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Warner Music is restructuring its Mexican music division to strengthen its market presence and product quality, the label tells Billboard. The revamped division will feature a culturally attuned A&R team and a strategic marketing framework designed to promote artist development across multiple territories.
The initiative will be led by Tomas Rodríguez, president of Warner Music Mexico & Mexican Music, who will be spearheading the restructured division from Mexico. “The expertise, adaptability, and market acumen of the Mexican Music team will bolster our vision for the genre’s development and globalization, cementing Warner as a protagonist,” he said in a statement.
Rubén Abraham, Warner Music’s GM of Mexican music, will oversee the A&R and marketing teams from Los Angeles, aligning strategies across the United States and Mexico. “We’re primed to offer the industry’s premier platform for the genre, supported by top-notch professionals and tailored negotiation options that cater to both present needs and future prospects of Mexican Music,” he said.
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The division’s A&R team will include Brian Plascencia as director of A&R. Plascencia brings extensive experience from previous roles at Universal Music and Univision Records and as a West Coast label manager at Machete Music, where he was instrumental in launching artists such as Larry Hernandez, Fidel Rueda, El Potro de Sinaloa and Roberto Tapia. As a founding partner at Alianza Records, Plascencia has also developed artists like Grupo H-100 and Edicion Especial.
Elsewhere, the A&R team will include associate director of A&R Armando López, who brings over a decade of expertise in marketing, musical production and concert promotion. Cesar Carrillo has been appointed senior manager of A&R, with an 18-year track record in the regional Mexican music scene. His experience spans music production, artist management for acts like Tomas Ballardo and Los Buitres de Culiacán and booking for Legado 7 with Lumbre Music. AT FM Entertainment, he assisted in managing schedules for música mexicana giants such as Ramón Ayala, Banda Machos and Fidel Rueda.
María Angela Batiz, the label’s director of marketing for Mexican music, will continue to play a crucial role with her extensive experience and expertise in the genre, leading the development of marketing strategies and campaigns across the department.
Warner Music’s expansion in Mexican music is supported by its collaboration with the company’s independent distribution and label services arm ADA, enabling a range of services and partnership opportunities.
Warner Music’s Mexican music roster also includes Grupo Codiciado, El Komander, Pesado, DannyLux and Los Aptos.
Warner Music Group and Elliot Grainge’s 10K Projects announced a new joint venture today (Sept. 5). As part of the deal, 10K will become a standalone label under the WMG umbrella, joining the likes of Atlantic Records and Warner Records among WMG’s collection of record labels.
Grainge, the son of Universal Music Group chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge, initially launched 10K Projects in 2016 under Universal’s Capitol Music Group umbrella, with many of its projects distributed through Virgin Music. The label found success with artists like XXXTentacion, Trippie Redd, iann dior, Internet Money, controversial artist 6ix9ine and, most recently, Ice Spice.
As part of the switch from UMG to WMG, Eliot Grainge will remain as 10K’s CEO, and co-presidents Zach Friedman and Tony Talamo will also remain in place atop the label’s leadership ranks. Additionally, Grainge will join WMG’s global leadership team, the company said.
“Joining Warner Music Group provides us with the backing, the collective expertise and vision to empower our artists and our employees on the next phase of our journey,” Grainge said in a statement, pointing to Warner Recorded Music CEO Max Lousada and Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl as reasons behind the switch. “Max and Robert have been making all the right moves to position WMG for the future in what I think is one of the most fertile and exciting growth periods for the global music business. They have also shown that they value the kind of independent spirit and commitment to artist development that has made 10K successful so far. I know I speak for Zach, Tony and the entire team when I say how excited we are to get started in our new home.”
10K will be bringing along its full roster of artists, which also includes Surfaces, Aitch, YTB Fatt, SXMPRA and COIN, among others, while through its Homemade Projects subsidiary it also manages influencers and has a merchandise operation that works with several artists as well. Ice Spice will continue to record for 10K Projects/Capitol Music Group.
“Elliot and 10K don’t just discover original talent, they understand how to ignite fandom and create fresh impact with each release,” Lousada said in a statement. “It’s a label full of next generation possibilities — with its artists, its leader, and its team. As 10K joins our thriving network of independent music brands, we’re committed to giving it the freedom and backing to reach new heights.”
“We welcome 10K’s extraordinary artists, its talented founder Elliot, and his entrepreneurial team to WMG,” Kyncl added. “Together, we’ll grow our investment in artistry and accelerate the pace of our innovation.”
Warner Music Group’s share price didn’t improve much this week, but its 5.6% gain nevertheless led the 21 music stocks in the Billboard Global Music Index.
On Tuesday (Aug. 8), Warner Music Group (WMG) reported that its quarterly revenue increased 9% year over year in the fiscal quarter ended June 30. That was music to investors’ ears after WMG’s revenue grew just 1.7% in the previous quarter, but it wasn’t exactly a surprise: WMG executives had previously told investors that the company’s new release schedule was weighted in the back half of its fiscal year and that its financials would pick up accordingly. And a Billboard analysis of Luminate data found that the company’s U.S. market share had started to improve by early May.
Only four of the Billboard Global Music Index’s 21 stocks finished the week in positive territory. Sphere Entertainment Co., the company behind the state-of-the-art Las Vegas venue set to open in September, improved 5.5% to $39.77 and German promoter CTS Eventim gained 4.8% to 61.80 euros ($67.76). Elsewhere, Hipgnosis Songs Fund rose 3.9% to 79.8 pence ($1.01).
This was the third consecutive week the index declined in value after reaching an all-time high in the week ended July 21.
LiveOne shares dropped 4% this week despite the company raising guidance on its fiscal 2024 revenue and adjusted EBITDA. In the fiscal quarter ended June 30, the company — which is behind music streaming platform Slacker and podcast brand PodcastOne — posted revenue of $25.7 million, up 24% year over year, and adjusted EBITDA of $4.9 million, up 46% year over year.
iHeartMedia shares fell 24.9% to $3.38 this week after the company warned of continued softness in advertising. The U.S. radio giant posted second quarter revenue of $920 million, down 3.6% year over year. Other radio companies also declined. Cumulus Media fell 5.9% to $4.96, while Townsquare Media — not a member of the Billboard Global Music Index — fell 19.7% on Wednesday following the company’s second-quarter earnings results but recaptured some of the losses on Thursday and Friday to finish the week down 7.2% at $10.50.
French streaming company Deezer fell 9.4% to 2.12 euros ($2.32) this week and has lost 16% since reporting mid-year earnings on Aug. 3. The company lowered its forecast for full-year revenue growth slightly to a range of 7% to 10%, down from a more than 10% increase. Although the company’s decision to raise its price in 2022 helped its average revenue per user to increase 8.3%, its subscribers declined by 100,000 to 9.3 million from the prior-year period.
In related news, Disney shares rose 4.9% after the company’s second quarter beat earnings expectations, even as it revealed that its Disney+ subscriber count fell 7.4% to 146.1 million in the second quarter. Starting in October, Disney will raise the prices for both ad-free and ad-supported tiers of Disney+ and Hulu by at least 20%. Following the price increases, ad-free Disney+ will cost $13.99 per month and ad-free Hulu will cost $17.99 per month.
Music services have been far more hesitant than streaming video-on-demand services to raise prices. Spotify just increased its individual plan price in the United States — by $1 to $10.99 — for the first time since launching in 2011. By contrast, Hulu last raised its prices in October 2022 and has increased its the price of its ad-free tier by 39% in less than a year.
Music stocks’ decline mirrored stocks’ broad declines this week. In the United States, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.3% and 1.9%, respectively. In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 was down 0.5%. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index declined 0.4%. News that the U.S. producer price index, a gauge of wholesale prices, rose 3% in July — the biggest one-month gain since January — was a factor in U.S. stock prices falling Friday.
New Warner Music Group (WMG) CEO Robert Kyncl didn’t take much time to make an imprint on the company. On Wednesday (March 29), fewer than three months into Kyncl’s tenure, WMG announced it would lay off 270 employees, or 4% of its workforce.
The layoffs will save the company $22 million in fiscal year 2023 ending Sept. 30, 2023, and “$50 million on an annualized run-rate basis in fiscal year 2024,” according to an SEC filing released Wednesday. That’s equal to 4.2% of WMG’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2022.
Like many other companies, WMG is becoming more mindful of its resources as the music industry tries to extend an eight-year growth spurt. Prior to announcing the layoffs, WMG said a “financial transformation program,” to roll out in fiscal 2024, is expected to produce annual savings of “$35 million to $40 million once fully implemented,” CFO Eric Levin said on the company’s Feb. 9 earnings call. Universal Music Group’s Motown Records announced layoffs in February as the label was reintegrated under Capitol Music Group. Downtown Music Holdings, Spotify and SoundCloud have also reduced their headcounts in recent months.
WMG had “to make some hard choices in order to evolve” and position the company for “long-term success,” Kyncl wrote in a memo to employees. The cuts were thoughtful and purposeful, he added, not a “blanket cost-cutting exercise.” The layoffs “should be substantially completed by the end of the next fiscal quarter” ending June 30 and will result in cash expenditures of about $46 million by the end of fiscal 2024, according to the filing.
News of WMG’s layoffs didn’t sway investors, however. WMG’s share price rose just 0.6% to $32.63 on Wednesday despite the restructuring’s ability to improve its bottom line. Year-to-date, WMG’s share price has fallen 6.8% while overall stocks have broadly rebounded from a dismal 2022. The S&P 500 is up 4.9% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite is up 13.9%. The New York Stock Exchange composite is down 0.4%.
While WMG will reduce headcount in some areas, the company is also building for the future — with an eye on tech. Kyncl, who quickly hired ex-YouTube executive Ariel Bardin for the newly created role of president of technology, said in his memo that WMG would be “reallocating resources towards new skills for artist and songwriter development and new tech initiatives.”
WMG expects to expand its gross margin by 50 to 100 basis points — equal to one-half to one percentage point — in fiscal year 2023. Aside from cost cuts, the nature of the changing music business helps the bottom line. WMG’s margins improve as it sells less of “margin-declining” physical product and “high-margin growing” digital business accounts for a larger share of its total revenue, Levin said at the Deutsche Bank 31st Annual Media, Internet & Telecom Conference on Feb. 28.
“We still see solid margin growth in 2023” despite declining ad-supported streaming revenues, Levin added. “When we see ad-supported start to stabilize and hopefully rebound and grow, it may create an environment for very favorable margins.”
Warner Music Group’s chief financial officer Eric Levin told staff on Tuesday that after a “transformative decade” for the company, he will retire at the end of the year, according to an internal memo viewed by Billboard.
Levin said he decided to announce his retirement early in the year to allow the company to move forward with a public search for his successor, similar to WMG’s handling of the successor search for former WMG CEO Stephen Cooper, who stepped down Feb. 1.
Levin joined WMG in 2014, overseeing the company’s global financial operations at a time when piracy and streaming were overhauling the fortunes of companies across the music industry.
“He helped WMG return to growth and profitability, making important contributions to its long-term strategy and the funding of its global expansion and major acquisitions,” WMG CEO Robert Kyncl wrote in a staff memo about Levin’s planned retirement. “Eric will be leaving WMG in a much better place than when he joined it.”
Prior to WMG, Levin was based in China as the North Asia CFO and regional controller for Ecolab, a leading maker of disinfectants, and prior to that he was the CFO of the Hong Kong-based English language newspaper the South China Morning Post.
Levin saw WMG through its 2020 initial public offering, which valued the company at around $12.5 billion, and managed through the leadership transition from Cooper to Kyncl. On Tuesday, Levin wrote that he is “ready to pass the baton to a new CFO.”
“It’s going to be a natural progression, at a natural time,” Levin wrote. “Whoever takes this role will be very fortunate. I’m looking forward to helping set them up for another successful decade of growth.”
Thomas H. Lee, a billionaire private equity investor and part of the group that acquired Warner Music from Time Warner in 2004, died Thursday (Feb. 24) in New York at age 78, his family said in a statement.
A pioneer in the private equity world, Lee was the chairman of Lee Equity and formerly the chief executive of Thomas H. Lee Partners, the namesake firm he founded in 1974. Over nearly five decades in finance, Lee invested $15 billion in hundreds of companies and transactions, including the acquisition and sale of household brands like Snapple.
The Wall Street Journal, citing a New York Police Department source, said Lee was found dead in a bathroom at his Fifth Avenue office from what first responders believe to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. They were responding to an emergency call placed Thursday morning by Lee’s office assistant, the WSJ reported.
“The family is extremely saddened by Tom’s death,” Lee’s family said. “Our hearts are broken. We ask that our privacy be respected and that we be allowed to grieve.”
Lee’s Thomas H. Lee Partners, Bain Capital, Providence Equity Partners and Edgar Bronfman Jr. bought Warner Music from Time Warner Inc. for $2.6 billion in 2004. The group took the company public the following year, and Lee’s firm, Bain Capital Partners and Bronfman controlled 56% of Warner’s outstanding shares when it was sold to Len Blavatnik‘s Access Industries in 2011 in a deal valued at $3.3 billion.
Lee sat on WMG’s board as a director from 2004 to 2021, when he became a director emeritus.
“We are deeply saddened by the passing of our friend and colleague Tom Lee,” Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl said in an emailed statement. “Tom made valuable contributions to WMG’s trajectory for almost two decades. Tom’s experience, wisdom, and enthusiastic support helped guide WMG through periods of major transformation, both within our company and in the music industry at large. Our condolences go out to his family and many friends.”
When Lee announced he would retire from the role of WMG board director in 2021, he described the company as having “undergone an extraordinary evolution,” and said he was gratified to have helped it transform and grow.
Lee was worth an estimated $2 billion, according to Forbes, and he was an active philanthropist involved in several New York City cultural institutions, including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Museum of Modern Art.
The Ledger is a weekly newsletter that covers the financial and economic side of the music business. An abridged version appears at Billboard Pro. Pro subscribers automatically receive The Ledger. Sign up here to receive the newsletter without a Pro subscription.
Keen observers noticed that last quarter Warner Music Group’s global streaming revenues were down 2.6% year over year, a rare sputter in the music industry’s main engine of growth. The company’s total revenue declined 7.8% as losses in recorded music’s physical and digital revenues couldn’t make up for publishing gains.
On its face, a year-over-year decline in streaming revenue – the driving force behind growth at labels as well as the rise in music catalog valuations – might seem alarming. Declines are routinely seen in download and physical sales. Streaming is typically the dependable bright spot of any earnings report.
The decline was more noticeable when compared to companies that released earnings for the same quarter. Sony Music Entertainment posted strong growth in the same period. SME’s streaming revenue improved 33.2% in its recorded music division and 59.8% in its publishing division. Reservoir Media didn’t show streaming softness last quarter, either. In its recorded music division, digital revenues were up 17% year-over-year. Digital revenues in its publishing division rose 29%.
So, what happened? Some of it is due to a quirk of WMG accounting, some of it is due to WMG, and some of it is due to factors that affect the entire music business.
One factor in WMG’s weak streaming revenue was a shorter quarter: WMG’s last quarter had one fewer week than the prior-year quarter, which gave the company a tough basis for comparison even before other factors could be considered. A 14-week quarter has 7.1% more days to generate income than a 13-week one and that’s a big gap to overcome. Adjusting for that, WMG streaming revenues would have been up 5% year-over-year.
The stronger dollar — WMG’s financial statements are reported in dollars, Sony reports in yen, Universal Music Group in euros — also played a part in the decline. In WMG’s recorded music division, streaming revenues declined 4% as reported but were flat on a constant currency basis (which assumes no change in foreign exchange rates). In its publishing division, streaming revenues grew 13.2% as reported and 16.8% at constant currency.
WMG also blamed the soft streaming numbers on a new release line-up that CFO Eric Levin called “a softer, largely U.S.-based release schedule” that “could roll into our fiscal Q2. But given our release schedule as second half-oriented this year,” he added, “we do feel good about our performance of releases and strength in the second half of the year.”
Another factor was not specific to WMG: a slowing ad market. Levin called it “a dislocated ad market” and warned “the decline is getting more pronounced.” The decline in ad-supported streaming revenue isn’t a surprise. The Ledger wrote about the soft advertising market in August 2022. Spotify CFO Paul Vogel warned advertising growth in the third quarter would be “slower than we might have forecast earlier in the year.” French music company Believe said “ad-funded streaming activities should be affected by rising inflation and economic uncertainties.”
The streaming market has become bifurcated. Subscription services have fared well through the pandemic and high inflation. Advertising is more closely associated with the direction of the broader economy. Consumers are generally reluctant to cancel entertainment subscriptions, but it’s easier for brands to pull back on ad spending, hurting everything from YouTube to broadcast radio companies like iHeartMedia (and music publishers to a lesser extent). At WMG, “subscription streaming grew by high single digits” but was partially offset by a drop “in the mid-teens” in ad-supported revenue, Levin said. WMG also noticed the slowdown in brands’ spending has created “a somewhat softer market for synch.”
In the fourth quarter, Spotify’s advertising revenue rose 14% compared to an 18% improvement for subscription revenue. With the growth of Spotify’s podcasting business, not all the advertising growth could be attributed to music. Advertising growth lagged subscription growth in the third quarter by three percentage points.
Former Atlantic Records employee Dorothy Carvello lost her bid for a seat on Warner Music Group’s board of directors last month after failing to comply with certain requirements in the company’s bylaws, spokespeople for Carvello and the record label said on Tuesday (Jan. 3).
Under a new rule passed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last year that makes it easier for minority shareholders to wage campaigns for board seats, Carvello sought to nominate herself for a seat on WMG’s board, to be voted on at the next shareholder meeting. The activist and author, who alleged in her memoir, Anything for a Hit: An A&R Woman’s Story of Surviving the Music Industry, that she was subjected to sexual abuse and misconduct while working at Atlantic from 1987 to 1990, plans to run again next year, according to her spokesperson.
Carvello’s odds of being elected by WMG investors to a seat on the company’s board were slim because a sizeable chunk of the record label is owned by WMG vice-chair Leonard Blavatnik, the Financial Times reported earlier on Tuesday. Still, Carvello’s novel attempt could set the stage for future bids by activists aiming to bring attention to causes not often discussed in the staid corporate arenas of annual shareholder meetings.
“While this is an unfortunate attempt by the corporation to block an important mission, she will continue to seek to have her name placed on the ballot next year,” a spokesperson for Dorothy Carvello wrote in an email.
Carvello submitted her nomination notice to WMG in early December, but it failed to meet certain requirements in the company’s bylaws, including that Carvello be a registered shareholder, a spokesperson for WMG wrote in a statement. Because Carvello bought her WMG shares through the online brokerage Robinhood, the brokerage’s name was on the shares, not Carvello’s.
WMG said it gave Carvello additional time to resolve the issues but the documents ultimately did not fulfill company requirements.
“We value the input of all shareholders, and anyone desiring to nominate director candidates must satisfy the standard requirements of WMG’s Bylaws, including being a registered shareholder,” WMG said in the statement.
Requiring that investors be registered shareholders to submit proposals or board nominations at annual meetings is a common corporate rule. However, it presents a complication for retail investors who most frequently purchase stocks through brokerages.
Carvello has gained attention in recent months for a letter sent by her lawyer to WMG board members requesting records relating to the company’s investigations into previously-reported sexual misconduct claims and royalties accounting at the label. And last month, Carvello filed a lawsuit against Atlantic Records and the estate of its late co-founder Ahmet Ertegun, along with WMG and two former Atlantic executives, alleging she was “horrifically sexually assaulted” by Ertegun and Morris and that Atlantic, WMG and Jason Flom (whom the suit says was an Atlantic vp at the time) enabled the abuse.
In its statement, WMG said its board and management “have made significant enhancements to our policies and procedures and take any allegations of misconduct seriously and are consistently working toward eliminating all forms of discrimination and harassment.”
Carlton James Group invested $50 million in Bristol, U.K.-based distribution and artist label services company 3tone Music Group to fund the additional expansion of the company’s distribution platform. 3tone, which is run by CEO Dean Roberts and managing director Chris Borud, was first backed by Carlton James Group in 2019. The company offers indie artists unlimited digital distribution to multiple streaming platforms for an annual fee, a model that echoes more established companies like DistroKid and TuneCore.
Warner Music acquired a stake in Serbian label Mascom Records. The acquisition expands the companies’ relationship, as Mascom has acted as Warner Music’s local distributor for more than 20 years. Under the new arrangement, they will work together to build a roster of local artists, with the opportunity for artists to be upstreamed into Warner’s global network. Mascom’s catalog will continue to be distributed by Warner’s ADA. The companies have recently been jointly working with Serbian artist Sergej Panic on his new releases “Kabul” and “Mia Bella.” In a statement, Izabela Ciszek-Podziemska, general manager of Warner Music South East Europe, called the deal “a landmark development” for Warner in the region.
U.K.-based livestreaming company Driift acquired the livestreaming technology and sales platform Dreamstage, with the combined businesses set to operate under the Driift name, led by CEO Ric Salmon and COO Claire Mas. Driift also secured an additional $4 million investment from Deezer, bringing the company’s total investment from the European streaming service to $7 million in 2022. Deezer is now the largest shareholder in Driift; it had become a majority shareholder in Dreamstage prior to the acquisition.
Atlantic Records partnered with Record Store Day for a new series that will showcase developing artists at independent music retail stores across the U.S. The first artist to be highlighted by the program is Neon Gold/Atlantic singer-songwriter Joe P, who will kick off the series with the release of a deluxe vinyl edition of his debut EP, Emily Can’t Sing. The series will feature 10 to 12 emerging artists over the next year while incorporating exclusive in-store signings and performances. Joe P has already signed on for eight upcoming in-store signings while he’s on tour. The partnership was negotiated by Record Store Day’s Michael Kurtz and Atlantic Records’ Jack McMorrow. In November and December, the series will feature the artist Surf Curse.
Warner Music Poland and Groupa STEP, owner of the independent Polish hip-hop label Step Records, launched a new business partnership to support local hip-hop artists. No further information was provided about the deal.
Cyanite, which offers AI-powered music tagging and search, will provide BMG with automatic tagging to make its entire 3 million song repertoire more searchable and accessible for synch placements. Under the agreement, Cyanite’s technology will be integrated into BMG’s internal content management system BMG Songs.
Social-first media company The News Movement will use UnitedMasters‘ independent music repertoire to soundtrack its news stories on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and Snap under a new partnership.
Session, the company behind the collaboration app Session Studio for music creators, partnered with SoundCloud in a deal that will see the streaming platform become the first to digitally receive both song audio and essential song metadata directly from the Session Studio app. Session Studio is designed to make it easier for songwriters, artists, producers and more to track who contributed what at the point of creation across mobile, desktop and online.
Web3 platform OneOf signed an exclusive three-year partnership with the Latin Recording Academy. Under the deal, OneOf will host the first-ever NFT collection tied to the Latin Grammy Awards. The first collection will debut throughout October 2022.
Pop-rock singer Charlotte Sands (“Dressed,” “Loved You a Little”) signed a distribution deal with Vydia, as did house DJ Robbie Rivera, for whom Vydia will also handle marketing, synch, project management and DSP pitching for forthcoming releases on Rivera’s Juicy Music Group along with Rivera’s existing catalog. The Rivera deal includes a catalog transfer of over 350 songs via Juicy Music.
Ryan Oakes signed a recording and publishing deal with Position Music that will cover both new and existing repertoire.
New York artist VÉRITÉ partnered with Troy Carter and Suzy Ryoo‘s Venice Music, which offers tools, services and artist support while allowing artists to retain creative autonomy and ownership over their work.
Berlin-based house and techno record label Get Physical Music signed a global sales and distribution deal with independent digital label services provider LabelWorx. The deal covers Get Physical’s full catalog, along with its imprints Cocada Music, Kindisch, Metaphysical and Poesie Musik.
Digital collaboration-based music platform BeatConnect closed an initial investment round of $2.2 million. Participants include lead investors FICC (Fonds d’investissement de la culture et des communications) and its partners, which contributed a total of $1 million. Also joining the round was angel investor network Anges Québec with around $615,000 and entertainment tech investment fund Triptyq Capital with around $540,000. BeatConnect will use the funds to build a new tool aimed at linking multiple DAWs together for cross-platform collaboration and remote sharing sessions for music creators.
R. Wayne Martin‘s boutique management firm mthree signed music producer John Hiler (Rihanna, Madonna, Smashing Pumpkins) to its new division focused on managing music producers. His day-to-day manager at the firm is Jeff Betten.
Nettwerk Records announced a slew of signings, including lo-fi trio PanCake, Flemish lo-fi producer Phlocalyst, Germany-based singer-songwriter M. Byrd, Berlin-based songwriter and producer Chris James, Los Angeles rock band The Strike and pop singer Michal Leah, whose new single “the way i love you” drops on Friday (Oct. 14).
Triple 8 Management signed singer-songwriter Erin Kinsey, who is signed to RECORDS/Columbia Nashville.
Texas-based singer E Bleu signed a 10-song partnership with AWAL that will provide him with marketing and streaming support while allowing him to keep his masters. His most recent release is the Shawn Barron-executive produced single “No Biggie.”
Create Music Group signed Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) #9797 (a.k.a. Jimbo).
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