been the traditional strength of the majors, though some of the acts he signed, like Ice Spice, are still on the rise.
As recently as two years ago, the trend lines seemed clear: Hip-hop was conquering the world, not only growing but also shaping emergent genres from Latin urbano to Afrobeats. Now it’s a bit harder to make sense of what’s working. Pop is getting bigger, but so is country. Latin is growing faster than ever, but tastes are changing there, too. And fans are more fickle than ever. Katy Perry’s comeback is faltering. The new album from Dua Lipa, which seemed like a sure thing, has had a slow start. Are listeners just hungry for new artists? Maybe. But Sabrina Carpenter released her first album before Dua did. Only Taylor Swift endures. As for everyone else, all we are is dust in the wind.
Amid this uncertainty, it’s tempting to think that someone must have the answers — especially if that person is young. Sure, the feeling goes, I don’t understand what’s happening, but I bet that guy does. And maybe he does! Grainge built a successful company by focusing on finding, developing and marketing talent in the digital world. The major labels have generally made bigger bets that paid off, or didn’t, in a bigger way. That’s harder to do now — there are fewer real superstars partly because there are fewer real paths to superstardom.
It may be more important than ever, though. Hit albums remain popular longer than ever, boosting the success of previous music by the same artist. Of the top 10 albums of the first half of 2024, Morgan Wallen had two of them, one each from 2021 and 2023; Zach Bryan’s 2023 album was the 8th biggest of the first half of 2024, so he could well have two of the biggest releases this year. (That top 10 list for the first half of 2024 has only seven artists.)
That’s the kind of success Grainge needs to bring to Atlantic, whether it comes from new acts or old ones, big bets or small ones the label doubles down on, or some combination of the two. All of the questions this raises about the future of the music business — What does this mean? What’s going on? — will be answered, at least to some extent, by how he does at that.
The power of the major label has been completely decimated.”
That broadside came from Elliot Grainge during an interview with The Los Angeles Times last year. In the profile, Grainge, founder of the independent label 10K Projects and son of Universal Music Group chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge, added that the majors were like “a conveyor belt with 100 other priorities” and “mediocre-at-best product-management departments.” In his view, there was “not one example” of an artist “signed, developed and marketed from scratch to huge fanfare by a major label in the last three years.”
Sixteen months later, one of those conveyor belts will soon belong to Grainge. In a sudden and surprising shakeup, Warner Music Group announced that the 30-year-old will take over as CEO of Atlantic Music Group on Oct. 1, less than a year after WMG entered a joint venture with 10K. In his new position, Grainge will oversee the renowned Atlantic Records, as well as 300 Elektra Entertainment and his own imprint.
This means he will jump from managing a staff of around 30 in 2023, according to The L.A. Times, to commanding hundreds of employees. And as part of the overhaul, at least two well-regarded WMG veterans are headed for the exits: Max Lousada, who served as the company’s CEO of Recorded Music since 2017; and Julie Greenwald, who had led Atlantic as chairman and COO since 2006.
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The upheaval marks an abrupt generational shift for Atlantic, the storied label co-founded by music legend Ahmet Ertegun in 1947. “They’re going from the most traditional, A&R-driven leadership to a very contemporary, digitally-native new administration,” says one executive who has worked with Grainge in the past. “It’s going to be interesting to see what happens.”
“Cutting Away the Bullshit”
Grainge has risen rapidly in a remarkably short time in the business, and several executives who have worked with him cheered his latest promotion. “We’re still operating in an antiquated system, and Elliot’s found his success by cutting away the bullshit,” says Solomon Sobande, who managed XXXTentacion, the SoundCloud rapper-turned-streaming superstar, before his death and teamed up with Grainge to release X’s ? album in 2018. “There’s a certain level of commitment to his artists, making sure they had everything they needed to be successful, that I was always enthralled by.”
Some Warner employees, however, said they were upset at the departures precipitated by Grainge’s promotion. For them, losing Greenwald, who has been at Atlantic for two decades and assured Ertegun she would take care of the company upon being named president back in 2004, symbolizes the end of an era. (Craig Kallman, who served as chairman/CEO of Atlantic alongside Greenwald for many years and focused on A&R, will remain as CEO of Atlantic Records, albeit in a diminished role.) “We did not think Julie’s run was up yet, and we did not think Max’s run was up yet,” says one WMG executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Both Lousada and Greenwald were known for their close connections to marquee artists on WMG’s rosters; filling the void left by their departures will be no mean feat. Each has spent decades at record labels, developing reputations for their relationships with both artists and staff. Several executives expressed surprise that the new Atlantic boss is relatively inexperienced — even at a time when younger CEOs have taken over Columbia Records, Def Jam, Island Records and Warner Records, Grainge is the youngest major-label chief by a wide margin — rather than someone who has invested the years to learn how the majors operate.
Multiple WMG employees also wondered how 10K’s approach to signing and building artists will translate to Atlantic. While Grainge’s label has helped generate billions of streams, it has not yet nurtured an arena-headlining superstar in the mold of Atlantic’s Bruno Mars or Ed Sheeran, two artists whom Lousada and Greenwald helped shepherd to global success.
“Julie was widely regarded as one of the last real artist advocates who prioritized substantial songwriting over memetic share-ability,” says one manager who has worked closely with Atlantic. “She knows superstars transcend the algorithm. I really haven’t seen 10K develop anything that I think will last a generation or more.”
In addition, some employees said they are struggling to wrap their heads around the fact that the father of their incoming boss runs their biggest competitor. Together, father and son will lead companies that control more than a third of the U.S. recorded music market.
And some executives are worried that additional consolidation might mean more layoffs. Earlier this year, Atlantic laid off roughly two dozen staffers, mostly from radio and video; any new CEO at any company is likely to have new priorities. Grainge will do “some creative marketing that might not be ‘traditional’ for the majors,” predicts a second executive who has worked with him.
“Some labels still send shit to radio as their primary marketing strategy,” adds a third source who knows Grainge. “10K hasn’t done that. They invest heavily in digital — their ways of working with artists are much more modern.”
A rep for WMG declined to comment. On a recent earnings call, WMG CEO Robert Kyncl said he was “excited by the prospect of taking Atlantic’s culture-making capabilities” and “adding Elliot’s digitally native approach into the mix.” That combination, he continued, will “grow the label’s outstanding reputation.”
“Labels Are Trying to Adjust”
All the majors are facing an increasingly tough landscape because their influence over what music becomes popular is diminished — “decimated,” in Grainge’s words. As a result, “Labels are trying to adjust and test different methodologies to figure out what the future of a major will look like,” says a fourth executive who has worked with Grainge in the past.
In the last year, outside of the superstar ecosystems, music industry wins have often come from smaller, more agile outfits like Pulse Records (Tommy Richman) or Artist Partner Group (Odetari, Lay Bankz). 10K’s biggest success since moving to Warner has been Artemas’ “I Like the Way You Kiss Me” — low-slung club-pop — which peaked at No. 12 on the Hot 100, and, to a lesser extent, Rich Amiri‘s “One Call” (No. 60).
These artists typically thrive in niches online, and don’t necessarily release the type of blockbuster albums that linger near the top of the Billboard 200 for weeks on end. But many young executives believe that this “riches in the niches” approach is the future — they argue that hardly any new superstars will be created now that audiences are spread across dozens of online platforms and mass media has lost much of its firepower.
Grainge’s rise, then, is a nod to the success of these streamlined, quick-on-the-draw operations, with their lower overheads and digital expertise. “It says something about the state of the industry as a whole that one big label system made a bet on a more independent, lean music business strategy,” says the first executive who has worked with Grainge.
But there’s no guarantee that the two systems will mesh. “There’s a political element to going into a place like Atlantic which is very different from running an independent company,” the executive continues. “It’s a challenge to be in that position and inherit decades worth of custom and chains of command.”
Elliot Grainge
Logan Mock
“The Red Tape Doesn’t Exist”
Grainge founded 10K Projects in 2016 and connected with many of his biggest acts early on — often rappers with avid online followings. Grainge was quick to dive into the volatile, punk- and emo-inflected hip-hop that erupted on SoundCloud in this era, signing Trippie Redd, 6ix9ine and XXXTentacion, among others. (More recently, 10K signed Ice Spice in partnership with Capitol Music Group; while most artists moved to WMG with 10K in the joint venture last September, Ice Spice remained under 10K/Capitol.)
At the time, the major labels hadn’t yet built the tools they now use to scour the internet’s nooks and crannies looking for viral phenomena, which left an opportunity for executives immersed in these digital scenes to find talent. The majors may also have been wary of the media controversies and legal troubles that dogged artists like 6ix9ine and XXXTentacion. (At the time, Universal Music Group distributed 10K.) Grainge has “never been afraid to jump out the window for something he believed in,” Sobande says.
“The first time I spoke to Elliot, I was really shocked — everybody knows who his dad was, so I was expecting a spoiled rich kid,” Sobande continues. Instead, he found Grainge “was down to get in the trenches. He was with us flying out to Florida, picking singles, coming in the studio, actually doing the work.”
10K developed a reputation for finding online phenomena early and marketing them savvily, especially on youth-friendly platforms like TikTok — an approach that has now been widely adopted by labels. “The guys at 10K are quick and nimble as it relates to digital strategy and taking risks,” says Karl Fowlkes, an entertainment attorney who has signed several clients to the label. “That’s what makes them special. The red tape doesn’t exist.”
Grainge’s “word was as good as a contract,” the first executive who worked with him agrees. “If you spoke to the guy and he agreed to do something, it would get done without having to jump through a million hoops.”
10K was also known for offering flexible — and generous — short-term deals to artists with momentum, and getting those agreements done speedily. (In contrast, multiple lawyers say Atlantic favored much more traditional deals until relatively recently.) XXXTentacion was initially signed to EMPIRE, but “they could only do so much at the time — it wasn’t the huge company it is now,” Sobande says. “Elliot wanted to get in the X business. And I remember calling him one day, like, ‘Listen, I’ve got an opportunity for you to get involved.’”
Grainge’s response: “Tell me how much, and I’ll do it.”
In the music business, financial commitments often come with strings attached, but multiple sources who know Grainge say he is uninterested in meddling in artists’ processes. He’s very much “this is their idea, let’s go with it,” says the third executive who has collaborated with Atlantic’s incoming CEO.
Birdman Zoe manages the producer Taz Taylor, whose Internet Money record label signed a joint venture with 10K in 2019. “We had a lot of label meetings early on,” Birdman Zoe says. “We really liked the fact that Elliot told us, ‘I want to let you guys do your thing. I’m not here to give you my opinion on something I might not know about. I’m going to back you and financially support you.’”
“You’ve Got to Be Able to Move Quickly”
Independent operations like AWAL, 300 and Alamo have all been snapped up, wholly or partially, by major labels in recent years, part of the majors’ never-ending struggle for market share. 10K was also a target: In September 2023, the company ended its longtime association with UMG and announced a joint venture with Warner Music Group. As part of the move, 10K became a standalone frontline label at WMG and Grainge joined the company’s leadership team.
Forging this partnership was one of the first big moves by Kyncl, who held roles at YouTube and Netflix before taking over WMG in January 2023. (His background in tech has been a point of contention with staff — multiple executives worry that he and the former tech employees he has hired understand data but not culture.) Kyncl inherited a challenge: Halfway through 2024, Republic Records’ current market share was greater than all of Warner Music Group’s. Without big releases from marquee stars, Atlantic in particular has slipped; it’s now behind sister label Warner Records in current market share so far in 2024.
Grainge will be partially responsible for reversing that decline. Sobande is confident he can pull it off. “To be successful, you’ve got to be able to move quickly, and a lot of times the corporate structure slows that process down,” Sobande acknowledges. But if anybody can figure out a way to navigate that tension, “it’s going to be Elliot.”
An absence of major artist activities caused revenue at K-pop company JYP Entertainment to fall 36.9% to 95.7 billion won ($69.8 million) from the same period a year ago, the company announced Tuesday (Aug. 13). Although JYP saw gains from global streaming, album sales declined 82% to 13.6 billion won ($9.9 million), and albums’ share […]
Lots of changes are happening for FIFTY FIFTY. Three former members of the K-pop girl group — Saena, Aran and Sio — have reportedly signed with a new label after their fallout with the group’s agency ATTRAKT. Meanwhile, ATTRAKT has announced the addition of four new FIFTY FIFTY members. On Monday (Aug. 12), IOK Company […]
UMG Nashville has teamed with producer/artist/songwriter Timbaland‘s indie label Mosley Music, with the two companies set to explore rising talent and new music discoveries.
“Over the past year, we have been working with Timbaland on the shared goal of developing great artists together as well as bridging the gaps in sound and culture in country music,” says UMGN chair & CEO, Cindy Mabe, via a statement. “I am so happy to finally announce our collaboration with Mosley Music on the heels of his prestigious induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Timbaland is one of the most iconic producers, songwriters, and artists in the last 30 years, merging genres and opening the doors to magnify cultural impact across genres. Hailing from Norfolk, VA, Timbaland’s reach and impact have been felt across pop, hip-hop, and country music including working with and bridging sounds for artists like Bubba Sparxxx, For King + Country, and Brad Paisley. Timbaland continues to push open the doors making innovative cultural impact by pushing boundaries and I am excited to join forces in breaking barriers in country music.”
Timbaland added via a statement, “I’ve been aligned with Universal Music Group the majority of my career as an artist and with my label Mosley Music, so UMG Nashville felt like the right place to partner for us in Country. I love their mission of taking chances on special artists to meet culture. Cindy, Chelsea, Charlene, Rob, Lori, Mike, and the rest of the team at UMG Nashville understand our vision and I know will be a great partner for us to continue to break artists.”
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UMG Nashville consists of imprints Capitol Records Nashville, EMI Records Nashville, MCA Nashville and Mercury Nashville, with artists including Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Mickey Guyton, Alan Jackson, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban and more. The label group has recently added to its offerings, launching the TV/film production company Sing Me Back Home Productions, Silver Wings Records, and the comedy division Capitol Comedy Nashville.
Mosley Music Group’s roster includes Timbaland, One Republic, and Carson Lueder. In 2017, Paisley worked with creatives including Timbaland on his album Love and War. In 2001, Bubba Sparxxx and Timbaland earned a No. 15 Billboard Hot 100 hit with “Ugly.”
If your last name is Grainge, you probably oversee a large chunk of the U.S. music business.
Following Elliot Grainge’s promotion to CEO of Atlantic Music Group effective Oct. 1, the Grainge family— Elliot and his father, Lucian Grainge, chairman/CEO of Universal Music Group (UMG) — will control roughly 37.6% of the U.S. recorded music market, according to Billboard’s analysis of data from Luminate.
The younger Grainge, whose record label 10K Projects was acquired by UMG competitor Warner Music Group in 2023, will lead a record label group with about 7.9% of the U.S. market’s equivalent album units (EAUs). That includes Atlantic Records, which had a 5.3% share through Aug. 1, along with the remaining labels that comprise Atlantic Music Group — 300 Elektra Entertainment (which includes the labels 300, Elektra, Fueled By Ramen, Roadrunner, Low Country Sound, DTA and Public Consumption) and 10K Projects — with an estimated 2.6% share.
Led by Republic Records’ 10.5% share and Interscope/Geffen/A&M’s 10.0% share, UMG-owned record labels have a 29.8% share of the U.S. market’s EAUs. Other labels under UMG’s umbrella are Island Records, currently basking in a string of hits by Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, and Universal Music Group Nashville, a collection of labels that are home to Chris Stapleton, Luke Bryan and Carrie Underwood, among others. UMG also distributes labels it does not own, although for these purposes, Billboard is comparing market share of owned labels only. Billboard estimates that UMG’s distributed labels have an aggregate market share of 8.8% of EAUs.
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The Grainge’s father-son CEO dynamic is unprecedented even for an industry that often sees the offspring of heavy hitters follow a parent into the business. There have been many family businesses run by successive generations — music publisher peermusic, for example — but never in modern history have a father and son been CEOs of a global music company and a major label music group simultaneously.
Grainge, age 30, will ascend to CEO of Atlantic Music Group as WMG restructures its organizational chart and Atlantic retools to market music to digital natives (a.k.a. young people). CEO Robert Kyncl is “excited by the prospect of taking Atlantic’s culture making capabilities and adding the 10K Projects founder’s digitally native approach into the mix,” he said during Wednesday’s earnings call.
As Billboard reported in February, Atlantic laid off about two dozen staffers with the intention of “bringing on new and additional skill sets in social media, content creation, community building and audience insights,” with the goal of “dial[ing] up our fan focus and help[ing] artists tell their stories in ways that resonate,” Julie Greenwald, the company’s chairman/CEO, said at the time. Greenwald was to assume the new role of chairman upon Grainge’s promotion but announced her resignation on Tuesday (Aug. 6). She will officially step down at the end of January 2025.
HYBE’s net income dropped 86% in the second quarter of 2024 as total revenue improved 3.1% to a quarterly record of 640 billion won ($482 million), the company announced Tuesday (Aug. 6).
The South Korean K-pop giant breaks its financial results into two main categories: segments with direct artist involvement such as recorded music and concerts, and those with indirect-artist involvement such as fan clubs, licensing and merchandise. In the second quarter, indirect revenue streams grew 17.4% to 217 billion won ($163 million). Direct revenue fell 2.9% to 424 billion won ($319 million) as concerts dropped 8.6% to 144 billion won ($108 million) while recorded music improved 1.5% to 250 billion won ($188 million).
Operating profit—total revenue less cost of sales and operating expenses—dropped 37.4% to 51 billion won ($38 million), a smaller decline than experienced by net income because of a sharp drop in non-operating income. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), a measure of the company’s cash profit from operations, fell 24.6% to 79 billion won ($59 million).
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Results for the first six months of the year were, across the board, a bit worse than a year earlier. Although total revenue topped 1 trillion won ($741 million) for the second consecutive year, that amount was 2.9% lower than a year earlier. First-half operating profit, net income and EBITDA were also lower than the first half of 2023.
HYBE sold fewer albums in the first half of the year but dominated sales charts in South Korea and Japan. Led by Seventeen’s 4.4 million albums sold in the first half of the year, HYBE had 9 of the top 20 artists ranked by album sales in South Korea. Seventeen’s Best Album ’17 is Right Here’ ranked second in Japanese album sales with 423,000 units while its SEVENTEENTH Heaven: 11th Mini Album ranked No. 6 with 242,000 units. In the U.S., Tomorrow X Together’s Minisode 3: TOMORROW ranked No. 2 in CD sales behind Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department.
Streaming accounted for 35% of recorded music revenue, up from the first half of 2023. In a first-of-its-kind breakdown of the company’s streaming revenue, HYBE revealed that domestic streaming revenue for HYBE’s labels South Korea was 18 billion won ($18 million), less than half the amount from full-year 2023. (It did not provide first-half streaming revenue figures for those labels’ streaming revenue outside of South Korea). HYBE’s U.S. labels—Big Machine Label Group and Quality Control—also had streaming revenue of 61 billion won in the first half.
Weverse, HYBE’s social media platform, had 9.6 million monthly active users, up from 9.2 million in the first quarter and even with the 9.6 million MAUs a year earlier. Beyond traditional social media functions, Weverse also has an e-commerce element, Weverse Shop, and live streams artist chats and concerts. Ariana Grande joined the platform in July, joining HYBE artists such as BTS and ENHYPEN and non-HYBE acts such as BLACKPINK and NCT-127.
This is a transformational time for the company built on the global success of boy band BTS but now expanding into new markets and initiatives. In July, HYBE named Jason Jaesang Lee as its new CEO to lead its growth strategy that was announced on Aug. 1. Dubbed “HYBE 2.0,” the plan reorganizes the company to drive global expansion and focus on tech-driven initiatives. HYBE Music Group APAC combines its record labels in South Korea and Japan. The Scooter Braun-led HYBE America will bring management to its label operations. Social media platform Weverse will launch a subscription membership tier. HYBE is also accelerating its efforts in gaming, AI, audio and voice technology.
Julie Greenwald will step down from her role as co-chair/COO of Atlantic Records and chairman/CEO of Atlantic Music Group, she announced during a company town hall on Tuesday (Aug. 6). She will be succeeded in her role as chairman/CEO of Atlantic Music Group by 10K Projects CEO/founder Elliot Grainge, effective Oct. 1.
The Zoom call was roughly 10-15 minutes long, according to sources at the label. Greenwald’s announcement of her departure was said by staffers who spoke with Billboard to be both “classy,” “inspiring” and “empowering,” with the longtime executive focusing on the success she has seen at Atlantic over the last two decades and clarifying that she will officially exit at the end of January 2025.
Tuesday’s announcement comes just five days after it was reported that Warner Music Group would be undergoing a major executive restructuring that would see CEO of recorded music Max Lousada stepping down at the end of September, Grainge ascending to the role of CEO of Atlantic Music Group effective Oct. 1 and Greenwald transitioning to the role of chairman of Atlantic Music Group, a move described in a press release as a “leadership transition.” The changes are thought to be far-reaching and indicative of a generational shift at Warner Music Group, which has been helmed by CEO Robert Kyncl since Jan. 1, 2023.
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One of the most celebrated executives in the music business, Greenwald has spent the last 20 years of her career at Atlantic and become practically synonymous with the storied label. During her time at the helm of Atlantic Music Group, she shepherded the careers of artists such as Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, Cardi B, Twenty One Pilots, Brandi Carlile, Charli XCX, Lil Uzi Vert and dozens more. She was named Billboard’s Women in Music executive of the year in 2017.
Greenwald led Atlantic alongside Craig Kallman, co-chair/CEO of Atlantic Records and the A&R brain behind the operation. Kallman will continue to hold the title of CEO of Atlantic Records.
At the time of the restructuring announcement, Greenwald said in a statement: “My whole career is about developing baby bands into career artists and empowering our amazing people to change culture in unexpected ways. It’s been 20 years since I walked through the door at Atlantic and began the work of rearchitecting this iconic label. I couldn’t have done it without the deep passion and dedication of my incredible team, and our unbelievable artists, who make music that inspires and moves people everywhere. Finally, I want to welcome Elliot; I’m looking forward to working with him as we continue to place our artists and their music at the heart of this company.”
Additional reporting by Melinda Newman.
Punjabi superstar AP Dhillon has signed a label deal with Republic Records, Billboard can exclusively confirm. The singer-songwriter-producer’s first release on the label will be “Old Money,” a new single and video arriving this Friday (Aug. 9), with a new album, The Brownprint, following two weeks later, on Aug. 23.
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“Republic Records always saw the vision,” Dhillon says in a statement. “They got and understood who I am from day one. We’re all in harmony when it comes to this new music, and now I just can’t wait to show everybody what we’ve been cooking up.”
Monte Lipman, founder and chairman of Republic, adds, “AP Dhillon is not only an incredible artist who continues to defy gravity in real time, but a shrewd visionary with a global reach that has already sparked a cultural revolution. We’re thrilled to join forces with Universal Music Canada under the leadership of Chairman and C.E.O. Jeffrey Remedios to further extend AP’s impact and music around the world.”
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Born in India, Dhillon moved to Vancouver Island as a college student in 2015, and began independently releasing music in 2019. His 2020 single “Brown Munde” (“Brown Boys” in Punjabi) became a breakthrough, and has amassed nearly 700 million YouTube views to date.
Dhillon spent the following years touring globally while playing to arena audiences in Canada; now established as one of the more prominent Punjabi artists on the planet, his catalog has earned 94.5 million on-demand official U.S. streams, and 1.8 billion on-demand official global streams, according to Luminate.
Dhillon directed the music video for upcoming single “Old Money,” and the clip will star Bollywood icons Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt. “‘Old Money’ is the perfect way for me to start my next era, especially with going big for the music video,” he says. “I came up with a concept that was influenced by all my favorite action movies, and Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt showed up and killed it. I hope you love it as much as I do.”
Meanwhile, Dhillon co-produced the majority of The Brownprint, with DŹŁ (Future, Central Cee), Luca Mauti (J.Cole, Eminem) and AzizTheShake (BIA, Central Cee) also contributing to the upcoming album.