Music Business UK Q4 2020

Q4 2020

Before the fans and fame, the soundtracks and syncs, there i s the song.

And before the song, comes the songwri t er—the heart of an art form that defines generations, and the soul of our business.

Songwriters are our inspiration; we are their partners, collaborators, and crusaders.

They shape culture; we help hone their craft, build their careers, protect their legacies, and get them paid.

We do it all for them.

And we do it with more integrity, ingenuity, and raw creativity than anyone else in the game.

WE ARE WARNER CHAPPELL MUSIC. WHERE SONGWRITERS ARE HEARD.

@WarnerChappell

@WarnerChappellMusic

@WarnerChappellMusic

In this issue...

12

Labrinth

20

Taponeswa Mavunga

24

Mark Lewis & Martin Toher

30

Austin Daboh

40

Colin Batsa

44

Darcus Beese

54

Rob Swerdlow

60

Gabz Landman

64

Ged Doherty

86

Jordan Jay & Ross Gautreau

6

Columbia/Sony/ATV

Sony Music

B-Unique

Atlantic Records

EGA

Island Records

Starwood Management

Warner Records

BPI/ex-Sony

Karma Artists

CONGRATULATIONS JACOB COLLIER ON YOUR 2021 GRAMMY NOMINATIONS

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

BEST R&B PERFORMANCE

BEST ARRANGEMENT

Djesse Vol. 3

All I Need

He Won’t Hold You

FROM ALL YOUR FRIENDS AT DECCA & INTERSCOPE RECORDS

Contributors ALEX ROBBINS

EAMONN FORDE

Alex Robbins is an illustrator whose work has previously appeared on the likes of the New Yorker, Time Out, Wired, TIME and i-D. Oh, and Music Business UK. He has once again created our cover image based on a quote from our lead feature. This time, those words come from the multi-platinum-selling, Emmy winning, British songwriter and artist, Labrinth.

Eamonn Forde has been writing about all areas of the music business since 2001.

He is Reports Editor at Music Ally and regularly writes for IQ, The Guardian, The Big Issue, Q and The Quietus among other titles. He completed his PhD at University of Westminster in 2001. His book, The Final Days of EMI: Selling The Pig, is out now via Omnibus Press.

RHIAN JONES

MURRAY STASSEN

SPEK

Rhian Jones is a respected freelance journalist who often focuses on the music industry. In addition to writing regularly for Music Business UK and Hits Daily Double, she is a Contributing Editor for Music Business Worldwide. In this issue, Jones interviews the co-founders of London-based Karma Artists, Jordan Jay and Ross Gautreau.

Murray Stassen is the Editor of Music Business Worldwide and the Deputy Editor of Music Business UK. Stassen, a former Deputy Editor of British trade paper Music Week, has written for the likes of VICE, Line Of Best Fit, and Long Live Vinyl, and was last year shortlisted for the #Merky Books New Writers’ Prize. In this issue, he interviews Labrinth.

Spek joined Reservoir in New York in 2015 having founded PopArabia in 2011.

Today, PopArabia represents an estimated 60% of the market share of global music publishing repertoire in the MENA region. Spek recently moved back to the Middle East to head up PopArabia on the ground, with the company having inked a fresh partnership deal with Reservoir.

ADRIAN SYKES

Adrian Sykes is a widely-respected UK music industry veteran, having made key contributions to the history of Island and MCA over the past four decades. He is also a successful entrepreneur and manager, having founded Decisive Management – which looked after Emeli Sandé before, and throughout, her multiplatinum debut album campaign.

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SONGWRITERS BRING OUT THE MUSIC IN ALL OF US. Sony/ATV proudly supports our songwriters and makes their voices heard.

History is always being written.

WELCOME

EDITOR’S LETTER Just before this issue of Music Business UK went to press, I took a call from Dre London, the L.Abased British manager – amongst other clients – of Post Malone (aka Austin Post).

London didn’t speak much about Post’s music, mainly because he hasn’t released any this year (which didn’t stop Post’s track Circles recently surpassing 60 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 – an all-time record). Instead, London talked about wine. Specifically, Maison No.9, the rosé plonk created and launched by Post Malone and his manager earlier this year with backing from Global Brand Equities.

London painted an amusingly incongruous picture of him and Post amateurishly exploring Provence’s wine country in pursuit of the perfect ingredients. (Sample quote: “The people there were staring at us – it wasn’t what they expected.

Bro, you have a white guy with tattoos on his face walking around with a black guy through these vineyards in the south of France... they were looking at us with their noses turned up.”)

What was less funny was the ultimate result of said ambling. According to London, Maison No.9 has become the fastest-growing alcohol brand in its category in the United States during the 2020 pandemic. It’s got decent reviews from wine buffs, which has doubtlessly helped. But weighing even stronger in its favour are two irreplaceable advantages: (i) The enormous brand strength of Post Malone himself; and (ii) The digital marketing savvy of the artist and the team around him, forged in music – but no longer exclusive to music.

At the time of writing, Maison No.9 already has over 160,000 followers on Instagram. Its biggest rival in the fancy-but-mainstream rosé stakes, Whispering Angel, has 69,000. Here’s why that’s important: the maker of Whispering Angel, Château d’Esclans, was majority-acquired by luxury fashion and beverage house, LVMH, in December last year for an undisclosed, but

© Music Business Worldwide Ltd 27 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AX ISSN 2632-5357

Tim Ingham

“What’s the purpose of the record industry when it’s not releasing records?”

obviously astronomical, fee. Post Malone likes a drink – but he’s no fool.

What’s all this got to do with the UK music business, and the lessons that we might take forward from the most isolating year of our lives? Simply this: for better or worse, COVID has accelerated the digitalisation of all of our existences. Compared to many other industries now grappling for consumer attention, this weighs in the favour of screen-savvy artists and their teams. At the same time, due to an understandable degree of trepidation, 2020 has seen a large part of this business – managers, publishers, record labels et al – left to wonder: What’s the purpose of the record industry when it’s not actually releasing records?

Perhaps its purpose, as demonstrated by Austin Post and his ebullient British representative, is to use its unique expertise to amplify the human power of artist brands, whether those brands are attached to recorded music, to a discipline tangential to recorded music (see: Dua Lipa’s very successful recent 2054 livestream event), or, as with the case of Maison No.9, to something completely different.

This year has seen an avalanche of public complaint from artists struggling to make a living from streaming; the vocal have-nots of the Spotify age. They are at the other end of the scale from Austin Post, a million miles from launching their own vino.

Yet the principle remains: whether an act has 160 followers or 160,000, true fans will always, and repeatedly, pay over the odds to buy a piece of an artist’s world. Goosed streaming followers and fair-weather listeners won’t cut it. If an artist doesn’t have a critical number of true fans – and the vast majority do not – then the harsh truth is that they don’t have a career.

But when they do, that’s when the magic happens. When the world, and all of its vineyards, becomes their oyster.

Contact: Enquiries@musicbizworldwide.com Advertise: Rebecca@musicbizworldwide.com Subscribe: MusicBizStore.com

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LEAD FEATURE

‘THERE WAS THIS SUBCONSCIOUS A&R IN MY HEAD GOING, WE NEED TO MAKE A SMASH’ Labrinth’s career has seen him evolve from London-born hit songwriter/producer/artist to LA-residing, Emmy-winning Hollywood composer. Here, he tells Music Business UK about how he was commissioned to write the score for HBO series Euphoria, potentially working with Drake, and how he’d change the music business…

M

usic Business UK’s interview with Labrinth, aka Hackneyborn Timothy McKenzie, takes place shortly after his Ivor Novello award win for scoring HBO series Euphoria, and shortly before his Emmy Award win for the song All for Us, which features on the show and its official soundtrack.

“It’s wild,” he says of his two Emmy nominations for his first ever TV series score, (the first for Outstanding Original Music & Lyrics, the second for Outstanding Music Composition For A Series).

The 31-year-old artist, songwriter and composer explains that he hadn’t previously considered trying to write a score for film or TV “until I was 50 or something”. What changed his mind was meeting Euphoria creator Sam Levinson, who knew Labrinth’s music and convinced him to get involved.

Labrinth’s compositions across gospel, soul and electronic music permeate Euphoria’s dramatic scenes of teenage angst and drug use, serving as a vital sonic companion for the show’s potent storytelling. The 26-track Euphoria soundtrack – including the Emmywinning All for Us and stand out tracks like Still Don’t Know My Name – has attracted hundreds of millions of streams worldwide since its release in October 2019.

Labrinth’s transcendence to Tinseltown darling has been a decade in the making.

He was a teenager when he produced Master Shortie’s single Dead End and subsequent 2009-released album A.D.H.D. That same year saw him sign a publishing deal with the then-Guy Moot-led EMI Music Publishing UK, where he carved out an omnipresence in the UK charts and mainstream radio, starting with Tinie Tempah’s BRIT and Ivor Novello Awardwinning UK No.1 hip-hop smash Pass Out (February 2010), which Labrinth co-wrote and produced.

A second Tinie Tempah hit followed in the form of Frisky in June 2010, hitting No.2 in the UK Singles Chart, just as Labrinth inked a deal with Simon Cowell’s Syco – becoming that the label’s first ever non-talent show signee. In October 2010 Labrinth made his official debut as solo artist with the No.3 track Let the Sun Shine.

Labrinth’s first solo album, Electronic Earth, came in 2012, peaking at No.2, featuring his No.1 single Beneath Your Beautiful with Emeli Sande. It also featured Express Yourself, sampled from the Charles Wright classic.

Having already worked with British artists like Professor Green, Devlin, Yasmin, Plan.B, Ms. Dynamite, and Conor Maynard, Labrinth’s portfolio as a 13

writer/producer soon expanded to include recordings by North American stars like Rihanna, on her single Lost in Paradise, and the Weeknd on his US No.1 album, Beauty Behind the Madness (2015). Credits on tracks by Noah Cyrus, Make Me Cry (2017) and Nicki Minaj & Eminem, Majesty, (2018) soon followed.

Having felt “overlooked” as an artist in the UK, particularly by the British media, Labrinth explains that he found creative refuge in Los Angeles, a move that proved to be a galactic success. He says that LA became a place which “felt a bit more open in terms of seeing what I’m about or seeing the layers of my universe”.

His time spent there resulted in the formation of supergroup LSD with Sia and Diplo, whose self-titled 2019 debut album (on Columbia) has since generated more than 1 billion streams worldwide.

He’s also earned Grammy and Golden Globe nominations for co-writing and producing Beyoncé’s Spirit single for The Lion King and contributed to Kanye West’s album Jesus Is King.

“Kings of Leon had to go to the UK to become massively successful.

The same with Jimi Hendrix, so I guess that’s how it works sometimes,” Labrinth says. “Sometimes in the UK, an artist can be overlooked. I was overlooked, especially by the UK press.

“They [thought] they had me figured out. I don’t think any of them could see me making a record like All for Us, or a record like Mount Everest, or doing the Euphoria score. Most of them were calling me a rapper for most of my career, even though I’d never done a rap song.”

In November last year Labrinth signed a new deal with Ron Perry’s Columbia Records in the US (he was previously signed to RCA), where he says “there’s a family energy and a passionate energy”.

He released his second solo album, Imagination And the Misfit Kid, on Columbia at the end of 2019, but says he and his new label “haven’t even scratched the surface of what we’re going to do together”.

In May this year, Labrinth signed a worldwide deal with Sony/ATV, having previously been signed to BMG. Jon

Platt, Sony/ATV Chairman and CEO commented at the time: “Labrinth is one of a kind… He is a mastermind of lyrics and melody, and his music stands the test of time.”

Here, Labrinth talks about being a popular outsider, living and working in Los Angeles, writing the score for Euphoria, and success in the music business…

Does recognition in the form of awards help with your creative output, or does it increase the expectations on you as a brand?

The recognition is appreciated. One thing I’d say to most artists is that if [winning awards] is your focus, usually you’re not zoned into what your purpose is in music.

When I’m making music, I don’t think about awards, I don’t think about how

He heard my album a year before that and had been listening to my songs on Imagination & the Misfit Kid, and he was just like, ‘I love what you’re doing with the music on this album and I can see you doing the score for this show.’

Drake is an executive producer of Euphoria. Has he been involved in the music-making side of it?

Me and Drake didn’t get to hook up. We did meet at the premiere for Euphoria. I’ve known Drake, not personally of course, but we’ve crossed paths and I toured with him years ago in Europe. So when we met again, we were like, ‘Of course, it’s been years and we should try and do something for Euphoria.’ Hopefully we get to do that. Drake was smart to be involved in the show, because everyone that’s involved fell in love with what they saw; the show’s vision. It’s just genius.

“I’ve never really had commercial pressure from labels. I create that pressure for myself.”

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much money I’m going to make. I’m just like, ‘I have this idea and I need it to be tangible, or I need to actualize it.’ That in itself is an award. Just to be able to go, ‘I took this thing from my head and I put it in front of me.’

How did you end up meeting Sam Levinson and getting commissioned to do the score for Euphoria?

I met Sam through a mutual friend, [Maverick’s] Adam Leber, and we all went to a dinner together. We found out that we all intensely love film, and we’re obsessed with music for film and television. Sam especially had a vision.

He’s like, ‘What if you produced a score, like a hip-hop producer, like if Kanye produced Danny Elfman, or any of those incredible score writers.’ I’ve messed around in those two worlds [before] while creating music, because I’m always dabbling with ideas or tinkering to find new ideas.

How do you balance the commercial pressure with the creativity needed to produce work for something like Euphoria?

I’ve never really had commercial pressure from labels. I’ve usually created that commercial pressure for myself. There was this subconscious A&R in my head going, ‘We need to make a smash.’

I think it happens to every artist in the business, especially when you’ve had No.1 records or hit records. There’s this thirst to want to do it again. But for me, what’s more important is my purpose in music. I go into, ‘What is my purpose as a musician, as an artist, and what am I passionate about?’

I focus more on that.

How much music were you required to make for Euphoria?

They have released a score album for Euphoria and there’s like two more [albums-worth of material]. That’s how much music I’ve made. I just said to Sam, ‘I’m going to send you music until you’re sick of me.’ And he was like, ‘That’s what I need.’

I was insanely inspired with Euphoria, so I always had a new idea [to try] and I work

LEAD FEATURE

HBO’s Euphoria , of which Variety said “it has an undeniable pull that makes it too intriguing to ignore”

like that anyway. I always have an idea, so I just kept on sending him stuff and he would try it out on some of the scenes.

For me it felt pretty natural, because I had worked on some film stuff before, so I understood some of the terminology or some of the language, which, at first, on some of the projects I’ve done before, I was totally none the wiser about and confused.

I was thankful that those [experiences] prepared me for Euphoria.

What does success look like to you?

Fearless creativity. That’s success to me.

It’s doing shit that is above and beyond.

I want to go to Pluto every time I make music. I just [want to] keep growing and

learning. Today I was studying this thing called additive synthesis and it’s basically how organs were made and how the idea of the synth was made. That’s inspired me to make more stuff for Euphoria and my personal stuff.

I’m constantly studying science in music, and music theory, just because I love it that much. And then people fall in love with the music. Even with Euphoria, I didn’t expect the reaction I was going to get. It’s been wild just to see how people have responded to something that I did as a composer and not as an artist, you know?

Do the expectations of being an artist get easier or harder to deal with the more

traditionally successful you get?

With most of the artists I’ve spoken to – and some of them are the biggest artists in the world – it feels like the pressure is on them when they have a smash. When you have a smash everyone’s like, ‘Can you do it again?’

Whereas if you’re not focused on that, success can come to you. Like, for example, Pharrell [Williams], with Happy. A lot of people weren’t focused on him and didn’t think he had it in him anymore. And then all of a sudden he had this streamline of massive records and I don’t think he expected to have those records become smashes, he just was doing what he loves and those things followed.

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Photo: Ian West/Alamy

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Labrinth with fellow winners Dizzee Rascal and Tinie Tempah at the Ivor Novello Awards, London in 2011

LEAD FEATURE

Some people constantly [want to] have hits and that’s just not the way it works in this industry. As long as I’m doing what I feel instinctually is right, then that’s the win for me.

You’ve spent some time working in Los Angeles. How has your perspective on the UK music industry changed after living and working there?

It’s grown really beautifully. I think there’s more diversity and people are more open to other sounds. Before I left, [the UK] was very commercial. Even the stuff that me and Tinie made was more commercial.

It was commercial hip-hop with an edge.

You would hear a few pops and a few ‘shits’ here and there, but you would never hear lyrics that [made people think], ‘Shit, are you allowed to say this?!’ And now a lot of that stuff is becoming No.1.

To see that happening is incredible. And just to see people being themselves and not feeling like they have to alter themselves to be successful, it’s been nice to watch and means we’re getting a variety of stuff.

I’ve always felt like an oddone-out in the UK – and it’s not necessarily that I feel bad about the way that the UK has treated me. I’ve had great success in the UK, but it’s just to do with [the fact that] some of the stuff I make is weird. So sometimes I’m going to be a hit or miss type of guy.

I don’t feel like I fit in anywhere. I feel like I can view the UK industry from the periphery instead of feeling like I’m not part of it.

more creative when I’m in the UK. There’s something about the grit, and the weather changes. Stuff like that inspires me. I did the whole Euphoria score in the UK. That kind of shows in terms of some of the emotion that you get [back home].

Some songwriters, when they’re new in LA, are taken around from session to session with a lot of different people to try just work on stuff. What was your experience like when you first moved?

Was it like that?

No. Thankfully, a lot of the music I made in the UK, people had heard in the US already, so they were fans for a long time.

People knew me and they were just like, ‘Yeah, I love that, I’m in.’

For me, it was literally picking what session I wanted to go and do. I was more focused on what was more exciting for me as a career move. Like, ‘Where do I want to go?’ And that’s how LSD ended up happening. Me and Sia worked together

Ron and I need to work with Columbia, because I loved what they did with LSD and I love the way they think.’ I hadn’t really been with a label that understood me entirely. They’re like, ‘You are a musical person. We’re not trying to make a pop star. You’re not Frank Ocean and you’re not fucking Jason Derulo. You’re just Lab.’ That’s one thing I thought Columbia really got. So I was like, ‘I need to be here.’

You inked a deal with Sony/ATV in May. Why did you decide to sign to Sony/ ATV? And what’s it been like working with Jon Platt?

Sony/ATV, me and Big Jon and David [Ventura], we’ve always been big fans of each other and always wanted to work together. When the chance came up, we were all sitting on a Zoom call, and it was like, ‘This feels right, let’s do it.’

We’ve got a great relationship and we’ve got good and exciting things coming up.

For the last few years things have been really beautiful. The planets have aligned in a really nice way. I feel like I’m working with people I always wanted to work with.

“And then, of course, I got massively into kale smoothies...”

How has your perspective on life changed after living and working in Los Angeles?

In Los Angeles, everyone’s so famous that even if you’re a little bit famous, you ain’t shit. I like that. It gives you time to focus on what you actually came there for.

It was enjoyable, because I love making music and so it’s never about being famous while I’m there and that never instructed me while I was there, so I enjoyed that.

And then, of course, I got massively into kale smoothies. But I feel like I’m

and just loved each other creatively, so it just was like, ‘Fuck it, let’s make a band.’

We pulled up Diplo and then all of a sudden it was LSD. I don’t think that would have happened in the UK. You signed to Columbia in November last year. Why did you move over to Columbia from RCA and what has it been like working with Ron Perry and the Columbia team?

I moved over to Columbia because we ended up working together on the LSD record, and me and Ron Perry had known each other through other projects.

We worked on the Noah Cyrus, Make Me Cry record which I think is two times Platinum now.

We just got on really well and he got me creatively, so I was like, ‘I need to work with

What are some of the things that you’ve learned over the years that you would advise songwriters, producers or artists to do? What’s in your handbook?

Write with people you want to write with.

Only ever write with people you don’t want to write with if it scares you – but you also know it’s going to challenge you. You have to be able to feel that out. Be brave enough to trust your instincts.

Most people are not [brave enough], because they’re very excited about making money or being successful.

And sometimes that means you end up writing or working with people that you never really wanted to work with; that feels like musical prostitution. Don’t get caught up in that world.

I know everyone says find your own sound, find your own USP, but it’s not necessarily about that. I would say just make what is true to you, even if it’s not what people want to hear. I know that 17

LSD

sounds weird because everybody’s in it to become successful, but usually [making music that’s true to you] can become the thing that you’re known for, because you’re so passionate about it that you learn to become the best at it, because it’s your voice. You find your own colours.

stuff, and just being organized. I wouldn’t have been able to finish Euphoria without them.

And then with Maverick, they’re just Gs and they have brought some incredible

Oh, man, so many things. Music is for joy and to bring happiness or excitement, or any form of uplifting emotion. Sometimes it can take away sadness, just by you experiencing a record that makes you feel sad. That’s the importance of music, but sometimes [the industry] turns it into a popularity contest and a money contest. I would remove all of those things, just so it can be for what it’s actually meant for: healing.

That was the original idea of music, especially spiritually, it was for healing. I would try and remove all the money and all the vanity and see what comes out of it. We would get some incredible records. There’d be no money, no popularity contest. It’d literally be people making what the fuck is going on in their heads. We would find another Beatles, and we’d find another Stevie Wonder. n

“I feel like I’ve literally got the Avengers of management, publishing and label.”

For management, you’re working with both Maverick and Lateral.

How does that joint management set-up work?

I feel like I’ve literally got the Avengers of management, publishing and record label. We’ve all got a lot of love for each other. I wanted to make sure I had people on the ground in the UK that really understood my career in the UK. [Lateral] have done a great job of that, supporting me with infrastructure and 18

opportunities to me alongside Lateral.

We have all found a really great way of working together. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.

What would you change about today’s music business and why?

24KGOLDN | ALFIE TEMPLEMAN | BOW ANDERSON | DYLAN FUENTES FINN ASKEW | FLO MILLI | GIVEON | GRACEY | HOLLY HUMBERSTONE KENNYHOOPLA | KYLIE MORGAN | OLIVIA DEAN | PA SALIEU | REMI WOLF S1MBA | SCRIBZ RILEY | SHAYBO | SURF MESA | TOOSII

KEY SONGS IN THE LIFE OF…

Taponeswa Mavunga The newly appointed Director of Africa at Sony Music UK selects five landmark tracks on her musical and career journey…

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PLAYLIST

1.

T

aponeswa Mavunga isn’t great at being angry. You get the feeling she doesn’t put in a lot of practice.

Fair play, though, she’s giving it a (halfhearted) go, telling MBUK in as stern a tone as she can muster that it’s “really unfair” that she’s been asked to pick just five tracks that have shaped her life and career.

Thing is, she has a point. Having worked with a wide variety of artists at Warner and now Sony, and having listened to and loved an even broader spectrum of music throughout her life (“I could have picked 10 tracks just from my university years!”), to ask her to limit her selections to the fingers of one hand could cause even the sunniest soul to raise just one, or perhaps two of those fingers, in the general direction of their interrogator.

Ultimately though, Mavunga rises to and enjoys the challenge, alighting on a favourite five that includes tips of the hat in all directions, from Suffolk to Zimbabwe via Jamaica.

Just a couple of months ago Mavunga was promoted to the newly-created position of Director of Africa at Sony Music UK. It’s a two-way traffic post from where she will amplify UK-signed artists across Africa, as well as support artists within Africa to develop relationships, identify opportunities and increase visibility within the UK. It’s a role that reflects equally the company’s (and industry’s) increased prioritisation of the multi-faceted territory and Mavunga’s personal passion for music from across the continent.

Prior to her promotion, Mavunga was

2.

Head of Press at Columbia, where she worked on campaigns for Koffee, Wizkid, Davido, Rosalia and Childish Gambino (whose This Is America was just one track to miss out due to MBUK’s strict rule-of-five enforcement).

She was recruited after a spell working at Viacom in South Africa, where she was, amongst other things, Head of Talent for MTV Base and BET Africa.

Before that she had spent 15 years in the press department at Atlantic working on behalf of artists including Ed Sheeran, Rudimental, Sean Paul and JAY Z (whose Run This Town was yet another victim of the Rule Of Five in this feature).

“I don’t think the African music scene has ever been the same again.”

Mavunga says of her new position at Sony: “I’m loving it. It’s a brand new role, so there’s a lot of navigating to be done, it’s not like there’s somebody who did this beforehand who made a map for me to follow, but that’s great in itself.

“And the commitment that Jason [Iley, Head of Sony Music UK] has shown also gives me so much confidence, and excitement about the future.”

First though, the past, and a curated list of tracks that takes in her influences, her biggest hits and her favourite people, but begins, appropriately, in Africa.

3.

1. 2Face Idibia, African Queen (2004)

I was born in Harare, Zimbabwe, and moved to the UK when I was four, so my experience of music from the motherland was handed down via my parents.

Fela Kuti, Oliver Mtukudzi, Miriam Makeba, Thomas Mapfumo, and Brenda Fassie, were the sorts of music that played in the background on a weekend. So, the first time I heard Nigerian artist 2Face and his love song, African Queen, I was hooked.

It would have been around 2004. I was a young PR at Atlantic Records, doing press for the likes of Brandy on her album Afrodisiac, and representing the likes of Heartless Crew, Sean Paul and Missy Elliott.

African Queen was part of a youth culture-led renaissance of sorts on the continent. Propelled by the social media of that time, there was an energy that travelled to the UK and instead of Africa being synonymous with famine, poverty or AIDS, there was a track like this, about self-love, black joy, cultural pride and this sense of not seeking permission from the gatekeepers in the West. It was part of reshaping my worldview and in that sense, it was a taste of things to follow.

It was the first video on MTV Base Africa when it launched in 2005. It was an important time: before the channel launched, African Queen might have scraped together a few hundred thousand views on a few dozen local TV channels scattered across the continent. With MTV Africa, the video had something like 1.3 million viewers on its first screening. I don’t think the African music 21

is unbelievable, and he’s the most down-toearth global superstar there’s even been.

Ed has always been a brilliant narrator to his own story because it’s an authentic one.

The joy was helping to weave the strands of that narrative together.

I left Atlantic in 2014 and soon I found out (via a gang-load of Ed fans on Twitter) that he had dedicated his Q Award to me, while he was up on stage receiving it. He’s an artist who always says thank you.

scene has ever been the same again.

2. Estelle, American Boy (2008)

First up, Shine, the album this is from, is one of my favourites of all time, and American Boy is a classic.

I’ve known Estelle since before the music.

She was a journalist in the early 2000s, for an online platform called Darker Than Blue.

She was a rough diamond in UK hip-hop at the time and I’d see her out at places like Subterania, surrounded by the guys who were trailblazing at the time.

I remember her telling me she was leaving journalism to pursue music full time, which paid off. The success of [Estelle’s debut single] 1980 was a really proud Team UK moment. By the time she made the move to New York, I just knew she would fly the flag for the UK. Her success happened despite the British music business, not because of it. She landed a deal with Homeschool Records, John Legend’s imprint, which went through Atlantic in the US, which is how I came to work with her.

In my early days of PR, I remember being told that if you put a black woman on the cover, the magazine won’t sell. It was stated as fact. So the satisfaction of seeing that Estelle campaign nominated for a PR Award, after she graced covers for the likes of Stella, Telegraph magazine, ES magazine, Instyle Mag, The Guardian and F+M was amazing. American Boy topped the UK chart and went Top 10 in the US. Estelle walked away with a Mobo Award for Best UK Female and was nominated for a Mercury. And then there was the Grammys, where a team of us were there in LA to celebrate her win with her; that was amazing.

4.

5.

4. Davido, Fall (2017)

For the longest time, I have been the biggest advocate of afrobeats, and Davido is one of the artists whose journey I have been extremely proud to follow.

When he signed to Sony, it was a landmark global deal which announced an office in Nigeria. The release of Fall marked a different era for Davido and changed the landscape and the language around afrobeats globally.

The UK has always been crucial to African artists, but with Fall, from his album A Good Time, it became the longest charting Nigerian pop song in Billboard history. He’s one of Africa’s most followed artists on social media around the world.

Two MTV EMAs, a BET Award, a Mobo Award, he continues to break barriers and achieve many firsts.

Together with the likes of Wizkid, Tiwa Savage and Burna Boy, he’s redefining what success looks like.

“You kind of just looked at him and thought, Okay, what’s going to happen here?”

3. Ed Sheeran, The A Team (2010)

I remember seeing Ed play quite a bit before he was signed. There were open mic nights where he was the opposite of everyone there.

You kind of just looked at him and thought, Okay, what’s going to happen here? But I liked that, and he loved being on stage. His vibe was infectious.

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At the end of 2010, I went on a sabbatical to South Africa for three months. I had a great time. I had been at Warner for 10 years so I took a break whilst exploring the music industry there and having my eyes opened to that part of the world.

One night, I was lying on the floor of my best friend’s apartment in Sandton and I received a Facebook message from [SBTV founder] Jamal Edwards, who told me it was time to come back to the UK, because Ed has just signed with Asylum.

I was genuinely excited with the prospect of working with Ed, and to this day he’s still one of my favourite humans. His work ethic

5. Koffee, Toast (2019)

I remember the first time Ferdy [Unger-Hamilton, President of Columbia Records UK] played this to the team.

It was almost a year before we released it and you knew instantly this artist was special, without even meeting her – but then the moment you meet her, it clicks into place.

The song is uplifting and just injects feelgood. What we didn’t know was just how immediate Koffee’s trajectory would be, and how this school girl from Spanish Town in Jamaica would end up being a Grammy winner [Rapture, the EP from which Toast is taken, was named Best Reggae album at the ceremony in January this year], the youngest and first female to win the category. n

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THE HOME OF HIT MAKERS, GAME CHANGERS, TASTEMAKERS AND INNOVATORS. WISHING YOU ALL A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY (AND HEALTHY) NEW YEAR. SEE YOU IN 2021.

Tileyard London | Tileyard North | Tileyard Music | Tileyard Education | Tileyard Impact | Tileyard Wellness

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FEATURE

‘WE’RE STILL A COUPLE OF COUNCIL ESTATE KIDS WHO HAVEN’T ACHIEVED WHAT WE WANT TO ACHIEVE’ It’s been 20 years since Mark Lewis and Martin Toher formed B-Unique. The company’s since been involved in more than 100 million album sales and 20 billion streams. Now, back running a fully independent firm, the duo say there’s still plenty to tick off on their to-do list…

I

t started, as so many of these stories do, on pint three, in the pub.

Two decades ago, Mark Lewis and Martin Toher were growing tired of their day jobs as major record company A&Rs. Adding to the ever-present precariousness of their careers was the industry consolidation swirling around them: Lewis’s home of London Records had been recently acquired by Warner Music Group, while Toher’s employer, A&M, had been rolled up into Mercury Records.

“A lot of drink was going down between the two of us at that time, accompanied by a lot of pub talk,” says Lewis today.

“It was like: so-and-so’s going to buy so-and-so, we can see where everything’s headed, and we’re powerless. This is not what we want for ourselves. What about starting our own label?”

That thought, catalysed by friend, super-mixer, and fellow pub-talker, Mike ‘Spike’ Stent, soon became destiny.

These days, Lewis and Toher’s B-Unique has cemented a long track record of success both in the recorded music world (Kaiser Chiefs, Ordinary Boys, Kodaline) and, particularly, in the publishing world.

As a publisher, B-Unique has been involved with standout British songwriters over the past 20 years that include James Bay, Jonny Coffer (Rag N Bone Man, Sam Smith, Naughty Boy), Corey Sanders (Calum Scott, Sigala, Chainsmokers) and Johnny McDaid – whose 28% cut on Shape Of You handed B-Unique a proportion of the biggest ever song on Spotify.

There’s also been a big-money deal with US giant Spirit along the way, which

saw Toher and Lewis sell off their early publishing catalog in 2015, and run a JV – Spirit B-Unique – in the UK for the past five years. (The duo are now back fully independent, heading up B-Unique Mk.3, which is entirely owned by themselves.)

Things, though, didn’t start off quite so rosy. Back at the turn of the Millenium, Toher and Lewis chucked their major label redundancy cheques into B-Unique’s bank account – £10,000 each – with the samesize contribution coming from Stent (who would later shake hands with the duo and depart from the company). And from

The start of B-Unique was one hell of a baptism of fire.”

It was a particularly scary baptism for Lewis, who says he had two small children at the time, and was relying on B-Unique’s success to put food on the table.

“It was an incredibly naive move,” he says with a grin. “Doing this interview is like watching a movie back and you’re seeing yourself jump between two buildings, thinking: How the heck did I even manage that?”

Some British indie music companies’ successes are fuelled by a talisman’s energy and ego (doffs hat to Mr. McGee); some are fuelled by connections into a world others can’t reach into (doffs hat to Mr. Blackwell). And some are fuelled by the simple, human fear of looking a bit of a twat.

B-Unique, certainly in its early years, was the latter.

“At certain points, 18 months in, I was thinking: ‘Oh my God, why have we done this?’ This is the worst move of our life!” admits Toher. “We were some of the first major label A&R guys of our generation to walk out of a major and try to start an independent with our own money.

What quickly became apparent, and this was a shock, was that to many people in this industry, once you’ve lost your major label status, you suddenly become invisible.”

Adds Lewis: “It was literally: we’ve got to make this work, because everyone’s going to be laughing at us if we come crawling back [to the majors] begging for a job. So it was: head down, let’s run.”

Following a fallow first 18 months (watching those £10,000 contributions

“Starting our own company showed us how little we knew about the music industry.” there… well, they soon realised they were out of their depth.

Recalls Toher: “What surprised me was that, after you’ve been in A&R at a major label for 10 years, you think you know a lot, but you’ve actually been incredibly cushioned from the harsh realities. Starting our own company showed us how little we actually knew about the music industry.”

Adds Lewis: “When you're an A&R at a major label, you've got this whole support team around you; you're the basketball player that dunks the ball.

But you’re shielded from seeing what's happening behind you; you don't see all the work that's going on. You just say, I'll dunk that, and then do the lap of honour.

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Photo: Kaisers: Reuters/Alamy

Kasier Chiefs winning one of three BRIT Awards in 2006

fizzling down to near-zero), B-Unique hit a lucky break. Lewis and Toher were making semi-frequent trips to the US in search of a hit; instead, they found punk label Vagrant Records, who agreed to license the duo recordings from the likes of Saves The Day and Alkaline Trio for the UK. This not only brought much needed cash-flow into B-Unique – it allowed Lewis and Toher to experiment with marketing records in the CD and download-dominated world of the early noughties.

B-Unique’s first British breakthrough as a label came with Aqualung, whose selftitled debut album went Top 20 in 2002, including the track Strange & Beautiful, which became a major sync hit off the back of a Volkswagen Beetle ad. But not before B-Unique’s first run with a UK band – Scottish act Regency Buck, managed by a certain Merck Mercuriadis.

“We ballsed it all up, basically,” says Toher of B-Unique’s pre-Aqualung, pre-Vagrant strategy. “The whole execution was wrong.”

When Aqualung did start taking off, says Lewis, “There wasn’t much joy 26

going down – it just felt like relief; like, okay, so we can actually do this. We’ve got a hit on the board, so people can stop saying we haven’t.”

The historic turning point for B-Unique’s label was signing Brighton-based The Ordinary Boys, led by frontman Sam Preston, in 2003.

“That was the first time we came up against the major labels for a signing,” recalls Lewis. “We were the indie punching above our weight; RCA were super keen to sign them, Polydor too. But we camped out in Brighton 24/7. When they did a rehearsal, we were there. When they went for a drink afterwards, we were there. And it kind of worked.”

An ever-present figure in the NME world for a few years, Sam Preston’s journey is set in modern UK music biz folklore: having fallen out of favour with the indie-cool writers, Preston entered the Celebrity Big Brother house in 2006, and ending up marrying (later divorcing) the show’s winner, Chantelle Houghton, complete with Hello!-sponsored wedding. Preston then got (rather cruelly, in hindsight)

scorched on Never Mind The Buzzcocks, before fighting back against the odds to become a successful behind-the-scenes songwriter for the likes of Olly Murs, Enrique Iglesias and Kylie Minogue.

“I don't think B-Unique would be around today if it wasn't for Preston,” says Lewis, with obvious fondness. “When he started having success as a songwriter, writing Heart Skips A Beat for Olly Murs [UK No.1 in 2011] that gave me more pleasure than anything, because it was like, this guy’s been through it, with us, with his band, and now he’s writing hits as well.”

What’s less well known in the Preston story is that it was he who tipped off B-Unique on the company’s big mainstream breakthrough: Kaiser Chiefs.

The Ricky Wilson-led band scored a No.1 and two No.2 albums via B-Unique/ Polydor between 2005 and 2008 – but not before supporting the Ordinary Boys on a fateful tour.

“I turned up at a gig in Bristol, and got a bit of a bollocking from Preston,” remembers Lewis. “He was like: 'You didn't watch the support band?'! You

FEATURE

Sam Preston of The Ordinary Boys plays in Bristol, 2006

Photo: Ordinary Boys: Lebrecht Music & Arts / Alamy

should – they're amazing.' The next night I went to see them and was like: ‘Wow. I’ve just watched four hits in a row.’”

At this point, B-Unique comprised of Lewis, Toher and Paul Harris (now at Warner Music in Australia) working out of a house in Acton. Their dream was to achieve a Silver-certified album with Kaiser Chiefs’ 2005 debut, Employment.

Once pre-orders started spiralling above 100,000, then 200,000, remembers Toher, “It was like: Oh my God. There’s only three of us; this is getting out of control.”

Says Lewis: “I remember coming into the office one morning, and Martin was having an absolute wig out. He's going, 'We haven't cleared Graham Coxon's motorbike noise on the start of a track! EMI are going to make us pull 400,000 albums!’”

Such stresses led to B-Unique inking a marketing and distribution deal with Polydor, then run by Colin Barlow and David Joseph. “Polydor were great partners,” says Toher. “Colin and David were amazing and delivered on everything they promised; Lucian [Grainge] got personally involved as well.”

Erm, one question chaps: Didn’t this “amazing” partnership play out barely months after you’d stiffed the very same Polydor by beating them to the signing of the Ordinary Boys?

“You know what this business is like,” laughs Lewis. “The king is dead... long live the king. Onto the next one!”

Post-Kaiser Chiefs, B-Unique’s label enjoyed success with Irish band Kodaline – eventually inking a partnership with Sony Music for the platinum-selling group (who are now back with B-Unique independently). There was also a run of releases from the likes of Primal Scream, The Automatic and The Twang – but, around 2010, Lewis and Toher had noticed that the skinny-jeans-and-winklepickers second coming of UK indie guitar music was flagging.

“As that decade wore on, everyone in that [guitar] space ran out of headroom,” says Lewis. “I think we exhausted the public's love with indie guitar acts.”

Until this point, B-Unique’s publishing

company had been a sideshow to its label. But now, Lewis and Toher made the instinctive decision to switch their attention to songwriters. Their first smart decision was to treat B-Unique’s publishing sync efforts like they would if it were a label – scoring major placements for Miles Kane and Benjamin Francis Leftwich, including three tracks for the latter artist in smash US drama Grey’s Anatomy.

From there, B-Unique signed pubco deals with John Newman and James Bay – whose 2015 debut album, Chaos And The Calm [2015] was a huge UK No.1. It was the duo’s signing of Jonny Coffer around

this period, though, that would transform B-Unique into a ‘proper’ publisher, able to develop non-artist songwriters and land cuts on smash records.

“I got a call from a lawyer, Simon Long, and he just said to me: ‘Could you meet this young client of mine, Jonny Coffer?

I think he’s really talented.’” recalls Lewis.

“I went to go for a coffee with him, even though I’d heard some of his music he’d sent over and didn’t really like it! But by the end of that coffee, I was saying: ‘I want to sign you.’

“Everything in my instincts told me that this guy was going to be a big writer.

27

Jonny’s an incredibly talented person, and he had this intensity about him; you just knew he was the real deal, and Martin felt exactly the same way.”

The idea of Lewis and Toher “feeling” that they needed to sign Coffer – rather than scanning trillions of lines of data to signpost their decision – says a lot about their A&R approach. Music Business UK asks the duo what it is about a given artist or songwriter that tells them they have to get their signature on a contract. The answer is telling.

“For us, instinct is everything,” says Lewis. “We go into a room, and you just know whether someone's got that DNA, and if they’ve got that hunger.”

He adds: “We both feel it; it goes beyond words. We never talk ourselves into signing something – it’s usually physical, with us ending up charging around the room. It helps having two of us rather than just one, because if we’re both absolutely convinced about something, we know it’s definitely got a shot.”

After Jonny Coffer landed a smash with Naughty Boy and Sam Smith’s La La La [2014], both the songwriter and B-Unique’s stock as a home for hitmakers rose considerably. Over the next two years, Coffer would gain cuts on two other major Beyoncé singles: Runnin’ (again with Naughty Boy) and Freedom, a Grammy-nominated standout on Queen B’s Lemonade album.

B-Unique’s biggest hit, though, was yet to come. In summer 2014, Lewis and Toher flew out to the US to catch up with Kodaline – whose debut platinum album had been released the year before.

The band were recording sessions for their second album in Los Angeles… but when Lewis and Toher landed at LAX, they were informed Kodaline had been kicked out of the studio.

“For whatever reason, it wasn’t working,” says Toher, “but it meant we were kind of stuck in L.A, scratching our heads over what to do. So we decided to hunt down Johnny McDaid, and we ended up meeting him in Malibu. He told us he loved Kodaline. Five weeks later, the band

went back to L.A and recorded a song with him that ended up on the album.”

At this point, McDaid was still very much ‘Johnny McDaid From Snow Patrol’.

As opposed to ‘Johnny McDaid, One of the UK’s Most Successful Pop Songwriters of the Modern Age’.

Impressed by McDaid, Toher and Lewis set about striking a partnership deal between B-Unique and Polar Patrol – the publishing company set up by Snow Patrol to house the band’s various songwriting copyrights. “We instantly clicked with Jonny Quinn [Snow Patrol’s drummer who oversaw Polar],” says Toher, “and knew we’d work well together.”

Two years on, having secured cuts on Ed Sheeran’s Photograph, as well as singles from Birdy, Robbie Williams and Zara Larsson, McDaid invited Lewis and Toher over to hear some new tracks – including a tropically-influenced number created in a session with Ed Sheeran and Steve Mac.

plain sailing…”

Ah, yes. Ed Sheeran’s Photograph became the target of an aggressive plagiarism suit in the US in 2016, spearheaded by notorious copyright-chasing lawyer, Richard Busch (he of Marvin Gaye Estate vs. Blurred Lines fame). Sheeran, McDaid and co strongly deny any hint of copyright infringement, but the $20m suit was eventually settled in 2017. (Sheeran’s lawyers complained that Busch’s suit contained “a bevy of scandalous, offensive and insulting accusations… which serve no purpose other than to seek to embarrass [the] defendants and tarnish their reputations.”)

Is this growing trend – of US copyright writs landing on the desk of music publishers involved in global smashes – a painful part of B-Unique’s modern world?

Jokes Toher: “I’ve taken to calling it a ‘positive problem’. Because you’re only involved in any of these lawsuits for massive hits. No one’s suing anyone for a flop.”

Adds Lewis: “It’s a professional headache, for sure. The reality now is that when you listen to music, you have to start thinking: ‘Is there a possibility this sounds like that?’

It’s a minefield.

“I just feel sorry for the very talented songwriters out there. I genuinely don’t believe anyone we’ve worked with has ever had the intention to rip anyone off. But if you’re an artist today, you better not mention your influences!”

Between the point that B-Unique met Johnny McDaid and Shape Of You setting the world alight, Lewis and Toher struck a career-defining deal with Spirit Music Group, and its then-CEO David Renzer.

That agreement saw Spirit acquire B-Unique’s catalog up to 2015 (which Spirit recently re-sold to Concord). The two companies also entered into a five-year JV for future signings, Spirit B-Unique, which inked deals with writers such as JC Stewart (with Polar), as well as Lewis Thompson (Joel Corry’s Lonely and Head and Heart), Jon Maguire (Calum Scott‘s You Are The Reason), Jon Shave (Iggy Azalea’s Fancy), Dagny (Katy Perry’s Never Really Over) and more besides.

“We never talk ourselves into signing something – it’s usually physical.”

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What did it feel like to hear what would become the biggest Spotify hit of all time, for the first time?

“He played us three songs, and they were all great, and then he played Shape Of You,” says Lewis. “Genuinely, both me and Martin, our faces, our shoulders, just went rigid. What a song.”

He adds: “The stats about Shape Of You are staggering, but more pleasing for us is what it did for Johnny. From there he went into writing for Pink [What About Us], Alicia Keys [Underdog] and the other Ed stuff. When we met Johnny he was a part of Snow Patrol but hadn’t really had any major hits on his own. So to watch Photograph happen, then Shape Of You and everything else was just fantastic, because he’s a wonderful person.”

Toher chimes in: “Although it wasn’t all

FEATURE

With that JV now at an end (with its catalog still co-owned by Spirit, Lewis and Toher), what is the B-Unique duo’s sober assessment of the deal they did?

Says Toher: “That period was a similar story to what happened with the label: we had minimal staff, working out of a house in Hammersmith; our roster was outgrowing me and Mark, with the company turning into a beast. We had approaches from several people, but when we went to see David [Renzer] in Los Angeles, it was a good fit: Spirit had acquired catalogs but had no real active A&R, and it was a nicely structured deal.”

Because of that structure, James Bay is now no longer signed as a current writer to Spirit B-Unique; Kodaline are on their last album published by the company.

These artist/writers are free to choose their new publishing homes when their commitments have been completed – with B-Unique’s new, independent publishing operation always an option.

Talking of that independent operation, Lewis and Toher already have a raft of publishing signings to their own company they’re excited about for 2021. These include Polydor-signed duo Punctual, who Toher says are “on the verge of exploding”; veteran songwriter and Alicia’s Attic member Shelly Poole; Mason Bay, who’s signed to Stormzy’s label #Merky; and another Polydor-signed act, Joey Maxwell.

In addition, B-Unique continues to operate as an independent label: earlier this year it put out Kodaline’s most recent album, One Day At A Time, which has already clocked up over 80 million streams across various services. B-Unique Records also recently signed the Scottish electropop band Liimo, and the transatlantic, anthemic duo, World’s First Cinema.

Lewis and Toher, it appears, are keeping themselves busy. But when they’ve already proven their A&R acumen, made their money, and shut up those giggling major label doubters, what’s continuing to drive them forward?

“This is our hobby,” says Toher. “Back when A&M got shut down and folded into Mercury, every Sunday night I had that feeling in my stomach: ‘Urgh. Tomorrow’s

Scottish alt-pop trio Liimo Xxx are signed to B-Unique’s independent record company

a school day.’ Once that happens, it’s over – it really is. We love what we do today; we never get that feeling. We just want to work with and develop talented people and great artists.”

Well, there is that other thing, admits Lewis: finding a British, world-beating artist who can soar to the Grammywinning heights of Adele, or Ed Sheeran, or Sam Smith.

Isn’t that a flawed pipe dream in 2020, though? In a globally-connected streaming age, where your best bet for a hit is often some random berk making a ‘funny’ TikTok video, shouldn’t the UK music industry curb its ambitions? Is “the next Adele/Ed” thing even still possible anymore?

“Of course it is!” replies Lewis, with no hesitation. “You’ll have to drag me out of the last casino to get me to admit that it’s not. I know we’re in a different climate than we used to be; I know the industry is a multi-faceted beast now, and you arguably need more great songs and a longer period of time [to break]. But we still believe we can do it. We still see ourselves as outliers, a couple of working class council estate kids who haven’t yet achieved what we want to achieve.”

He adds: “I mean, right now, someone’s out there in the UK, rehearsing a future single, or playing a song in their front room to their mum, who’s going to go on and win Brits and Grammys. There has to be.” n 29

Atlantic’s Next Wave It’s a new day for Atlantic Records UK. New management, new artists, new strategy – and a new team ready to deliver…

L-R: Atlantic UK’s Jonathan Chabala (Audience Manager), Leila Singh (Marketing Manager), Austin Daboh (EVP), Rich Castillo (A&R Director), Jennifer Akoto (Publicist)

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INTERVIEW

their core teams wasn’t just to sit, and Zoom, and plan. The ultimate salve, he said, rather pointedly, was “to just do it”.

Daboh’s been busy following his own advice, and in conjunction with Atlantic’s leadership team has contributed to a string of new label hires including Kim Jarrett – who has previously worked with artists such as Jay-Z, Massive Attack and Radiohead – as Senior Video Commissioner. Other additions at Atlantic have included Leila Singh (Marketing Manager), Jennifer Akoto (Publicist), as well as Jonathan Chabala, the label’s new Audience Manager.

Atlantic UK has been updated in other ways, too. You only need look at its fast-rising modern artist roster, which includes the MOBO-nominated songwriter/rapper Darkoo, as well as North London’s Tion Wayne, who went Top 10 in June with I Dunno.

Meanwhile, the UK pop breakthroughs that Atlantic’s famous for have continued to emerge: see DJ/Producer Nathan Dawe (whose Lighter with KSI went Top 3 this summer) as well as Joel

Photo: Ashley Verse

A

tlantic Records has long been an unimpeachable force in the UK music industry, but over the last 18 months it’s faced its fair share of challenges. Now, following a series of personnel and leadership changes, it’s entering a new era.

This time last year, the label turned a corner with the appointment of Ed Howard and Briony Turner as its new UK co-Presidents. Six months later, the industry was abuzz with news of Austin Daboh joining as EVP, in a dual role that also saw him join the Warner Music UK leadership team.

At the time, Daboh said that he would be supporting Howard and Turner to lead Atlantic into “the next chapter in its legendary history”. Daboh also – in this very magazine – noted that he was under no illusions about the progress that needed to be made at Atlantic, Warner and in the wider UK music industry, in terms of the representation and professional advancement of underrepresented executives (particularly black female executives).

As you might recall, in one of the sterner proclamations of his Music Business UK Manifesto this summer, Daboh told his fellow industry executives that the best way to fix racial inequality within

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Corry, whose No.1 smash Head & Heart with MNEK has been a chart mainstay this year. And gearing up for 2021, Atlantic is developing the likes of dancehall/R&B artist Stalk Ashley, as well as plotting the return of the Ivor Novello-winning Laura Mvula, and the BRIT Critics’ Choice Award nominee, Mahalia.

Not everything about Atlantic Records UK has been given a reboot, says Daboh: “The thing that’s made Atlantic so successful over the last 20 years is that super-nuanced, forensic approach when it comes to identifying, signing, and developing acts and all the promotion that comes with it. Now, we have to blend that with bringing fresh ideas to the table. [Atlantic UK A&R Director] Rich Castillo and the A&R team have been brilliant at that, delivering new ideas and ensuring that we stay culturally relevant in multiple genres, whether that be drill, UKG or beyond.”

In addition to his Atlantic responsibilities, Daboh is an influential figure in Warner Music’s global mission to progress the inclusivity of its workforce; he sits on Warner’s internal board of directors for its $100m social justice and anti-racism fund, as unveiled earlier this year. Daboh says that he and Warner Music UK CEO, Tony Harlow amongst others, have been “locked in virtual rooms for several hours” this year, thrashing out new hiring policies and executing actions that, in Daboh’s words, make Warner “a better place to work for everyone”.

Speaking to Music Business UK, Daboh reveals that Warner Music UK has now proudly committed to an internal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion report, which sets the company meaningful targets in its hiring practices, the opportunities it creates for employees and how it treats staff from the top down.

Here, Daboh discusses the new vision for Atlantic Records UK, why youth is at the center of the label today, and his excitement for the year ahead...

hits year after year, but we can’t deny there were some challenges last year. But the new management team here – co-Presidents Ed Howard & Briony Turner, Director of Promotions (and label Godfather) Damian Christian, GM Liz Goodwin and myself – have been taking feedback from staff to work out: What are the challenges? How can we be a better place to work for everyone?

Things that have come off the back of that include how transparent we are in terms of the hiring process, and the way in which people progress through the company, plus the way that we treat different genres, and the love, attention and resources that are allocated to those genres.

We’re being more open and real about things, and that’s shown in many of the recent hires that we’ve made. The whole leadership team, with the support of Tony Harlow, are putting our money where our mouth is. I’ve been really, really happy with the progress that’s been made in my first six months of being at the company.

Where are the ideas coming from for these new internal approaches?

One thing that I’ve been proud of working for Warner over these last six months is how much the company has listened to the feedback from the ground level staff, especially the younger staff. And big up Tony [Harlow], because he’s not just been listening, he’s also been determined to put positive changes into effect, including a drive for us publishing the first Warner Music UK Diversity, Equity and Inclusion report. It’s an internal document that outlines our inclusivity targets, as well as the actions we’re taking to get us there. It includes a big piece on how we can make Warner Music UK a better place to work for non-white staff, and it’s being taken very seriously at the highest levels.

The issues we’re talking about here are not specific to Atlantic, by the way. It just so happens that a spotlight was shone on things at Atlantic for the wider world to see, and we’ve responded. I’m not looking behind my shoulder at what went on previously; I’ve always been about the now.

While everyone on the team is incredibly proud of the label’s heritage, we’re focused on building on that and foundation and adding exciting new signings like Darkoo, Tion Wayne, Laura Mvula and many others to our roster.

“A spotlight was shone on Atlantic for the wider world to see, and we’ve responded.”

Since you’ve come into Atlantic six months ago, what are the headline changes you’ve seen implemented at the label?

This is a new chapter, not just for me but also for Atlantic and Warner Music. We’ve got a new management team at the label and new staff across the business who have brought new energy and ideas, and that’s already producing amazing results, and a lot of exciting new artists.

More importantly, my time here has been about building and rebuilding relationships with the community and ensuring that the next generation of young black leaders are represented at a senior level in the music business.

Let’s get into it: Atlantic UK’s relationship with the black music community needed improving following obvious recent events, something you yourself publicly acknowledged when you took the EVP job. How have you set about doing that?

Atlantic has had an amazing ten years, with the team delivering 32

Your staff can see these diversity targets and will hold you accountable to them. What makes you confident about going down that route?

The work that we’ve done at Atlantic so far. When I last spoke to you, I talked about the lack of black faces in music organisations, particularly the lack of black females in organisations and I said, ‘Look, we can we can go around the houses, we can talk about and deliberate all of these things over and over, but at the end of the day, just do it. Just fucking do it.’ That’s exactly what Atlantic

Darkoo

Tion Wayne

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INTERVIEW

has done. When it comes to hiring, when it comes to the process around promoting, when it comes to taking feedback on board.

Let’s talk about the A&R team at Atlantic. Where are you finding artists like Darkoo and Tion Wayne in this complex modern marketplace?

The core actions of discovering and identifying artists hasn’t really changed – it’s about looking and listening and learning from young people. The only thing that’s changed are the platforms where we do that listening. If we were having this conversation 20 years ago, we’d be talking about school playgrounds, uni student halls, and nightclubs. Now, you’ve still got to know who’s being talked about at the back of the school bus, but there’s also these [digital] platforms where those same young people are having conversations. Obviously that’s TikTok, it’s Triller, it’s Fortnite, Roblox and so on.

In some ways, because there’s so much music being released, it’s harder to identify special records and artists. Sifting through all that data can be a challenge. So to help combat that, we’ve made some changes to the team, including hiring a data scientist, who’s helping us build some really interesting tools, and ways to interrogate data. We also have a wider Warner data team to plug into. We still rely on gut feeling about records, and we’ve got our own taste, which is just as important. But the other 50% [of modern A&R] is about better reading the information in front of you.

their music, that honesty, but add that extra layer of world class production and/or songwriting to it?’ That’s something that Ed [Howard] and Briony [Turner] have been doing for a decade-plus now; they’re masters at it.

What’s your pitch to artists who say: I’m already releasing through Ditto etc. and doing fine, with Top 20s or Top 10 tracks under my belt independently? Especially those in the world of black music?

It’s a question that I’m answering every single day. Distribution companies like ADA do an amazing job of allowing artists to hold on to a larger share of royalties while getting their music out into the world. There’s no question about that and we actually partner with ADA on certain projects.

But if you’re looking for a global team where you’re going to have 20 people waking up every morning with you as an artist as the first thing on their mind – or the second thing on their mind, after they brushed their teeth – you need to join a major label. If you open up the OCC charts, it’s true that you will see some independent records. But if you look at the biggest-selling artists of the last couple of years, you’re talking about Stormzy, No.1 platinum album, Headie One, No.1 album; Nines, No.1 album; if you’re talking about who’s having the big chart hits, the biggest albums, and generating the most amount of success, I think the evidence shows there are big advantages to the infrastructure that a major label provides.

Yes, you can make a shitload of money being an independent, and more power to the artists that do that. Also, some artists are just more adept at doing that than others; some artists are organised, some have got a bigger team around them. The work that ADA do is amazing. And of course, AJ Tracey is a brilliant example of the incredible work that gets achieved in the independent distro world. But with all that being said, as Atlantic I believe we can supplement that work in the independent world and create even larger success for artists.

“The evidence shows there are big advantages to the infrastructure a major label provides.”

One challenge must be balancing that forensic A&R with the authenticity of artists who are emerging from the UK. It’s interesting, hip-hop music in the UK is quite unique in that it’s the one genre that can produce pop-like results without necessarily having pop-like production. You can literally have a freestyle shot on iPhone gatecrash the Top 40.

I’ve definitely got to big up Rich Castillo, and some of our senior A&Rs – Kevin Christian Blair, David Aghedo and Terry Appiasei.

There’s a bigger team outside of them, but Rich, Kevin, David and Terry in particular know how to take that credibility that lives and breathes as part of UK street culture and black music culture, and then add a level of world class production and songwriting to it. A careful balance is definitely required.

Look at Tion [Wayne] who can have a super gritty record and go Top 10, helped by tweaking things very slightly from a production point of view, and tweaking things slightly from a melody point of view, to help reach wider audiences across streaming, radio etc.

And I think what we’re trying to do for next year with artists like Laura Mvula, Karl Benjamin, Kojey Radical, Darkoo, Tion Wayne, plus one or two others, is say to ourselves, ‘Okay, how can we keep that core beating heart of credibility that exists within

There was a lot of debate breaking out in the wake of Blackout Tuesday about the descriptors of “urban music” vs. “black music”. What’s your take?

It’s a conversation I’ve been having for years now, since I joined BBC Radio 1Xtra. I think in the UK, we’re pretty much agreed – certainly at Atlantic, it’s agreed – that ‘black music’ works better than ‘urban music’. And that’s simply because of the negative connotations around urban music being pigeonholed over the years.

With that being said, there are different cultural nuances that exist in Europe and America. So in certain other countries, it’s ‘black music’ that has had the rough ride historically.

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Joel Corry

At Atlantic, we’ve accepted that there will be certain countries and circumstances where ‘urban music’ works better. We’re also aware that some super credible, legendary black music executives in the US have come out and said that ‘urban music’ is a better term because of the success that they’ve had associated with being ‘urban music’ executives. So we need a blended approach, where we speak to black music, which we believe is the right term to use in the UK, but we definitely won’t begrudge a territory with different cultural context using ‘urban music’.

Another less polarised debate that kicked off recently surrounded ‘BAME’ – the alwaysawkward mouthful describing people categorised as ‘Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic’. It seems destined to be consigned to history. Good thing?

I was never super comfortable with the word BAME. Similar to ‘urban music’, I think the word should get thrown in the bin simply because it’s been used by too many organisations, too many government think tanks, when they’re lumping together cultures that in some cases have hardly anything in common whatsoever, even amongst the black community, let alone the Asian community, the South Asian community and other non-white ethnic groups.

I get that it’s difficult, because at some point you have to find a way to describe a group of things. I understand why it was created.

But BAME ain’t the one.

Foundation, announced a $100m fund for social justice and anti-racist causes. You’re on the board of that fund – what can you tell us?

We’ve made our first round of grants recently and one of the largest recipients was a UK organisation called the BCA, the Black Cultural Archives, based in Brixton, at No.1 Windrush Square. They’re all about preserving the way in which the black British experience has been documented. A lot of people scoffed when they heard about Warner’s $100m fund, assuming it was just something that was going to live in the ether, and wouldn’t be a real thing. But what we’ve seen is actually, very quickly, within weeks of the fund becoming operational, the very first donation was made.

“We’re creating an infrastructure and incubator that allows talent to thrive.”

Earlier this year Warner, in association with the Blavatnik 36

Final question: How would you try and encapsulate the culture of the Atlantic you and the team are building?

We’re creating an infrastructure and an incubator that allows talent to thrive, maybe without some of the more negative pressures that have existed in the music industry in years gone by.

I would also like to note that while we at Atlantic are having a really good run at the moment, it’s not just at Atlantic where there’s success: look at ADA, what they’re doing with AJ Tracey, and across Warner Music, where the labels have had great years with the likes of S1mba, Pa Salieu and Nines. That’s for those labels and for Tony [Harlow] to talk about, but credit where credit’s due: it’s not just Atlantic; Warner Music UK as a whole is fighting on all fronts, particularly in black music. n

Photo: Ashley Verse

INTERVIEW

Austin Daboh: “I’m not looking behind my shoulder at what went on previously; I’ve always been about the now.”

TAYLOR SWIFT WON’T FIND HER FUTURE IN HER PAST Because artists are “doomed to never bottle lightning twice”, says Eamonn Forde, re-recording your old hits is a tricky, potentially time-wasting, exercise...

Taylor Swift surprised fans earlier in the year with the surprise release of her surprising Folklore album. It was a critical triumph, too.

Mojo, a title that would never have given her pop or country albums the time of day before, named it the 31st best album of the year, no doubt in a large part because it has a black and white sleeve and Bon Iver performing on it, meaning it therefore qualified as (oh, God) ‘real’ music. As if her previous records were somehow so slight and unreal as to be invisible, like ghosts in camouflage.

These past albums are, however, things she has decided to go back to and try and build again. It comes after a very public and very ugly war with Scooter Braun, who had bought and then sold her first six albums (the ones when she was signed to Big Machine) without giving her the chance to buy them herself and therefore have control over how they are used (samples, syncs and more). So in order to, should one wish to coin a phrase, take back control, Swift is re-recording them – as this was something that the previous acquisition’s Braun Ultimatum apparently prevented her from doing.

In a video message to the American Music Awards in late November where she won three awards, Swift stated that this re-creation of her past is happening in “the studio we originally recorded” her other records in. This was a telling use of words from a pop star whose every syllable is combed for clues. It suggested that she’s going back to where the magic happened, so that it can happen again.

There is a significant creative issue here where artists are doomed to never bottle lightning twice.

The multiple drafts and stabs at songs on The Beatles’ Anthology, Bob Dylan’s rolling Bootleg Series and just about every anniversary reissue of an album festooned with demos and studio outtakes is empirical proof that you can get close to genius many, many times. However, like the 38

“To look back is to capitulate. To look back is to betray progress. To look back is a form of death.”

pub bore trying to show everyone how to play darts, you can only hit the bullseye once – and that is often as much by accident as by design.

What Taylor Swift is assuming is that the extra, intangible, incommunicable thing that made one studio recording crackle with genius is something that can be easily repeated just by going back and standing on the same spot, as if she is able to kick a portal through to her own past. “I did it once,” runs the logic, “so it’s only natural I can do it again. Right here, in the same place where I did it last time.”

Maybe she’ll record a version of Blank Space, Shake It Off or State Of Grace that eclipses what her fans regard as the definitive versions. Maybe.

Chances are, however, that it will be a decent approximation, but a curio that gets played once and never played again. Think of it like that hat you bought on holidays because it looked strident against the sparkling swell of the Aegean in August but now looks enervated beside the

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churning grey of the Thames in December.

Context is everything.

Taylor Swift in 2020 is a different person and a different artist to the Taylor Swift who recorded those songs originally. That’s the inherent nature of being an artist: velocity. She has evolved, she has grown, she has improved – both as an artist and, no doubt, as a person. As such, she will make the version of those songs that work for her today but can’t recapture the magic in the room when she first minted them.

It also feels like she’s applying Tipp-Ex to the jet streams of her career arc so far. Rather than focus on the future, she’s trying to reclaim a past. You can sympathise with her compulsion. Songs are precious to their creators (the old cliché of them being their ‘children’ carries a lot of emotional heft) and having to let them go can be painful.

But she’s in what Neil Tennant would term her ‘imperial phase’ (where an artist is so in sync with their art and the zeitgeist that they simply cannot set a foot wrong). This is typically defined by an astonishing forward propulsion, where the best is only there to be bettered, never repeated.

There are vague echoes here of Paul McCartney de-Spectoring Let It Be, but that was to correct what McCartney saw an act of butchery on his art at the time rather than to try and forge wholly new versions that he now controlled.

‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there,’ is how L.P. Hartley opened The Go-Between. To go back to the past and try and do it again will be different; and ‘different’ and ‘better’ are not always synonymous. To look back is to capitulate. To look back is to betray progress. To look back is a form of death.

It makes one wonder if all artists – if they were able – would actively choose to remake key parts of their past under new terms. One also wonders when or if the compulsion to tinker would ever actually stop, just like in the episode of Father Ted where they try and straighten out a dent in the car with a gentle hammer tap but end up buckling the whole thing.

To take this all to its (il)logical conclusion, we could see Bob Dylan get called ‘Judas!’ for touring using renewable energy – recalibrating his legend to include that infamous tour when he ‘went solar’. Or Paul McCartney (him again) extending the olive branch to Pete Best and the two of them headlining a series of residences at The Cavern, the Kaiserkeller and the Casbah Coffee Club, playing their signature sound

“What great songs and records would be surrendered if artists all started to photocopy their past?”

of drum & bass. Or Wet Wet Wet going back and instead of covering Love Is All Around, deciding that they should remake The Troggs Tapes (actually, that’s a much better idea.) Or Beyoncé thinking Are You My Woman (Tell Me So) by The Chi-Lites is old hat and that a much better sample to use in a re-record of Crazy In Love is to be found in Yakety Sax. Any obsession with the past ultimately becomes a gelding of the future. One wonders what great songs and great records would be surrendered if artists all started to photocopy their past. There are two losses here: (a) the music that never gets made because; (b) the artists is devoting their time and talent to remaking music that already exists.

Forget L.P. Hartley. Perhaps a more apposite quote comes from Phil Connors, Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day. “Well, what if there is no tomorrow?” he asks. “There wasn’t one today.”

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It’s the turn of EGA founder Colin Batsa to step up to the stump and deliver a fiery five-point plan for change‌

FEATURE

C

hange has been a constant in Colin Batsa’s world.

Thankfully it’s something he not just relishes, but wants more of. Much more, across the industry. Which makes him a perfect candidate to give MBUK his Manifesto, including improvements in diversity, mental health awareness, and even some love for the boys and girls in accounts. You’ll see…

Since his earliest days, Batsa has never been tied down to one discipline, one genre or one company. He has run labels, managed artists (still does), been fiercely independent and been a valued consultant to the majors (still is).

He also believes in the transformative power of music itself, telling MBUK last year that “without it, some of these kids would either be dead or in jail. The fact that they’re performing at Alexandra Palace or the O2 is phenomenal.”

At the heart of operations is EGA, the company he founded alongside his partner, Victor Omos, 10 years ago (with Charley Snook coming in as a third partner more recently). EGA is now an imprint within the Universal ecosystem, where Batsa is also an A&R consultant for Caroline and Capitol UK. Artists he has either brought in or is developing across the two deals include D-Block Europe, Digga D, Bugzy Malone, Rema, M Huncho x Nafe Smallz, Midas The Jagaban, Stay Flee Get Lizzy, Tiffany Calver, Potter Payper, Internet Money (Caroline), plus Aitch and Zoe Wees (Capitol).

The management arm of EGA currently looks after R&B singer Sharna Bass, and rapper, Devlin, an artist with whom Batsa worked even before EGA was established.

Batsa initially had six points in his Manifesto. And such was his combination of charm and determination that, unbeknownst to the man himself, we wobbled a bit.

But, typically, in the end he saw a way of combining two into one (we won’t say which, but see if you can spot the stitching), meaning, effectively, he got his own way and everyone involved considered it a result.

You can see why he’s not done too badly, and why his Manifesto for change is worth reading…

Like I say, I’m lucky because as well as Victor, I have people like David Joseph, Michael Roe, Jim Chancellor, Nick Raphael, that actually all mentor me. Nick Raphael speaks to me pretty much every morning and gives me guidance and honesty. That’s someone who’s been doing it at the highest level for 20 years; that’s invaluable.

But there’s not enough of it. And I think that can lead to a lot of over promotion, people getting to levels that they’re not ready for because they haven’t received that mentorship and that guidance.

Part of the problem can be that the [more senior] people can sometimes feel like they’re in competition with the people who are on the way up, but that’s not a healthy attitude.

I also think, on the other side, people on the way up are scared to show vulnerability or a lack of knowledge. They don’t want to show their President, or someone in a leadership position, that they don’t know as much as they think are supposed to know. But the truth is people need to be honest and not afraid to learn.

I should be mentoring more myself, it’s something I really want to start doing. I’m not saying I necessarily know more than someone who’s newer to the business, but I’ve been through more, I’ve seen more, and it’s great to share all that, maybe even just to help people not make the mistakes you’ve made.

This needs to be something that happens across the industry, it should be formalised. If you want to build the future of this business, I think you have to include this.

“People on the way up are scared to show vulnerability or a lack of knowledge.”

1. More Mentorship

There needs to be more mentorship across the industry, because experience is the best teacher.

I’m privileged because I came into the industry with my business partner, Victor [Omos], who’s always mentored me and been there for me. Just having someone there for you is so imperative.

There’s a lack of education sometimes for younger people when they get in the game, because there are no books you can read, there’s no Google search that can answer all your questions.

2. Prioritise Mental Health

There should be more mental health advice for artists and executives.

A job in the music business is stressful, and I think people underestimate the mental health issues, and sometimes even depression, that’s involved. There’s pressure on every single one of us, because we’re all constantly being judged on results. That’s the truth of our business, and if something’s not working then it’s quite an emotional roller coaster.

Labels need to understand that their artists, they’re putting their lives out into the world, and then they have to go through the scrutiny of the internet, of the critics. I just feel there’s not enough guidance or help, or even just awareness, when it comes to mental health, because a lot of people do suffer from depression in this business, especially during the last year we’ve had.

There’s been some lip service paid to this, but I don’t think there’s been substantive change. Again, I think I’m blessed that at Universal, people are genuinely caring about this issue. So there are people that you can go to, and I know David Joseph takes it very seriously. It’s genuine on his part, it’s not lip service.

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3. No Limit On Ambition For Black And Female Execs

More female and black execs should be considered for leadership at the major labels, not just as Presidents, but as the Chair People.

I think our industry is lacking in that respect.

I work with Nicola Spokes, who’s the UK Label Head at Caroline; she’s the best marketeer I’ve ever come across, and one of the best leaders in the industry. I think someone like Nicola should be able to become the Chairperson of a record company.

I think Jo Charrington is the best A&R I’ve ever met and worked with and is a straight out boss, who I believe one day could and should be a Chairperson.

And I look at Benjamin Scarr, who manages Dave and runs Neighbourhood, he’s flat out one of the best humans I’ve ever worked with, and he has to be a potential Chairman one day.

I’ve never seen a black or a female Chair of a major record company. That has to change, because there are too many amazing people out there, like the three people I just mentioned, they inspire me every day. And there are dozens, hundreds more, we don’t even know how many.

The problem has been that black and female execs are not being earmarked, picked out and prepared for leadership, not for the very top. And that’s what’s needed, these amazing people, they need to be told, ‘This is where we see you in five or 10 years time – and it’s the very, very top.’

The people I’m talking about are natural born leaders, people will want to work for them, but I think in their minds there might be this feeling, like, ‘I can maybe be a label President, but beyond that...’ No, there should be no ceiling, no roof, no limit. And then that first group will inspire a younger generation to believe that they can go all the way.

One of my business partners, Charley [Snook], she’s a 26-yearold female, and it would be great for her to look up and see Nicola, or Jo, leading the whole company, that would inspire her, for sure.

You’ve got to see it to be it, right? Like me seeing Darcus [Beese] blaze a trail when I was younger. We need examples and we need inspiration.

And I think, as an industry, we are trying. There are female Presidents, there are black Presidents, but there could be more.

And we have to think bigger. I think our mindset is ready for it, but now we need to see some action.

And again, I don’t want to be always shining the light on Universal, but I think that is one company which is prepared to bring people forward and give them that chance. So, yes it’s better than it was, and yes there’s a determination to keep getting better.

But, honestly, it’s still nowhere near where it needs to be.

4. Respect (And Embrace) The Entrepreneurs

There needs to be more respect for entrepreneurs in the UK industry.

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I feel that there’s a lot of young kids who are doing amazing things and, whereas in America there’s huge respect towards those outsiders who end up in label situations, over here that respect isn’t at the right level.

I’m fortunate enough to work with quite a few of them.

People like [Aitch’s manager / NQ founder] Adex, Wes [D-Block Europe], Tega, Jam Jam and Micah, YBeeez, Tee and AP and Despa are building empires and I feel like over here we’re still too traditional, we’re still stuck on, ‘This person needs to be an A&R, this person belongs in marketing.’

I’m talking about people who are changing the world from their bedrooms. They’re doing everything and they’re doing it internationally. Their chart success is phenomenal, they’re all selfmade, but no one’s really recognising them. I truly believe people like Kwabz and Bills are the future because they are exceptional entrepreneurs.

I just feel like, when I’m in America, I see how much they regard entrepreneurs in the business. Over here, I think there are some people starting to get to that, but we’re still far off from where we should be.

We should be backing these people, because they’re building music companies and building careers from scratch. They’re doing things that people had never done before, or couldn’t do.

I think the world needs to know these people, because some of the hottest artists in the country have come from them, and they’ve done the artist development. They’ve done the grassroots, they’ve built their own YouTube channels, and I just feel there’s not enough recognition or respect given towards them and a lack of belief in them.

There will always be traditional A&R, but there’s also going to be loads of renegades, and they’re going to come through whether you like it or not: no rules, no holds barred and doing things differently. I admire these people, and you should too. Some of them are charting in the top 40 with no radio play, no major DSP support, just sheer hard work and being smart.

The mainstream industry should embrace them, learn from them. Because it’s not about us versus them; it’s about working together and respecting each other.

5. Share The Love With The Industry’s Unsung Heroes

Listen, I totally understand why A&R is seen as the lifeline of the industry; it brings the content, it brings the artists, it brings the music.

And I get why marketing and digital are seen as number two and three, because obviously they get the music out there. And then the promo team, also, they get things on radio and TV, that’s high profile.

But, think about it, think about the finance department, just say we never had them, where would we be? No one’s getting paid!

My FD, Ian Brundrett, at Caroline, he keeps the lights on, he’s the

FEATURE

D-Block Europe

reason why I can take holidays, he’s the reason I can buy my mum nice things! He’s like my Fairy Godfather!

And then the Head of Legal at Caroline, Keith Sweeney, without him, who knows where the percentages are going? Who’s getting what and who feels like their deal is fair? Legal sets the framework for everything.

I just feel, as an industry, we need to shine more light on these people and these departments.

Also, there are many kids that don’t realise that they could be working in the finance department of a label, or they could work in the legal department. They all assume when you work in music, it means you’re an A&R. They love music, they want to be in the business, but they assume there’s no place for them because we don’t big up what they do.

Another one: what would I do without my International and Sales team? What the hell would I do without Ed Scott, Rob Watson and Ross Hampl? I don’t know what I’d do! These people are unsung heroes, and it’s time we started singing I mean I get it, being an A&R myself, I get it. We discover the artist, we change people’s lives, I totally understand all that. But

there are a lot of people in the machine that work as hard as us and play such an important role after we bring the artist in; they add to it.

Having said all that, I do want to stress that I’m not downplaying the role of my A&R brothers and sisters.

In fact, what I would say is that people need to understand what A&R actually is. Because I do think there’s a perception that we ‘just’ make the music. But we are involved in streaming, involved in marketing, involved in digital. We don’t just bring the artist and then go missing. We have to deliver on the artist, which is actually more important than signing them!

A lot of us, we’re the ones who are talking to the artist every day, convincing them to do stuff. For the artist, when something goes wrong, we’re their first point of call. And they’re not going to call us in office hours, they’ll call us at midnight, they’ll call at 2am in the morning if they have to.

So, I hope it’s not contradictory, but I do feel that people need to realise that A&R isn’t just the glamorous side of things, but at the same time, as an industry, we need to not be so focused on celebrating A&R at the expense of other skills and other departments. n 43

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INTERVIEW

‘I WAS FORGED IN THE FIRE OF LOVE AND PROTEST’ One of the most successful UK music execs of the past couple of decades, President and CEO of Island Records in New York City, Darcus Beese, talks to his old friend, Decisive Management Co-Founder Adrian Sykes, about a background in activism and hairdressing, a career that has seen him work with superstars and mavericks, and a determination to make sure his legacy is about far more than hits...

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ore than 30 years ago, Adrian Sykes interviewed Darcus Beese. Nothing came of it. It was, ostensibly, a job interview – but there was no actual job available.

Beese was trying to break into the music business and thought there might be a key under the mat at the MCA promotions department, where Sykes was working at the time.

While there was no vacancy, Sykes had heard enough about this well-connected former hairdresser to know that he was worth meeting. Instead of a job, he gave Beese some advice and wished him luck – fairly certain that he would hear more from him, and about him, and equally certain he might have missed out on a nascent record exec of huge potential and rare skill.

Beese did, of course, go on to command some seriously more significant roles than the one he was eyeing at MCA, most notably with Island Records, where he was Co-President in the UK from 2008 (in partnership with Ted Cockle), then running the division solo from 2013 to 2018, at which point he moved to New York to become President and CEO of Island US. Along the way, he signed and worked with artists including Amy Winehouse, Florence and the Machine, Taio Cruz, Mumford & Sons and Dizzee Rascal.

Three decades later, under very different circumstances, Sykes interviews Beese for a second time, and this time something does come of it: a unique insight into the background, career, philosophy and ambitions of a UK record exec who has already blazed a trail and is

as fired up as ever to make a difference – to culture, to the music business and to people’s lives.

Let’s start with a very basic but big question: why the music business?

I loved music and I didn’t really have enough interest in going to university.

Do you want to expand on that?

Because, given your career, the decisions you’ve made, I think that a lot of people would be surprised by that. Was the arts or music a greater pull than academia?

Let’s revisit the idea of academia and your choices. You grew up in a household with two amazing black activists in your dad Darcus Howe, one of the great black Britons of the 20th Century and mom [activist and writer Barbara Beese]. How did their love of music and their attitude shape you as you grew up?

Growing up with a mom and dad who were activists, growing up in the struggle, lyrics and music had a profound effect on me, music of protest.

A seven-year-old should probably be listening to the Top 40 and maybe not to Bob Marley and Linton Kwesi Johnson and Big Youth and Sparrow and Arrow and all the soca and reggae that I was listening to. So I was immersed early on and it probably was going to play out somehow, someway; music, at some point, was going to be my destiny.

“Ignorance and arrogance can take you out as quickly as you came in.”

It wasn’t. Most people would tell you how they got into music when they were growing up, probably via their mum and dad’s record collection.

From a very young age, I was immersed in music and I was immersed in politics.

My mum and dad would tell me I was bright, but never thought I was bright enough to make it to university.

I remember the day I left school, my mum said, ‘There’s no way you’re going to be sitting around the house, you’re going to go out and find a job, no matter what it is, till you figure out what it is you want to do that you love.’ So I went out and I got a job in a hair salon, sweeping up hair.

Tell us about that job in the salon and the moment that changed you from potentially becoming hairdresser to the stars, to becoming one of the great music executives of the last 20+ years.

I think it was a key time for me. I was 16 and I had to figure out where my place was in the world – and that was going to take a while.

I ended up working in this salon in Kensington Church Street, which was a very posh, white environment, mainly older women with blue rinses that I would have never come across in my world.

I had to communicate differently. It was no longer hanging out with my mates on the street corner and doing crazy stuff, I was now working.

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When I used to come to work in the morning, I wasn’t allowed to greet the clients or answer the phone, because my telephone manner or my speaking voice wasn’t good enough. At that point, what became important to me was not learning to cut hair, it was to communicate.

I wanted to pick up that phone, I wanted to take appointments, I wanted to do the stuff that they said I couldn’t do.

So, I learned how to communicate with a different demographic, people that I would’ve never come across, how to speak clearly, how to use my words, how to treat a client. It gave me the skills of communication, which is probably the skill that has stood me in good stead most often.

So you think that shaped and defined what you were to become later on and gave you the skills to take into the next stage of your career?

Everybody thinks that you’re going to leave school and find this career, know what you want to do, but the main percentage of us, especially young black boys and girls… at that time, when the careers officer came in, they weren’t giving you much choice.

So I had to figure out what work ethic meant, and I had to figure out what I didn’t want to do, but had to do anyway, so that when I came home every Friday night, I could contribute my rent money to my mum.

I understood from an early age that earning money didn’t mean that you had to enjoy your job, you just had to have a work ethic about yourself.

What was the moment or the meeting that actually introduced you to the music business and offered you the opportunity?

About a year later, I moved jobs and went uptown to Covent Garden. So now I was working in a salon where fashion and culture was central, it wasn’t about the blue rinse brigade anymore.

It was a great place to be, you met people in the creative industries – 46

With his mother, Barbara Beese

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photographers, stylists, journalists – and people in the music business.

I remember I met a couple of A&R people, and I remember one in particular, because he was a black man, and that was Lincoln Elias.

Another one was Gordon Charlton, and both guys at the time were at the top of their career. Lincoln had Terrence Trent D’Arby and went on to sign Des’ree and Jamiroquai, and Gordon Charlton had signed Bros.

I remember being introduced to them and asking them what they did, and they said, ‘We’re A&R men’. I was like, ‘What’s that?’ And that’s when I got the curtain pulled back on the process behind that disc of black vinyl you went to the record shop to buy. I was shown how that process started. And that’s when I was like, ‘I’m not staying in hairdressing, I want to be in music.’

So you meet Gordon Charlton, you meet Lincoln Elias, both legendary names in the business from back in the day, how do you then make the transition to being a part of that business?

What then came into my vocabulary was networking. The more people I met, the more the bigger picture got filled in. I met managers, I met more A&R people, I met Julian Palmer, who became my boss, and who’s at Sony now, people like that. I became friends with them, not only networking friends, but proper friends.

One day I went to visit Julian at Island, to go and blag some records, and there was a job going. A kid was just about to leave the Promotions Department, timing was everything. Julian sent me to go and see the Head of Promotions who, three days later, gave me an interview, and three days after that I had a job in the music industry.

That was after I had my very first meeting with you, Adrian, which for me is historic, because you were the very first person who interviewed me. I remember going to the office – where was the MCA office then?

WIth his father, Darcus Howe

It was on Brewer Street. Listen, I remember it well.

Yeah, you took me to lunch and you told me all the right things, but didn’t give me a job! You didn’t have the space, but the advice was beautiful, and to be sitting here, having this conversation with you 30-odd years later is amazing, and I think it’s a testament to both of us.

Bless you for saying that. It was one of the great regrets that I didn’t have the space to employ you at the time, because I always remember this kid, full of enthusiasm, great knowledge, you’d come recommended because obviously you, Julian and I share a history going back. And it’s been wonderful to see your journey and to become a friend as we go. So, you get into Island Records, you finally get that big break, what was the early advice that you got that was useful to you?

I never got any early good advice. That’s not being disrespectful, I just can’t

remember getting any really early advice.

I just remember learning by trials, by fire, and figuring a lot out for myself.

Luckily, I messed up a few times early on and then tried not to replicate that.

Yeah, I think I learned from experience rather than advice. I had no real mentor.

I had friends, and we were all having a good time, but there was no real advice.

I had to learn as I went. You can only learn by mistakes and failures and I was able to make a lot of those, a few of those, early on.

Are you prepared to share some of those early lessons?

Yeah: ignorance and arrogance can take you out as quickly as you came in.

Because I had a network of good friends that were successful in the music industry, and the way that some people would talk about me and my personality and my energy, you start believing all of it.

And when you’ve only been around six to eight months, but you’re talking like 47

you’ve been around a couple of years, you’re going to get your neck taken off, or you’re going to take yourself out.

I remember one time, I hadn’t been an A&R man for long, there’s this band I wanted to sign and Julian wouldn’t let me sign them. Looking back, I know why. I hadn’t been around, I hadn’t even been a scout for a long time, and I had no idea how to make records. I just had this arrogance. And, through that arrogance, I walked myself out the building.

Julian said I couldn’t sign the act, I said, ‘Well, if I can’t sign them, I might as well not be here.’ The Managing Director at the time heard that comment and he came downstairs and said, ‘Am I hearing right?’

And I was like, ‘Yeah, if he doesn’t let me sign it, I might as well leave now.’ He opened the door and I walked out!

My ego just couldn’t allow me to hush my mouth and suck it up. I remember it was a summer’s day, I walked out and I was looking around, standing at the top of the street, going, ‘I’ve just got myself fired. Not even fired, I just walked myself out of a job.’ I promised that I would never, ever allow that to happen again.

would mic up the live room, mic up the drums, and then you’d have to go and find the musicians for the sessions.

I mean, now people make records on their MacBook Pro, right? But back then, you really had to know the process. So working for Jazz and Tim, I learned how to make records; I became an A&R man.

out, because that’s what A&R people are supposed to do.

Yeah, you want culture, but you’ve got to have success as an A&R person.

So I knew early on that the mission was never to get fired, do good things, be indispensable, be invaluable, be energy, and people will want you around.

How crucial do you think that break [from Island] and that period was, before you came back to the place that’s been your home for over two decades, Island Records?

Well, it taught me that success does not come quick, and it prepared me for that moment when I went back to Island in 1994, it really prepared me.

I knew how to make records; I hadn’t had a hit yet. I’d been involved, I’d loved

Talk us through some of the early acts you did sign, that led to the point where your career went to the next phase.

I always think about where I would have been if I was at another label, that wasn’t Island, because Island allowed creativity on a major level and backed the artist and their craft, no matter how mad it looked.

So, working at Island let me experiment and allowed me to sign music that I was passionate about, which at the time was hip-hop, it was soul and funk. It wasn’t even R&B, right Adrian?

It was soul and funk and British hip-hop.

I remember signing this kid called Silent Eclipse, who was a black radical. He was so radical, so in your face, and I was allowed to do it. Island allowed me to be comfortable in my skin and allowed me to sign stuff that resonated more in terms of culture than economics. Island allowed me to find out what I stood for and helped shape that.

So when the success came for me with acts, those acts were kind of ‘Darcus signings’, the kind of acts that I would sign where you start a little bit on the left and try and bring it to mainstream.

“There was a period of time when I was the dog’s bollocks – and I knew how I got there.”

So, you made a stand, you walked out of Island, what’s next for you?

I was lucky, but you make your own luck, because my network paid off and a week or two later I had a job at an independent label called Big Life Records, working for the legendary Jazz Summers.

He had managed people like Wham!, Lisa Stansfield, Yazz, and he also had a record label, a very successful, independent record label. We were the UK distributors for De La Soul and Naughty by Nature, so it was quite an exciting time.

Jazz and Tim Parry, who was his partner, they were musicians, managers, A&R men, they taught me the record making process. They taught me what it was to live in the studio and what it was to make records, what it was to care about the lyric, the first line of the first verse, the hook, where the vocals should be in the mix, seeing how the sound engineer 48

getting the remixes done, I had been in and around the process, but I hadn’t had a hit yet. I didn’t really feel like an A&R person. Even though that was in my title, I really didn’t feel like that at that point.

So how was the Darcus that walked back into Island different to the Darcus that had walked out? What did you want second time round?

I wanted success, I wanted a career. I knew the music business has a high turnover and that people would come and go.

You come in thinking you’re this, and you get found out; the music business is a place where you can get found out pretty quickly. I knew that I wanted to go long, I knew I wanted a career.

I knew that my ego nearly got me taken out before, so it was always, don’t pop your head over the parapet too soon, hold your position, keep your powder dry, see what people are doing, see how they’re moving and then have a hit, break it

I remember working at Island and it was something that always resonated for me, every time I opened the door, just walking through the building and feeling the sense of responsibility you had, but also the fact that the music was coming off the walls. Marley would be smiling down on you, or it might be Toots, or it could be a 4th & B’way release. How much do you think that sense of breadth allowed you to be experimental in what you signed and gave you license to be the A&R man you are?

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WIth Shawn Mendes

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Culture trickles down, not only from the top, but also from the people that are in and around you. And the people at the top and the people in and around me at Island all came to work for the same thing: we loved music.

Yes, it was about the success and about having a hit, but we really loved what we did and we really loved each other. The people that worked at Island always said, ‘Let’s build a culture where people want to come and never want to leave, including the artists.’

And I always said that we have to be a broad church, not just diversity amongst the staff, but diversity on the roster.

That’s the blueprint that Chris left behind for whoever ran the company. It’s just whether they were stupid enough to divert from that blueprint, and I wasn’t.

So it was easy for me to want to find the next Traffic, or a band like Free, or find the next Mahalia Jackson, or find the next Grace Jones, or find the next Tom Tom Club, or the next NWA. It was very easy for people at Island, because we had a blueprint that we didn’t deviate from.

Let’s talk about some of those great signings, because I think they’re names that people should know are associated with you. Which ones would you pick out that really are a testament to Darcus Beese and his success story?

Well, it’s funny because there’s records that I’m really proud of that maybe had the critical acclaim, but didn’t have the success they warranted. One of my favorite albums, that I still listen today, is an album by a friend of mine, Eric Martin, who recorded as Me One. Eric was doing stuff years before his time and I still listen to that album [As Far As I’m Concerned] and wish that it had done better. So, that talks to the idea that, even when you don’t have success, you still love what you’re doing.

I was working for the 4th & B’way label inside Island at the time, which was the label that carried the hip-hop, the black music and the broad umbrella of dance music. I wanted more.

A lot of our acts that were on that label 50

Receiving his OBE in 2014

would sell out the Subterania, and sell out the Jazz Café, those kinds of venues.

I wanted to sell out Wembley. How was I going to do that? With what acts? As a black A&R man, how was I going to do that?

UK black acts, they were successful in sometimes having crossover moments, but from a live point of view, they weren’t selling out Wembley, or selling internationally, and that’s what success looked like for me.

I knew my next couple of signings had to be strategic. I signed a young black kid called Taio Cruz, a girl group that had been dropped by London, called the Sugababes, and a jazz artist called Amy Winehouse.

Sugababes became the biggest girl group in the UK and every record and every album I made with them went to No. 1.

Every single we put out was a No. 1. We sold triple-Platinum every time. So then I knew what success really looked like.

And again, this is not all by myself, there’s teams of people in and around

you, I want that always to be crystal clear, you’re always in a team of people.

And then I made a first album with Taio, which was more R&B/soul based.

And I signed Amy and we made Frank.

So I had this trinity of things going on, and over the next couple of years, Taio followed up with his second album, that had Dynamite and Break Your Heart on it, which became global smashes.

I remember Sugababes were having a number one single while Amy was having a number one album. So there was a period of time when I was the dog’s bollocks, you would say. And I knew how I got there, I’d figured it out. We make our own luck; it wasn’t by accident that I was having this success.

So you’ve had the highs and clearly that leads you to a point where you become appointed Co-President, which is an amazing achievement for a black man in our industry, but there’s a period

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that leads up to that, Darcus, where there were challenges. What were some of those challenges that you faced as a person of colour in the business? Some of the things that you came up against that also helped shape your journey?

It’s crazy, because if you’d known me back then, you would have thought I was a very confident person. I was very good at pretending I was confident. I was very good at showing ambition, but I was wary that there weren’t many black people that had been successful in the music business.

And what’s beautiful to see now is young black brothers and sisters that have this innate ambition. They want it, they have a swagger and they really believe it.

But back when I was coming through, it was very much a white man’s world that you had to navigate.

And you had to deal with whatever their perception of you was, which you was never really that clear on. Did people see a career trajectory for you? Did they see you as a future leader? I certainly don’t think they saw me as a future leader. I think that I was good at what I did and I knew not to rock the boat.

And then you come across those micro-aggressions, or those crazy questions that people ask – about the way you speak, or the slang you use, did you once had an Afro and what did your hair feel like, all that stuff.

The stuff that people didn’t understand, that your journey to work could be a stressful one, just getting up in the morning, opening your eyes, being a black man and getting on the train and no one wanting to sit next to you, or standing on a packed train and someone pulling their purse close.

And then you got to the office and you’re having to deal with certain perceptions, not wanting to be that intimidating, aggressive, angry black man. On a daily basis, trying to dodge those raindrops.

that makes money from black music.

Did you ever get a sense of being there because you were a black man, or that they really wanted you for your talent?

Because there’s always an argument about tokenism, whether that’s a reality, or whether it’s an imagined state, or a perception in people’s minds. Was that something that ever crossed your mind?

Again, it’s a double-edged sword, because you could sit there and see people getting plays, in terms of promotions or titles before you.

I knew that I was good, and I was having all of this success, but there were other people, with less success than me, who were moving at a greater pace through whatever company that they were at, or maybe someone decided to bring someone in over me while I was having success.

So, when it happened with me, when I got the tap on the shoulder to co-run the label, it was evident that I had the

Words like ‘legacy’ and ‘career’ are important to me because of how I was brought up. And, again, it goes back to what I was saying about what do you stand for when you come to work, more than just trying to have a hit and make the numbers? What are you doing as a human being in your skin? And what’s the give-back component?

Because, in music, you can take, take, take, take, take, but when you lie in bed at night and you’re looking at the ceiling, how comfortable are you with yourself?

That’s not for everybody, but I had a responsibility to a culture, a roster of artists and a team of employees. So all of that stuff really weighed on me, but not as a burden, as an inspiration.

And do you feel that that’s more acute because of your family history or is that just you as a person?

I would like to think I’m a good person, at the core, but I was forged in the fire of love and protest.

“Words like ‘legacy’ are important to me because of how I was brought up.”

So you’ve started in the business, you’re looking around, and there aren’t as many black faces as you would expect to see in a business that is multicultural,

experience and the success and that I should be able to have a run at leadership.

And to [Universal Music UK boss] David Joseph’s credit, he made me the first black President of a major label.

As the first black president of a major label, how much responsibility do you feel, day in day out, to ensure that you hold up your own values, but also as a person of colour, knowing what it could mean for the people behind you? Do you feel that weight of responsibility? Is it something that you think about?

As you point out, first don’t let yourself down. And then you don’t want to create a scenario where there’s no one after you, that you haven’t just held the door open, you’ve kicked the door off the hinges for other people and a period of time wasn’t a fleeting moment.

There’s been a sea change this year, with the killing of George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, many labels pledging to address equality issues and bring a greater representation of BAME employees around the decision-making table. First of all, do you think that will happen? How will it happen? When will it happen? And do you think that the initiatives that the major labels have adopted are the right ways of solving the problem that we currently face?

It’s important to realise, for me, my journey to becoming a decision-maker and a leader took a while.

Some people go, ‘Well, maybe if it was a white counterpart, they would’ve got there faster.’ And also, I started off at 4th & B’way, which was primarily a black music label, but I didn’t get trapped there.

I found my way through success to leadership. And, again, it might’ve taken me a while to get there compared to my white counterpart, but, in saying that, when I got the job of leadership, I knew what to do and what not to do, because it 51

With Jessie Reyez and Skip Marley

had taken me a while and because I had to keep my powder dry, because I had to have a lot more success and a lot more failures. So, when I finally got there, I knew what it was to keep it and to go long and to have a career.

It’s important that when you get what you crave for, you know what to do with it, that you don’t shout for it, then get it, then lose it.

That route to leadership for me was the highs and the lows. I cut my teeth and I chipped my teeth. I’ve had more failures than I’ve had successes and I had to fight that scenario when someone got brought over me.

Not everybody’s a leader and leaders aren’t just made, they’re forged. So, what are you asking for? And when you get it, can you handle it?

For me, when I got the opportunity to run Island US and I was reorganising the company, there was a young black man, a successful A&R kid called Ziggy, who was 52

part of the rise of Shawn Mendes.

I remember thinking I could easily bring someone in over this kid, but what does giving him a run at it look like? How can I mentor him?

So I made the decision to promote him to the head of A&R, and there’s not many black people heading up A&R at major labels in the US. That decision was born out of how long it took me to get where I did. Could have I got there a bit quicker if I had a mentor? My experiences on the come-up led me to make decisions when I ran the company about what does diversity and giving people a play at the label look like. Yeah, it’s some full-circle stuff there.

But then how does that translate into the bigger picture, across the industry?

And do you think that those initiatives are real, or do you think that it’s just a response to what’s happening and window dressing? Do you see real

light at the end of the tunnel for black executives?

I do, because now people’s feet are being held to the fire. You have a generation of young people that have grown up woke. They’re the tipping point and they demand more from the world and more from people and more from businesses.

It’s a shame that this stuff has to happen in the world for people at the top to look down and feel embarrassed that their company isn’t well-represented in gender split or racial diversity.

And this isn’t about rushing people into positions, this is about giving people the trajectory and a guidebook and the resources to achieve leadership, and to tap people on the shoulder early on in their career and say, ‘We’re going to groom you for leadership.’

Power is a word that wraps up many things, but for me, it’s about being able to make decisions that change the direction of a company, the direction of careers,

INTERVIEW

the direction of culture, and it shouldn’t be one decision maker, you should be able to have a group of leaders that make decisions, then you will see change on a major scale.

I’m very proud of where I am, but there’s only one of me, there should be more. That just says there’s still a lot to do.

You occupy a rare space Darcus, because you are an Englishman abroad, you’ve seen first hand what’s happened in the past few months in America, whilst keeping a very keen eye on what’s gone on here in the UK, the protests and the movements and activism on both sides of the Atlantic.

What have you made of it?

When I was growing up, with mum and dad and them being activists and being in the Black Panthers, and me going on demonstrations from a very young age, I never really had to have ‘the talk’.

I knew what people thought of us and I knew where we came from. And I knew that my mum and dad were fighting for our rights and were very worried for me as a black boy every time I stepped out.

And being in America in the past six months has been very, very raw, because although there’s a common ground, colour of skin, the melanin in our skin, the journey’s a lot different here.

In the last couple of months, I felt real trauma out there in the black community. It’s been very powerful being within the Black-American community, looking out and seeing what White America thinks of them.

We sit here [in the UK] and we’re kind of la-di-da multicultural society, white friends, blah, blah, blah. In America, it is very black and white still.

What would the great Darcus Howe have made of what’s going on now?

What would his words of advice be?

I just always go to the line in that famous BBC interview, where they tried to make a fool of him. The lady interviewing him, who hadn’t even done her research, asked dad if he’d ever rioted before. And basically he said, ‘Don’t be disrespectful, this is not a riot, it’s a mass insurrection.’

And that’s how I remember my dad, in a moment like this, what white people were describing as riots, my dad would call a mass insurrection.

Let me finish with some real quick-fire questions. First up, who were your early mentors and what piece of advice did you find helpful?

I’m going to be a bit cheesy, because outside obvious ones like my dad and my mum, if I’m talking about my journey through the music industry, and I thought about this, I’ve got to go back to when I sat down with you as a black man to a younger black man coming through. And what you said was, ‘I ain’t got a job for you, but I have patience. And love.’

What’s been the proudest moment of your career to date?

Getting the opportunity to run the North American operations of Island Records, because everything has led up to that moment.

Everything was a step in that direction, whether it was the experience, whether it was the failures, or whether it was the successes, it put me in a situation where I could go and run an American company.

What have been the toughest moments and biggest challenges?

One is failure, that’s obvious, but two

is how do you ride out that failure until you turn the corner to success again? And people will ask me, what’s success? How do you measure success?

I sometimes measure success just as getting up in the morning and opening your eyes. Success is putting out records, success is having culture, it’s having economic success. But as I always tell people, a lot of that can be fleeting. What does career look like? And I think the toughest thing for me is to keep in the game for so long.

What’s been your biggest regret?

I don’t have any regrets, not anymore. I’ve seen too much and come too far to have any regrets, and I’m not jealous of anyone.

If you’d asked me this question maybe 10 or 15 years ago, I would have had to regret that I didn’t sign that act, or that song wasn’t a hit, or I didn’t employ that person, or I let that person go.

But I think those are the learnings of life, and I’m 50 now, so to be having regrets would be to still be carrying some bitterness around. So I have no regrets.

What are your main remaining ambitions?

My main ambition now is to do more stuff that matters, in all areas of my life.

Like I say, running a record company is about having hits, but I think it’s more than that. I think Island is more than that.

I think I’m more than that.

And I think we live in a world now where we have a responsibility to give back and to help build, and not to drain, but to fulfil.

And whether that’s my role as a CEO of a record company, or that’s my role as a human being, I think the activism side of me is going to come out more. n

This interview is taken from a new podcast, Did Ya Know?, which tells the often unheard stories of key figures in the British music industry, and is focusing initially on pioneering executives of colour. The team behind the new pod includes Stellar Songs co-founder Danny D and Decisive Management co-founder Adrian Sykes. MBUK and our sister digital brand, Music Business Worldwide, are proud to be partners and supporters of Did Ya Know?. You can listen to it wherever you find your favourite podcasts.

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‘WE’RE NOT RULED BY STATS. WE PREFER THE ALGORITHM OF THE SOUL’ Starwood Management represents two of the most decorated British artists of 2020: Michael Kiwanuka and Little Simz. The company’s principles, putting artists before everything, haven’t much changed since co-founder Rob Swerdlow first professionally basked in the “cosmic, spiritual” talent of another genius British songwriter, 35 years ago…

Starwood Management didn’t find Michael Kiwanuka on Triller, SoundCloud or, indeed, through a futuristic artificial intelligence A&R scouting app. Their mutual introduction was a much more traditional, genteel music biz setup.

Starwood co-founder Rob Swerdlow was introduced to Kiwanuka by an industry lawyer, Berkeley Edwards at Clintons, who’d fallen for the singer/songwriter at an acoustic night in London. Demonstrating one of the downsides of The Way Things Used To Be for managers like Swerdlow, Edwards introduced Kiwanuka to a handful of potential management suitors across the business, and let the speed dating commence.

Starwood’s pitch to Kiwanuka didn’t deviate from a fundamental philosophy dating all the way back to Swerdlow’s experiences of representing a young Lee Mavers and The La’s while studying at Liverpool Polytechnic 30-plus years ago. Namely: the artist calls the shots; everything else follows.

“We were up against some of the finest managers in the country,” says Swerdlow of the Kiwanuka connection. “We just told Michael that we were very passionate about our core values: we go to the wall for our artists, and we always put them first.”

Swerdlow can’t be sure but, in an age where managers are increasingly inviting outside songwriters in to buff up their artist’s music, he suspects Kiwanuka may have been sold on Starwood’s converse approach. Says Swerdlow: “We told Michael: Your songs, your voice, your spirit. That’s what we believe in, and that’s why we’re here.”

Ten years on, those songs, that voice, that spirit, are going supernova. KIWANUKA, the stunning third studio album from the London-born singer/songwriter, has just been nominated for Best Rock Album at the 63rd Grammys, having already won the 2020 Mercury Prize, and attracted two BRIT nominations for the artist.

Indeed, Starwood Management itself is having something of a glittering year in awards season (albeit most of it celebrated over Zoom). In addition to Kiwanuka’s triumphs, fellow Starwood client Little Simz has attracted widespread plaudits for her independently-released LP, Grey Area, which recently picked up the Ivor Novello

Before we come on to a huge year for Starwood, how did you get started in music and the music business?

All through my childhood we had music in our house – my dad was a huge music fan and a DJ for hospital radio, playing soul, country and western, folk, French music; all kinds of things. Growing up in Liverpool was important. On a Saturday, buying records as a teenager, I’d go to shops like Probe and you would be served by Pete Burns of Dead Or Alive, or see Frankie Goes to Hollywood walking around, or Julian Cope, or Echo and the Bunnymen.

So whilst you might see somebody very famous, it didn’t feel otherworldly.

I then went to polytechnic to study business, and whilst I was in this coffee shop one lunchtime, I was sitting next to this goodlooking gang of lads. They weren’t your typical goth-indie looking [artist] of that era, nor that Jesus Jones-looking type of band; they looked bohemian, cool as fuck, Levi’s, suede Hush Puppies, ‘60s Americana.

It took me some time to build up the confidence to talk to them, and little did I realise they were the band who were going to become The La’s. They always offered me an open door to hang out, smoke weed and listen to them play. At first I thought they were playing covers and standards, but it was all their own material – songs written by Lee Mavers.

I started helping out as part of the entourage that was with them when they played a gig. And before I knew it, I was immersed in the gang, working very closely with them. And that was the beginning of

“We told Michael: Your songs, your voice, your spirit. That’s what we believe in.”

Album of The Year, as well as Album Of The Year from NME. (Both Simz and Kiwanuka also collected Q Awards for their efforts.)

These are heady days for Starwood, then, which is collectively run by Liverpudlian Swerdlow alongside co-founders Dave Nicoll and Mark Nicholson, with a roster that also includes The Kooks, Marmozets, Ady Suleiman and more.

Here, Swerdlow explains the evolution of Starwood over the past three decades – and where the company plans to go with its multi-award-winning roster in 2021 and beyond…

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my inroads into the music industry.

That’s a bit of a baptism of fire for any manager: representing one of the greatest British songwriters ever in Lee Mavers… but also an individual some would describe as unmanageable.

Everybody knew how special Lee was. And everybody in the gang was very protective of Lee. There was this solidarity: we were going to take on the music industry, knowing how good the songs were. It taught me an early A&R lesson: every so often in this industry, you just have to go, ‘Well, we’re blessed. This is cosmic; this is spiritual.’ I didn’t realise, and this is even more true today, that the music industry did a lot of cut-and-paste music, gluing together influences from different records.

This was different: it was divine; it was bigger than any of us.

As an alternative-leaning guitar band in that post-’80s period, the wind was in our faces. But The La’s didn’t ‘do’ pretend: they were one unified movement from daytime to stage to after-party to literally standing there on Top of the Pops – a bit like what grunge was going to become. And after we signed The La’s to Andy MacDonald at Go! Discs, I got the best education for the future, both from a music and an industry perspective.

Nicoll, one of the owners of 3Beat, who reciprocally found himself spending more time in my universe of global guitar band culture. And I’d just taken on John Power [former bassist in The La’s], a brilliant songwriter influenced by being in the boot room with Lee Mavers.

John formed Cast, who then signed to Polydor Records – to Lucian [Grainge] and Paul Adam – and they sold millions of records. [Cast’s debut album, All Change, became the biggest-selling debut album in the history of Polydor after its release in 1995.]

What are your memories of working with Sir Lucian Grainge?

He didn’t let a beat in conversation go without reminding you that he had his eye on the prize. He was humble and always resourceful; he could talk about street level stuff, could definitely talk about songs, and always shared that ‘don’t make these

the idea of aligning himself with a more experienced management setup, and we all realised that the three of us [Swerdlow, Nicoll and Nicholson], should align as a partnership, with a presence in Liverpool, London, and Brighton.

Very quickly after the Ordinary Boys, another Brighton band, The Kooks, sent music in. Mark was first on the scene to check them out, and he reported back that they were an incredible band with an incredible songwriter. We were blown away by the musicianship and talent and we shared a vision; we jumped at the opportunity to manage them.

That relationship now goes back 15 years, with The Kooks still enjoying commercial success – topping the bill at Community Festival last year. What has working with that band taught you?

That when we find those really special artists, we have the collective experience to navigate, protect and guide a career, over the long term. And to find growth in areas that are unique to that artist; which, in the case of The Kooks, is the live music sector.

We had to cut across a lot of different obstacles with The Kooks: their record label [EMI] was sold in the Guy Hands era; the industry’s relationship with guitar music, especially at Radio 1, was changing just as they emerged; and then there was the downfall of the CD into the streaming era.

We’ve transcended those obstacles, and the key along the way has been being artist friendly, protecting the soul and the DNA of our artists, and never wavering in our belief in them. The Kooks today are at an all time high, with an incredible business across live and streaming, and songs that will become the standards of the future.

Luke is one of the greatest writers of his generation and they’re a killer live band.

“You could sense Lucian’s ambition, and his fearlessness.”

Chapter two of your career saw that ‘alternative-leaning’ guitar music hit the mainstream in the mid-’90s.

After The La’s, unfortunately, ground to a halt – through no fault of anybody – I found myself in the acid house revolution of Liverpool. My office was next door to early 3Beat, Cream and all of those guys. 3Beat had started seeing some of their underground hits begin to go overground, and one of their artists was invited on Top of the Pops. 3Beat came knocking on my door, going, ‘You’ve been a manager [at that level], could you look after these hits?’ And I’m like, ‘I’m in; I want to be part of the most exciting cultural revolution since punk.’

So I fell into the dance music scene in Liverpool. That’s how I met Dave 56

mistakes’ knowledge. But you could also sense his ambition, and his fearlessness.

Lucian was very cheeky as well. I think that he enjoyed the cheekiness of Cast, these scousers coming in and saying, ‘Hold on a second. Why should we be selling to you and not the other way around?’ And: ‘You see your Polydor logo, we’re going to nick that and make it our own logo.’

You then had success with Mansun, before signing the Ordinary Boys, who inked a deal with B-Unique. How did that deal come about?

Starwood’s third partner, Mark Nicholson, was at that time a successful underground promoter in Brighton putting on bands like Fugazi and Rancid. He had demo tapes coming through to him, and when he heard the Ordinary Boys, he went, this is amazing. As a manager, he liked

How have you applied that thinking to the now-Grammy-nominated Michael Kiwanuka?

Michael was the beginning of the next level for Starwood: ‘We know what chosen ones sound like, look like, and feel

INTERVIEW

Michael Kiwanuka

like. And here we are, again, with even more experience to protect, to guide – and not let any cynical interferences take a toll on that.’

Michael was a fiercely independent, uncut diamond at the time [Starwood signed him]. Our job was to protect that diamond and help it to be refined in all of the various specialist areas, but also give the artist the space he needed to develop.

It doesn’t take long for the good word of mouth to permeate, and people quickly came to find Michael.

He signed to Polydor in 2011. Why go down that major label route?

[Then-Polydor boss] Ferdy UngerHamilton shared our passion for Michael.

Passion is a powerful force and we followed that energy.

Michael has spoken about facing pressure to change his image and even his ‘stage name’ early in his career, with a hint that his record label at the time might have been responsible for some of that. That’s partly what KIWANUKA is about.

It was never an obtusely threatening pressure, but it was there between the lines of conversation. Although it was disappointing to hear, it came from a place

of good intentions and of passion. Record labels can’t help themselves sometimes!

And handling that is a manager’s job.

I would say that [Universal Music UK boss] David Joseph always believed in Michael as a true career artist; it was David who said: ‘You absolutely don’t need to change your name to anything else. Your name is Michael Kiwanuka.’

David was and is, a very articulate, soulful, responsible, insightful executive, and he knew how to handle the situation intuitively. He’s offered us a tonne of air cover, he saw the raw talent in Michael from the start, and he always understood that this wasn’t a case of [requiring] 57

cynical A&R intervention to speed up Michael’s success.

That’s definitely something Starwood has learnt down the years: if you find a true ‘special one’ artist, like with Michael, you’ve got to protect them and allow them to grow. The music industry landscape is littered with artists and people who have foot-faulted in that process.

Little Simz has taken a different route in the music business – staying fully independent and releasing her music in partnership with Kobalt’s AWAL. How did you start working with her?

Inflo, the producer, was involved with The Kooks [on 2014’s Listen]. And The Kooks were so impressed with him as a producer – he made a stunning record with them – that we introduced him to Michael [Kiwanuka], and that relationship grew. [Inflo co-produced Kiwanuka’s last two LPs]. Then, when Simz was looking for a manager, Inflo made a couple of suggestions to her, and we were one of them. That became the beginning of a conversation for us to say: ‘These are our principles; these are our values; this is how we work.’ And, before too long, we were working together.

I was already a fan; I’d been introduced to Simbi by one of our other clients a couple of years earlier. She’s the real deal, a career artist; and her values are similar to very important artists that inspire us all. I sensed that straight away in her.

Speaking on the Romesh Ranganathan hip-hop podcast, she was resolute about not wanting to sign to a label and to do things independently.

She is a truly independent artist and a proper creative – she makes all of the decisions, which are all incredibly resourceful and well thought through.

She has equal talent in photography, filmmaking, video directing; she’s just got it all going on, including acting [Simz is about to star once again in the second series of the new Top Boy]. And she works so hard.

I said to Simbi that we could go talk to some major record labels, to show her what 58

The Kooks

the bigger world looks like. We went in, and had some really good meetings with some great people. Everybody is a fan and sees the unique proposition that she is. But she realised that ultimately, part of her identity as a human being, and as an artist, is being independent. If you strip that away, then you don’t have the real you.

And how can you get up in the morning and operate when you aren’t being what you are?

Simz has an incredible team of external creatives, producers, filmmakers etc. around her, all of whom she trusts and whom she can guide. Compared to that, the young guys and gals at a major record label coming up with a cranky TikTok idea isn’t going to wash.

AWAL and Paul Hitchman were never anything other than passionate for her art, always leading by example, always supporting her to the nth degree. For those reasons it became no competition at the end of the day. Simz is a really important

artist to AWAL and, all being well, her career will now move naturally to the next level with her next record – again, without the anabolic steroids of a major record label intervention.

You haven’t bowled into the pay-per-view livestreaming world in these pandemic times, preferring instead to wait it out until touring resumes. Are you keeping the lights on with other income sources like streaming?

So far, so good; we’ve always kept our overheads low. One reason we’ve done that is because when the Britpop era finished, it was one of my massive rude awakenings!

I, like a lot of people, thought that the record business would just keep giving and giving. I didn’t realise that, at some point, the fuel tank fails.

When Britpop came to its end, we were left after a six month period with offices and staff, just thinking, ‘This is untenable.’

We’ve since realised that keeping a low

INTERVIEW

Little Simz

overhead is an important part of our business model. It allows us to take on things like COVID head on, without panicking and freaking out.

What defines Starwood Management in your view across both the company and your own career? Do you have an overarching philosophy?

We’re a very A&R-leaning management company. We don’t allow ourselves to be ruled by stats, metrics and analytics; we prefer the algorithm of the soul.

We know how to spot problems and stresses, and how to deal with them; and we know how to pull back and allow artists to blossom. We also know when to get out of our artists’ way.

In management, it’s sometimes more about the things that you say no to, rather than the things you say yes to. By doing that, we become the right kind of creative partners, and can help find other creative

partners to bring into the mix.

Over the past 12 months, our artists have been celebrated for what they do, and we feel totally blessed to watch that happen.

That goes specifically for the kind of artists that we work with, because those [awards] are celebrations of their art.

is a big enough place for people who like art. There is an audience out there for real artists – and that’s why said artists need partners, pushing that message and supporting their vision.

We’ve also had to learn to box clever when it comes to things like syncs. Saying yes to syncs has been a big way of not putting restrictions in the way of getting our artists’ music heard.

Again, it’s about saying no to most things, and yes to the right things.

That’s good management.

Everything we do is underpinned by our passion and commitment to help our artists make the very best records. Because what does anyone in this industry know, really, now that we’re in a borderless, ever-changing global business?

All you can rely on is that you’ve made a great record. We know that it’s all bullshit at times in this industry – but we also know a great record when we hear one. n

“Good management is saying no to most things, and saying yes to the right things.”

Do you have any worries over the idea that the modern music audience is more transient than they used to be? That they don’t buy into artists as much as people once did because they’re more distracted, happy to be fed music by streaming playlists?

Absolutely. But I also think that the world

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WHAT I WISH I’D KNOWN Londoner Gabz Landman has been VP of A&R at Warner Records in Los Angeles since June 2019. She previously worked at Mike Caren’s Artist Publishing Group (APG), TaP Management and Sony/ATV UK. She recalls how she got where she is – and what she’d like to have known along the way…

I’ve been in LA for about six years now. I initially moved here when I was working at TaP Management in London, their second-ever employee, handling a lot of UK projects that involved writing and making albums in LA. I was going back and forth really often so I asked them if I could be based here instead.

I’ve found there are typically more opportunities for ambitious young executives in the US than there are in the UK. I sometimes felt like being ambitious was frowned upon in the UK. Over here it’s sought after; it’s a different mentality, though that’s probably changed with time. There are now two companies with the youngest ever Chairmen running them in the US [Jeff Vaughn at Capitol Music Group and Aaron Bay-Schuck at Warner Records]. There definitely seems to be a shift, with more support for allowing younger gatekeepers through.

Earlier in my career I studied a music business degree at Syracuse University in upstate New York. The people in my class all wanted to work in the music industry. The benefactor [Marty Bandier] ran Sony/ATV Music Publishing, and they had a connected internship programme.

I ended up interning at the UK office of Sony/ATV, which turned into my first job. I was mostly working with writers and producers.

Then, when I was hired by Tap, I was originally brought in to be a junior management assistant.

At the time, TaP were developing so many amazing artists who weren’t signed to labels. My value came in the fact that I had prior experience in publishing; I knew the writer/producer community, and was able to set up sessions and find producers for people who weren’t yet on a label and didn’t have A&Rs. That became an A&R job at TaP; I worked across the roster developing people. I also did day to day management for US [priority] artists, including Dua Lipa for a while. Then Mike 60

“I sometimes felt like being ambitious was frowned upon in the UK.”

Caren poached me from TaP and I went and did A&R for APG for three years.

When I was in university, I wanted to be a booking agent. I didn’t even consider A&R because I thought it was just about scouting and finding acts. I had this vision of the Beatles’ first shows and them being spotted and things like that. I really thought that was all A&R entailed.

The part I love the most [about A&R] is actually making the album, setting up collaborations and match-making an artist with their team – whether it’s one producer to help make the album or, sometimes with a pop act, when every song is made with a different group of people. Finding and signing talent is just the beginning. Actually seeing it through

FEATURE

Amy Allen

and getting an artist from the day they signed to when they put out their music and tour is a much longer process.

I still do both A&R and management, and I actually manage an artist – Amy Allen – now.

There’s a challenge in the music industry in both the talent and executive side where people expect you to specialise in one thing. If you’re a songwriter, A&Rs always say, “Are you better at lyrics or melody?” If you work in the industry people say, “Are you an A&R or a manager?” It is possible to be able to do a lot of things at once, especially in this time.

I feel as strongly about doing A&R as I do management, and the way I approach A&R is similar to management. For my roster at Warner,

I don’t see myself as just being responsible for the music: I go to everyone’s photo and video shoots; I’m involved in creative conversations; I really like to play a bigger role than just making records. But everyone is different. Someone could be amazing at A&R and marketing, or someone could be good at just one of those things, but be exceptional at it. Knowing your own [strengths] and limitations is really important. You don’t have to be great at everything.

Andrew Jackson was the first songwriter that I ever managed. We don’t work together anymore, but he’s had tremendous success with Rag N Bone Man and Dua Lipa. He really took a chance on me early in my career when there were a lot of managers competing to work with him. I was the 61

least experienced, but probably believed in him the most. And then Dua Lipa was the first artist that I worked with day to day. Before her signing to a label, I handled a lot of the A&R for her at TaP. I’ve never had that experience before of seeing someone go from day one, writing their first song, to being a global phenomenon. That’s been one of the most exciting things I’ve witnessed.

The first writer I signed for publishing was Amy Allen, who I now manage and A&R at Warner as an artist. Amy had one of the quickest rises to success I’ve seen in a songwriter.

Within six months of leaving university, she wrote Back to You for Selena Gomez, then had a No.1 with for Halsey with Without Me, and then she wrote Adore You with Harry Styles.

I’ve worked with her from the very beginning and her transitioning to being an artist has been incredible. Putting together the album and figuring out collaborations and making that shift happen has been great.

It’s all about bringing the most value to an artist. With Andrew, he knew that I had the bandwidth. I was so passionate and I could name any one of his songs. I knew all the lyrics. If he would send me a demo, I would think of six artists I thought would be good to record them.

And then with Amy, before I even signed her, I sent Back to You to Selena Gomez’s team [at Interscope], which is how the song got placed.

It’s about showing people your value even before working together so that they know what they can expect if they move forward.

But artists also need to want success more than you want it for them. The work ethic has to be there, along with the determination and an identity that’s unique and really well fleshed out. There are a lot of really amazing singers in the world. But unfortunately, I don’t think that’s enough. There has to be so much more for a true artist proposition. Whenever I meet someone who really knows themselves and has this vision for what they want to accomplish in their own lane, and who will work as hard as they can to make it happen, that always stands out to me.

I moved to Warner a year ago and it’s my first time working within a record label.

Working under a new regime with Aaron BaySchuck and Tom Corson at the helm has been really amazing. There are so many renegade thinkers on board who came from different industries. Elissa Ayadi who runs the digital department, worked in gaming before. I come 62

“People really root for each other out here and have each other’s backs in an incredible way.”

from publishing. There are a lot of people who think outside the box; everyone’s on this shared mission to do something amazing.

I knew Aaron Bay-Schuck when he worked at Interscope [prior to Warner Records]. He was who I had sent Amy’s demo to for Selena Gomez, My knowledge of Aaron has always been that he is the one label executive who cares the most about songwriters and producers. There are so many huge A-list songwriters whose first opportunity came from Aaron believing in them.

My heart lies with that writer/producer world.

So when an opportunity came up to work with Aaron, it made so much sense, because his is a career that I’d like to align myself with. When Amy was picking a record label, she chose to sign with Aaron [Bay-Shuck], because he believed in her from before she had any success.

My role at Warner means I sign a few things, but primarily I develop across the roster. Another A&R could sign an artist, and I’ll help find the writers and producers for them because of my expertise in that world. I don’t know if other labels put as much emphasis on [seeking out writers and producers], whereas Aaron has really built his career on that. He knows the importance of getting the best people around a project.

I grew up thinking that the music industry would be really competitive and that there wasn’t going to be camaraderie. That’s a misconception.

I’m pleasantly surprised by how much of a team effort it is. I have close friends at competing record labels. There are songwriters and producers who never even write together but they’re best friends.

There are artists who will compete for Grammys and then hang out afterwards.

There’s that Hunter S. Thompson quote about the music industry being a cruel and shallow money trench. I’ve actually found the opposite. When I was a child, Josie and the Pussycats came out, and even that, which is a kids’ movie, or the Spice Girls movie, portrayed these evil music industry people.

It was regularly portrayed [that way] in the media, and there are of course real-life horror stories. But 99% of the time, people really go into it with the best intentions.

It’s a lot different than what I expected. Even moving to LA, people that worked in the industry embraced me with open arms and really tried to help make this feel like home. They didn’t have to do that. People really root for each other out here, and have each other’s back in an incredible way for the most part.

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INTERVIEW

Meet the old boss Ged Doherty first tasted significant global success as the manager of Paul Young. Richard Griffiths than tempted him into the major label system, where he eventually became the UK Chairman of Sony Music UK. He reflects on being a rare constant over two decades of that company’s evolution, and remembers the artists and execs he worked with along the way…

W

hilst there is undoubtedly a moral and ethical aspect to Ged Doherty’s insistence on honesty, he says it’s also down to a more prosaic lack of patience and memory capacity.

“Imagine having to remember who you told which lie to”, he says, clearly unnerved at the prospect, “far easier to just tell the truth and deal with the consequences.”

It’s an encouraging statement from someone who you’re asking to lift the lid on a career that started (give or take a few years) with managing Paul Young to quite improbable global mega-stardom and went on to include a 20-year stint at major labels on both sides of the Atlantic.

During that time Doherty worked with a vast roster of US superstars and helped kick-start or develop the career of homegrown artists including Kasabian, Kula Shaker, Calvin Harris and Dido.

He steered Columbia and Arista to No. 1 in the UK label rankings, and later brokered the deal that resulted in the Sony/Syco 50/50 partnership.

His time at Sony ended after Doug Morris took over the global reins in 2011. Doherty used that split as a chance to take a break from the business, switching to the film industry where he has forged a successful second career as a producer, co-founding Raindog Films, which has helped to make Eye In The Sky, Loving (which earned an Oscar nomination for lead actress Ruth Negga) and Official Secrets. Raindog is currently busy marrying Doherty’s two interests, with films in the pipeline about Led Zeppelin, Luther Vandross and Lou Reed.

Since 2015, Doherty has been Chairman of the BPI, where he has spearheaded the body’s push for increased diversity, most prominently at the BRITs and its voting academy.

In the late 1970s, after spells as a budding drummer, social secretary at Sheffield Poly, club booker and thoroughly miserable live agent, he persuaded US manager Bud Prager to let him open a London office, where he worked chiefly, and not altogether successfully, on trying to break a band called Sniff ‘n’ the Tears.

Thankfully, a contact from his days as an agent re-emerged and reached out. “I used to book an act called Streetband, featuring a

singer called Paul Young. They split up, and Paul had put a new band together, a soul band called The Harrow Horns.

“He called me up and said I should come and see them play, on a Tuesday night at The Greyhound on the Fulham Palace Road.

So, I went down there, and it was packed to the rafters with young people, particularly young women, all dancing to the music.

“They were playing all these Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and Sam and Dave numbers; my eyes were opened up to this world of soul and R&B. After the gig, I said, ‘I’ll take you out, have whatever you want, drink whatever you want, eat as much as you like, I really want to manage you guys, blah, blah, blah.’

“Anyway, when it came to pay the bill, the restaurant didn’t take credit cards. Paul had to pay for the dinner with his cash from the gig. Thankfully, he said, ‘Anybody who can get me to pay for dinner can be my manager.’”

Doherty offered the act to his boss, but Prager “wasn’t really interested in a soul band, didn’t think it would have any legs, I guess”.

So Doherty went solo, managing the re-named Q-Tips. “I used to book them gigs, I would drive the van, I would load the equipment, I’d do the sound, I’d do the lights, I’d sell the merchandising, I would do whatever. It gave me a great insight into being on the road, and the mentality of artists when they’re on the road, which has stood me in good stead to this day.”

The band built a solid reputation as a live draw, selling out 2,000-cap venues and supporting The Who. “And then we signed to Chrysalis and made a record of horrible covers, with one of the worst sleeves ever known to man, and it killed their recording career stone dead.”

Shortly afterwards Doherty told Young that it was time to go solo, but with the musical ballast of the Q-Tips’ keyboardist and chief arranger, Ian Kewley.

(Kewley sadly died earlier this year, and Doherty describes him as “a genius, one of the most talented musicians I’ve ever come across and very much the unsung hero of the Paul Young story”).

“Muff Winwood had said to me, ‘If Paul ever goes solo, we’d sign him in a heartbeat.’ So, we signed to Muff at CBS in 1981.

“We made an album of horrible covers, with one of the worst sleeves ever and killed their recording career.”

65

We made our first record for the grand total of 75 grand, in offhours studio time to keep the budget down.”

That record was No Parlez, which went to No. 1 in the UK and has been certified quadruple Platinum. Young’s radically different cover of an old Marvin Gaye B-side, Wherever I Lay My Hat (That’s My Home) also reached No. 1, cementing his position as one of Britain’s biggest and most improbable pop stars of the early eighties.

“Yeah, we weren’t cool and trendy, we weren’t on anybody’s hotly tipped list. But we benefited from a significant series of events.

First, the producers of The Tube, Chris Cowey and Malcolm Gerrie, and Paula [Yates], God rest her soul, had all been to see the Q-tips and absolutely loved them.

“They booked us for the show, and they loved Paul so much they booked him for the following week as well. That sent a message to the record company, like, Oh, we might have something here.

“Before that, when we delivered No Parlez [to CBS] – and I won’t say who said this, but he knows it and I know it – we were told, ‘The problem with this album, Ged, is it’s good, but there are no hit singles on it.’ And that became the vibe in the label.

“But then, like I say, The Tube booked us back for the second week, and then our radio plugger at the time was off sick, we got an independent plugger in to cover and she got us on Radio One, with Wherever I Lay My Hat. They started playing it and playing it, and we just kept building and building and building, and then suddenly it took off like a rocket.

“And I’ve got to give CBS credit, as soon as it became a hit, everywhere in the world jumped in. Suddenly we’re traveling all over the globe, because we’re No. 1 in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan. You name it, we’re number one everywhere.

“That was an incredible experience, which put me in good stead later in my career, going around the world, seeing how each market is different, seeing how you break a record, how the media was different. Plus you get to deal with the record company, the publisher, promoters, everyone, it was an incredible education. And of course we had the most incredible time along the way, helped by the fact that Paul was, and is, one of the loveliest human beings you’ll ever meet. I loved being a manager, absolutely loved it.”

Young’s career was built on cover versions, but, of course, he, Kewley and Doherty made sure there were always original compositions on the B-sides of their hits. “And that’s where we came a cropper, because on the third album we started to believe the originals were as good as the covers, we put too many of them on there and that was our downfall.”

He continues: “The budget for the food and wine on that record was more than we spent on the entire recording process for the first record, so that didn’t bode well. Ironically, the person who said there were no hits on the first album also said there were no

hits on the second record [The Secret of Association, 1985, a No. 1 in the UK and Top 20 in the US, containing Every Time You Go Away, a No. 1 single in the States]. Well, they liked the third album, didn’t they? We knew we were in trouble then.

“We still toured the record all over the world, but when I got back home I just thought, I’m not sure I want to be a manager anymore. I called up Paul, told him that was it for me and said I was going to try and get a job in America.”

Initially nothing materialised, and Doherty began to worry that he’d accidentally retired at the age of 30. His extremely random route back into the business came via managing former toothsome teen heartthrob Donny Osmond.

“Virgin Records asked me and I was like, ‘Donny Osmond? Are you kidding? I mean, I’ve got no credibility as it is, I’m not gonna work for Donny Osmond.’ They said, ‘No, honestly, you’ve got to have a meeting with him, he’s incredible.’ So I did, I met Donny, I was completely blown away by him, I started managing him, and we made a record that went to number two in America, Soldier of Love.”

Rather than a second act, however, this was an intermission, a stop gap between the whirlwind success of Doherty’s first stint in management and a decades-long career at major labels. That career was made possible by another old contact from his days as a live agent, when he had booked gigs for a band called The Jags, notable for their 1979 power pop hit, Back of My Hand, and the fact that they were managed by a certain Richard Griffiths…

“The budget for food and wine on that record was more than we spent recording the first one.”

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How did you get your first job at a major?

I was in New York, in 1991, seeing Richard Griffiths, who I’d always remained close to since The Jags days. I was sat in his office and I was like Yosser from Boys from the Blackstuff: Gissa job.

He started laughing, and then said, ‘Are you serious, would you move to America?’ I said, ‘I’d move in a heartbeat.’ At which point he told me they were re-jigging the whole International department at Epic, they needed a Head of International. So they hired me and I moved to New York in 1992.

How useful did your time spent as a manger prove when you made that switch – and what did you remember as the most frustrating aspect of dealing with labels when you were a manager?

Well it’s an interesting question, because my role at Epic became sort of an answer to that, it was kind of an outward facing role to the manager and then inward facing to the label.

So, managers would come to me and say, ‘I’m not really sure how to speak to Richard about this, or I’m not sure what Tommy [Mottola] would think about this.’ And I would tell them, ‘You should frame it like this, this is what’s important to the label, this is what they want to know’ etc.

INTERVIEW

Doherty, in 1975, seated, as drummer in the band Mirage.

They failed to trouble the charts - or the barbers

And then I could say to the label, ‘This is what’s important to the manager, and I know they’re going to ask for this, but this is what we can do and that’ll keep everybody happy.’ So I became the referee, if you like.

And, going back to your question, the most frustrating thing, and it wasn’t their fault, but people at labels had no idea how exhausting it is being an artist. When you’re on the road the whole time and they cram your schedule with 20 interviews, and you’ve got your gig, you’ve got your soundcheck, you’ve just driven overnight on the bus for 500 miles, you’re exhausted, you’ve been away from home for three months... So, that used to be a frustration, the lack of understanding of what it was actually like.

But, truthfully, we always had wonderful experiences with labels, because we found like-minded people. Rob Stringer was our product manager [at CBS for Paul Young], which is how we got to know Rob, and we remain good friends to this day.

And again, a great example of this cynical idea that label execs don’t love music; Rob could talk about music all day and all night, he could absolutely take on anyone, because he knows what he’s talking about.

He was exactly the same back in 1983, by the way, when he was our product manager, with that passion and enthusiasm and knowledge, he hasn’t changed one iota since then.

At Epic you initially headed up international marketing for the US roster, who were the key acts at that time?

Pearl Jam were breaking, we’d just signed Rage Against The Machine, we’d just signed the Spin Doctors, Ozzy Osborne was making a comeback, Cindy Lauper was doing well, Gloria Estefan,

With Paul Young in 1985

Luther Vandross, Babyface, all these incredible artists.

What sort of impact on your career did the fact that you started in the US have, do you think?

Well, I certainly saw how American labels were divided up by genre, and I hadn’t come across that before in the UK. You had the black music department, the alternative rock department, the heavy rock department, the pop department.

When I came back to run Columbia, I reorganised the label into those kinds of divisions, so we had specialists working on music that they loved, as opposed to working on something because they had to.

Also, when you work in America, you’re at the corporate headquarters, and it’s a completely different world. You see the size of the marketplace through the eyes of America. That completely alters your horizon and completely alters your definition of what success is and what success can be.

More generally, in America, they teach you as a young kid that you can become the President, which is good and bad by the way.

In the UK, I was taught, if I did well and did my homework, I could become a plumber or an electrician. Nothing wrong with those professionals whatsoever, it’s just a different mindset when it comes to ambition and what’s possible.

What was Richard Griffiths like as a boss?

Well, number one, Richard’s the most remarkable executive I’ve ever come across. In all the years I’ve known him, since 1978 or whatever it was, I’ve never seen him write anything down. I’ve 67

With Mariah Carey in 1996

never seen him write a single thing down. But he never forgets a single detail.

I also learned from him the value of passion. The passion that Richard has for music and for his artists is second to none. He would go through a brick wall for them.

It sounds like you had the time of your life over in New York, working with people and acts that you loved, so how did you end up coming back to the UK and to Columbia?

Well, I’d been there for, I guess, four years, five years, I’ve got my green card, I’m all set. But what happened was, I was going through a divorce and my children had gone back home, they didn’t settle in New York.

So I was going to go back to England and Dave Glew, who was Richard Griffiths’ boss, says, ‘No, don’t go back, we’ll pay for you to have a flat in London. Be in London 10 days a month, be in New York 20 days a month. That’s when you’re not traveling around the world with Rage Against The Machine or whoever it might be, because we really love what you do and what you bring to the company’.

I did that for two years – and I was exhausted. I was permanently jet lagged. So, when the Columbia job came up, I decided to come back to England to be close to my children.

Describe the job and the company that you took over at that time, because Columbia wasn’t in tremendous shape back then, was it?

Columbia was the number eight label in the UK at the time. And it had no credibility, no domestic roster. It was literally just an 68

With Dido

American outpost – and actually, with a few exceptions, it hadn’t even be doing a great a job at that.

How did you turn it round?

It was the team. We organized into those departments, as I said, and we had specialists working in specialist divisions.

We had an incredible team, people like Robbie McIntosh, who went on to great things, Carl Fysh who was the head of press, Matt Ross, who was the head of the black music department.

I’ve got to give credit to Kip Krones, the previous managing director, who had signed Kula Shaker. I’ve been blessed with good timing in my life, and we just got an incredible run of hit records coming from America, plus Kula Shaker and Leftfield. But, it was the team. It’s all about the team.

Having taken Columbia to No. 1, you decided to leave and head up Arista in the UK, who I think were No. 9. Why was that?

To reunite with Richard Griffiths, simple as that. He is inspiring.

He laid out his vision and I thought, sod it, I’m still fairly young, I’ll go for it.

And, again, the timing was incredible. We brought all the distinct labels under the Arista umbrella. So you had Arista, you had Deconstruction, you had Northwestside, which was Christian [Tattersfield] and Nick [Raphael]. And two weeks after I arrived, the Whitney Houston album arrived. It went to number one and I got a basket of flowers from Clive Davis saying, ‘Well done, Ged.’ We had an incredible roll of US product with TLC, Usher, Outkast, Babyface, Whitney, Santana. And then we had our own

INTERVIEW

stuff, Dido was happening, who Richard Griffiths had signed, Faithless were doing well.

I always have a simple philosophy, that I still apply, which is Have Fun, Have Hits and Make Money. Because if you’re having a good time, you’ll attract good people; if you attract good people to the company, you’ll attract good artists; if you attract good artists and good people, you eventually have some hits; if you have some hits, you’ll make some money; the more money you make, the more fun you’ll have. And on it goes.

I used to go to these conferences where the heads of different territories would have presentations with 30 decks or whatever, and I’d just say: ‘Have Fun, Have Hits and Make Money.’

Arista is where you first met Simon Cowell. What were your first impressions of him and where was he on his stellar trajectory at that point?

Well, when I was the managing director of Arista, I was on the first floor, so I never really saw him much.

Then, when Richard and Harry Magee left, I got made President of RCA and Arista combined, and my office ended up being four doors down from Simon’s. So, I used to see him every day and we were always talking about music, and about what he had signed. He was always inviting me in, asking, ‘What do you think about this? What do you think about that?’

We built a relationship based on the music. This was just before Pop Idol, so I was working closely with him when that took off, and of course we were putting out all the records, because they all came out on RCA originally, Will Young etc.

One of my good friends at the time was Simon Fuller. I met Simon when I was 19 and he was 18. He was working at Chrysalis Music. And of course, when Pop Idol and American Idol took off, that reunited my relationship with him.

So, I became the go-between, if you like, between the two of them. That’s a position I find myself in often in my career, the kind of person that other people go to, either as a referee or a sounding board.

And we had an incredible run of success. More often than not, this business gets caught up on credibility, as opposed to commerciality. And that’s the lesson I learned from both of those Simons, particularly Simon Cowell. He didn’t care, he didn’t give a monkey’s what anyone thought. It was all about having the best pop record ever.

Whether he, you or I like the record or not is irrelevant; he would give you the best version of it. And, of course, they sold by the bucket load.

What has made him such a successful A&R man over such a long period, do you think?

He loves music; that’s it. You go out for dinner with Simon and he’ll talk about two things all night long: music and how to break his acts.

He’s very aware of new music, he listens to new music all the time. He had his finger on the pulse of music, he knew what was going on. He built a great team, and he believed in having a very small team who were very loyal and very close to him. He would fight for that team, he would fight for his acts, and he would fight for what he believed in.

As he became more successful and the machine became bigger, there were more pressures on all of us. So I often became the person who was trying to corral everything, and, like I say, keep the peace between the two Simons. That was always fun.

[Cowell] also works harder than probably anyone I know: morning, noon, and night, weekends, completely driven, incredibly loyal.

And he knows when to let go. If I have a criticism of myself, it’s that sometimes I hang on to things for emotional reasons.

Simon, once something is over, he’s like, Boom, it’s over. Next.

He can make the tough decisions when he needs to make them.

“Simon believed in having a small team who were very loyal and very close to him.”

Was that a difficult position to be in, with the two Simons, as they grappled about Pop Idol, X-Factor and that whole TV talent show space?

Incredibly difficult.

And how did you navigate it?

I’ve always been honest with both of them. They didn’t like what I’d say to them sometimes, but they knew I was being honest.

As I got further up the tree in companies, I could spot the people who would tell me what they thought I wanted to hear a mile away. And I knew they were of no real help to me, or anyone.

Both Simons appreciate total honesty.

In the early 2000s you move up to run BMG Music Group rather than an individual label. Was that something you enjoyed or did it take you further away from aspects of the business that you enjoyed?

Well, at that time the company was still small enough that I could stay close to the music. So, I signed Kasabian, for instance. And one day Natasha Bedingfield came into my office and sang for me, so I signed her on the spot.

The UK company hadn’t broken a British rock act and I remember that the RCA had just signed the Foo Fighters, so I said to my guys, ‘We’ve got to sign a British rock act.’ And it was a young guy who worked for us, Daren Dixon, who was more involved in the urban music scene at the time, who brought me the demos, two songs by Kasabian, because a friend of his was part of the management team.

And I was like, ‘God, I love this, let’s get them in.’ We got got on great with Tom and Serge. We put them in a rehearsal room in 69

With The Fugees

Putney and we went down there. I just looked at Tom and Serge and I thought they were superstars, so we signed them.

So, I could still do that. It’s only when the merger happened, when I was the number two to Rob Stringer under the new Sony BMG banner, that things started to change. And then a year after the merger, Rob got poached to go to New York to replace Donny Ienner, and then I took over [Sony UK] from Rob. At that point I still tried to stay close, but when you become the Chairman of one of those companies, by definition, there isn’t as much time to do the things that you love doing. You become Head of HR, Head of Finance, all of those kinds of things, as much as anything else. But I still would try and keep my feet on the ground and still be involved in the signings. I remember when Mike Pickering brought us Calvin Harris. I was in Craig Logan’s car and we were driving off to a rehearsal room to see somebody, and he played me the demos – he only had two songs at that stage.

I stopped the car and we rang Mike Pickering and I was like, ‘Who is this? Who is this?’ And he told me, he’s a DJ from Scotland who’s currently stacking shelves at Tesco. I said, ‘Let’s sign him.

So I could still have that kind of involvement, which was great, but then more and more time got taken up with dealing with New York. More and more time got taken up dealing with the politics of the world of Syco, which was becoming a juggernaut of success.

And you were one of the key players in the 50/50 deal tying Syco to Sony at that time, is that right?

That’s right, yeah, myself and then-boss Rolf Schmidt-Holtz. I was, effectively, Simon’s boss, so I dealt with him on a day-to-day basis and was very much a part of the negotiating team. Then Simon 70

brought in Philip Green as part of his negotiating team, which is where things very quickly went pear-shaped. We didn’t like the influence that Philip was having, if I can put that diplomatically.

I had to take Simon to one side and say, ‘Simon, we love you dearly and we want to be with you forever, but we do not want to deal with Philip Green any longer’. We actually pulled out of negotiations. And Simon, to his credit, the following day, rang up, and he was like, ‘Let’s go back, we’ll do it together.’

He sort of side-lined Philip a little bit. But then Philip became more and more involved later on and he just made the whole process incredibly unpleasant.

And of course I also had to say to Simon, ‘Apart from the fact we love you and want to be in business with you forever, here’s the reality: you’re under contract to us for another two years. So, every idea you have for the next two years, we own. Yes, you can leave in two years, you can go and set up another deal, but then it’ll take you two years, probably, to go with some new ideas, get them up and running etc. So you’re going to be out of business for four years. Do you really want to do that?’

Agaiun, to his credit, he came back the next day and was like, ‘No, you’re right, let’s get this done’. But yes, Philip became more and more involved in his career later on, unfortunately.

I remember one big blow up in Simon’s office. It was me and Simon and Michael Smith, [Sony Music UK’s] Head of Business Affairs. And there was Philip Green and Karen Brady. Philip was going on and on and on about something that was just completely irrelevant. And I said to him, ‘Philip, are you going to go on all day about this, or can somebody else to have a word?’

He came marching across the office, I stood up to him, and he

INTERVIEW

went, ‘What the fuck do you know?’ He made it clear he was a billionaire and I was a pauper. Then he stormed out of the office.

Simon was like, Fuck, and he went running after Philip to try and bring him back, to keep the meeting on track. And this is where I’m going to give more credit to Simon; he came back and he said, ‘Ged, I’m really sorry. I’m really embarrassed about that; I apologise.’ And that’s the thing about Simon, he’s totally pragmatic. But Philip Green has been a very negative impact on Simon’s career, in my opinion.

You were running Sony BMG when BMG sold its stake, and the company became Sony Music, as we know it today (on the record side). What was that period like, and when did it start to sour a bit?

Well, because we were having success with Kasabian, and with Calvin Harris, and with Dido, and all of Simon’s acts, plus we had all of the incredible US repertoire as well, we did really well, but it did become more and more about dealing with HR and politics and business plans and all those kinds of things.

In 2010 I actually decided I’d had enough and I was going to leave, because I wasn’t enjoying it. But, my contract was coming up for renewal, and a very good friend of mine persuaded me to stay and sign a new contract. Six weeks after I signed, Rolf SchmidtHoltz got fired, Doug Morris came in, and I knew as soon as Doug arrived that my days were numbered.

How did you know that?

I think when people take those jobs, they want to put their own teams in, which is totally fair enough. I just had a feeling, I’m not long for this world.

worked with everybody, from Aerosmith, Beyonce, Usher, TLC, Pink, Outkast, Foo Fighters, Kasabian, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Barbara Streisand. Incredible. And I got paid! I’m the luckiest SOB ever.’

How was the bullet eventually delivered?

There was a big meeting in New York and there were all kinds of rumours about a re-org.

I’d actually hired Nick Gatfield [who would take over at Sony Music UK], a few months before, and just before this meeting, Doug Morris’ office rang my office by mistake, asking to speak to Nick. So I was like, ‘Oh, I wonder why Doug Morris is ringing Nick Gatfield behind my back?’ So I knew then.

This was on a Thursday, Nick was out of the office on the Friday, when this big meeting was going down in New York. I couldn’t get hold of anyone.

And then the next week, I’m in a meeting with Simon Cowell and Sonny [Takhar] and I get a message, the Head of HR wants to see me. So I actually rang my driver and told him, ‘Give it an hour and then come and pick me up at this hotel, because I’m about to get fired, and when that happens I’d like you to take me to the River Cafe so I can go and have lunch.’

And that’s exactly how it turned out. I went to the meeting with HR and they were like, ‘Doug wants to make a change.’ I said, ‘Is there any reason?’ ‘No, no reason.

He just wants to make a change.

Your contract will be honoured.’ So I went to River Cafe and had a lovely lunch.

“I knew as soon as Doug Morris arrived that my days were numbered.”

Did you meet with him and try and argue your corner?

Yeah, I was out in New York, we were shooting X-Factor auditions in New Jersey or something. So I got to meet him. And when I met him, I knew I was history.

Oh, right, was it not particularly warm?

He was fine. He was going through the motions.

And you knew he was just going through the motions?

I knew I was history.

How did you feel about that? Because in one guise or other, your association for what was then - as it is now - Sony Music, had lasted 20 years.

Well, I was certainly glad I didn’t leave when I had originally planned, and that friend had talked me into staying, because they had to pay me a shit-load of money to get rid of me. I’ve never been focused on money in my life, I’ve never been bothered about money, honestly, but in some ways, that made up for it, if you like.

I felt I’d given my heart and soul to the company.

I’d had 20 brilliant years. I was thinking last night, ‘God, I’ve

I hope it was a long one.

It was. I was still there at 7 o’clock.

You stepped away from the business for a while at that stage, were you not tempted to just take another job?

No, I had totally had enough. Some people spoke to me about label jobs, Simon Cowell wanted me to set up a management company. But I needed a rest, I needed a break. And in the end I decided I wanted to do something completely different, where I’m completely out of my comfort zone and I don’t know anybody. I know, I’ll go into the film business; that looks easy.

Let me just ask you a few Smash Hits-style quick questions.

Who was the artist you most enjoyed working with through your time?

Oh my God... I’d say Dido, Kasabian, and Calvin Harris probably.

And what qualities do they share that make them stand out?

Their work ethic. And they’re lovely people. Still, to this day, they’re lovely people. You can totally have an honest conversation with them. All three acts, if I see them, they’re still lovely. We just all got on as human beings.

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Who was the artist who was hardest to work with?

I can’t think of one. I’m not avoiding the question, honestly... Oh, well there was an artist who threatened to kill me once. I’ve still got the recording. Perhaps they’d had one or two drinks too many.

You’re not going to tell us who that is, obviously, are you?

Absolutely not [laughs] How seriously did you take the threat?

Not at all. I got into the office one morning, switched on my phone and there was a total rant from this artist, listing all the things he’s going to do to me, including killing me.

And of course I had a very sheepish manager on the phone later that day going, ‘Er, did my artist leave a message for you last night?’ ‘Yeah, do you want to hear it?...’ We turned it into a joke.

But no, I can’t think of anybody. I’m from that world. I grew up with artists, I was on the road, I speak the language. I love artists. They’re our entire business. There is no business without the artists.

Who are the artists that you’re proudest of working with, and the music that you’re proudest to have given a major platform?

Oh well there are three or four that spring to mind. I remember going to New York with Mervyn Lyn to listen to the Outkast album [Speakerboxxx/ The Love Below]. Clive Davis always used to have these big playback parties, and I’ll never forget it, we were sat on this rooftop terrace, me, Mervin and Andre 3000, and they’d [the US label] chosen the single, which wasn’t Hey Ya – Hey Ya was the B-side.

Me and Mervin were lobbying Andre saying, ‘This song is a massive hit, please let us put it out as a single.’ And he went, ‘You guys are the first people who said that to me. Totally. I’ll go back and fight for it to be the single.’

So it became the single and we were the first country to break it.

It took a long time, by the way, and boy we were sweating, because we’d put our neck on the line. But we delivered.

Kings of Leon, I loved working with; I worked with them from when they were 16 years old, when they first came to England.

And Beyoncé, who I first worked with when she came over as part of Destiny’s Child. She’s the most hard-working artist I’ve ever come across, unbelievable work ethic.

There are many more. I’ve been so, so blessed. It’s a cliché, I know, but I’ve been so blessed to work with so many incredible artists. And I can honestly say, in 20 years I never had a bad day.

What do you mean by the dark side?

I was working at Epic Records in New York. I’d become the number two to Richard Griffiths and all label artwork had to go via me for sign-off.

We were working the Michael Jackson History album, and I noticed my name wasn’t in the ‘thank yous’. To my eternal shame, I rang the product manager and I said, my name’s not in these credits. And they were like, ‘Oh, sorry Ged we’ll get it fixed straight away, we’ll have it fixed in the morning, no problem.’

I went home that night and I didn’t sleep. I thought, I’ve gone over to the dark side, I’ve begun to believe that I have some influence here, or some superpower.

The next morning, I rang the guy back up and said, ‘Please, please, I feel so bad about this, please take my name off the album, I don’t know what got into me’. He told me it was too late, the artwork went to the printer last night.

To this day, I cannot look at the album. It reminds me of the one time I moved over to the dark side of the force. And ever since then I’ve tried to stay with the rebels.

“I’ve never been afraid to put my head above the parapet – and if I screw up, get rid of me.”

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned during your time?

Not to go over to the dark side of the force.

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Who are the best execs you worked with or for?

It would be Rob Stringer, Richard Griffiths and Simon Cowell in equal measure. They’re all honest, they’re all music fanatics, they all love finding new acts, and they all love winning.

Can you talk a little bit about your BPI role and what’s important there for you?

Well, a big thing I got involved in heavily was revamping the BRITs Academy. In 2016, as soon as I saw the list of nominations, I knew we were in trouble. I remember at the show thinking, this is not right.

So, I stuck my neck out and said, I’m going to take responsibility here for changing the Academy. We’re going to have 50/50 male, female. We’re going to have 23%, well, the term that was used at the time was BAME, which people are trying to change now, thank God. But we needed to change the Academy, and that was not necessarily a popular move. One Chairman rang me up and said, ‘Well done for leading from the front.’ Another one was like, ‘I’m not so sure you should have done that.’

I’ve never been afraid to put my head above the parapet – and if I screw up, then get rid of me. We then set up a diversity committee, we refresh the Academy every year. And I think last year David Joseph and his team put on the best show I’ve ever seen at the BRITs. Finally, what would your advice be to someone just starting out in the business?

Take care of the art and the commerce will always take care of itself. The music is everything. The artists are everything. Give them everything, give them a 100% of your heart, soul, and spirit, and they will give it back to you. n

TRIBUTE

‘Ged sees the big picture and completely understands what an artist is thinking’ The co-founder of Modest Management, Richard Griffiths, gave Ged Doherty his first label job.

He tells MBUK what he thinks makes his friend and karaoke partner one of the best in the business…

When we first met and worked together on The Jags, I was a terrible manager and he was an even worse agent, but we became mates.

Eventually, years later, I’m the president of Epic in New York. We had Michael Jackson, we had Celine Dion, and we’d signed Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, Spin Doctors, we were on a huge run of success.

Don Ienner and Tommy Mottola were absolutely brilliant, I loved working with them and learned a huge amount from them, but they were, as were most Americans at that time, very US-centric.

So I brought Ged in to do international. Their reaction was along the lines of, ‘What do you mean you’re going bring someone in? We’ve got an international department to do that.’

And I said, ‘No, we need someone who understands how international really works.’ And because Ged had such great success as a manager, had worked the world, he was perfect for that. We worked very closely together during that period.

Later on, back in the UK, I brought Ged in to run Arista. I think executives who have had experience as managers have a much better understanding of how an artist’s life works, and how to get the best out of an artist. Ged sees the big picture, and completely understands what an artist is thinking.

I think being able to have a conversation with an artist, an honest conversation with an artist, is so important. One of the gripes we [Modest] have with labels is that you have a very good press person, you have a very good radio person, you have a very good international guy, a

very good product manager, but they only think about their particular roles.

And so you get presented with these ridiculous schedules, because the press person just wants to make sure he gets his press interviews etc.

What that means is that a couple of times a year we have to get all these people on a conference call, we go through the schedule that we’ve been given, and we say, ‘Okay, we will do this, if every one of you do exactly the same schedule as the artist.’

Guess what happens? They all go, ‘Oh God, no, that’s too much.’ And we say, ‘Yes, exactly! It’s too much! You’re not thinking about the artist, you’re only thinking about your piece.’

Ged always understood that: you have to look at it from the artist’s point of view, not just from the label’s point of view.

He also has incredible loyalty, and you know what, whilst we always tell each other exactly what we think, I actually can’t remember us ever falling out over anything.

I don’t mind strong opinions, I like strong opinions, let’s have a discussion about it, and we can agree to disagree, or we can come to an agreement, but at least we all know where we’re at. Ged and I were always able to have those conversations, and the vast majority of the time, we agreed.

He’s just one of my oldest mates, who I may not see for some time, and then it’s the classic thing, you see them and it’s like you saw them yesterday.

The best fun I’ve ever had with Ged was on a trip to Australia and then Japan, I think with Rage Against the Machine. In Japan, we went to a karaoke bar, when karaoke was big in Japan, but pretty unheard of anywhere else.

Ged and I are absolutely out of our heads, but we get up, and we sing You’re the One That I Want. We still disagree as to who did which part, but I’m pretty sure he was Olivia NewtonJohn.

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WHY I JUST MOVED TO THE MIDDLE EAST For years, Spek has been a fixture of the UK and US music publishing industries – and their relationship with the MENA region. Here, he explains why he recently upped sticks from New York to live in (and work from) the UAE...

I stumbled into becoming a music publisher.

My life as an artist started formally as a 17-year-old rapper and songwriter, when I joined Canadian hip-hop group Dream Warriors, and set off to tour the world. I was living the dream through my teens and 20s and 13 years later, with my life as a touring musician mostly behind me, I was offered a role to consult for a music publisher by a former manager of mine.

I was living in London then, and as I sourced acquisitions, handling relationships with partners across Europe and learning the inner machinations of royalty flow, I began wondering how music copyrights were treated globally.

On a lark, I visited the United Arab Emirates in 2005 and instantly felt enamored by the place. By the end of 2006, feeling inspired, I relocated to Dubai with the dream of setting up the first full-service music publisher in the Gulf.

I was 18 months into my first job in the business and newly married. Lucky for me, my wife was down to try something new. My friends in the industry thought I was crazy.

The 2003 Gulf War was still fresh in people’s psyche, and many people I spoke to at the time thought of the entire Middle East as one homogenous market. The UAE had not yet captured our imagination as the ambitious global business destination it would eventually become, and I had never run a business before.

Still I figured, if I fail miserably, it would make for one hell of a story!

I immediately soaked myself in the local scene, trying to challenge the status quo and pushing for recognition of music rights, which was still a new concept locally. Most of the regional copyright laws were written around 2002, so it was early, heady days watching a country’s media industry being born.

By 2008, the Abu Dhabi government launched twofour54, an initiative focused on developing a content creation ecosystem in the 74

“Streaming has become a revenue behemoth and the whole paradigm has evolved.”

Emirate. As a media freezone, regulator and regional investor, twofour54 got to know me through my work advocating for the rights of music creators in the region and invested in my business PopArabia in 2011. This made us unique in the region as the only music company part-owned by a government entity.

We grew the business annually, slowly building up market-share by sub publishing the world’s most important music catalogues. By 2015 we had become the regional market leader, paving the way for music licensing in a market where it hadn’t existed previously for publishers and songwriters.

That same year, I accepted a job at Reservoir to lead the company’s US creative strategy out of their New York office, while my team in Abu Dhabi continued pursuing PopArabia’s Middle East mission.

FEATURE

A lot has happened over the past five years: our Reservoir team has had a string of hits, marquee signings, Grammy nominations and wins – and we have grown our presence by adding killer creative teams and operations in Los Angeles and Nashville, while expanding our award-winning team in the UK. We’ve regularly been in Billboard’s US Top 10 market-share reports for music publishers, ranked as high as No. 5, and we continue to grow organically. Throughout all this success, I found myself fascinated by the growth of music streaming, especially as subscriber penetration reached a tipping point in the West. Streaming had become a revenue behemoth and the whole paradigm had evolved. Our business shifted from releasing albums to releasing playlists. ‘What will this mean in emerging markets?’, I wondered.

I’ve spent the last few years chasing an answer and what seems obvious is streaming will and has already begun to alter: (1) what foreign markets mean to our global industry; (2) our historical approach to rights management; and (3) perhaps most interestingly, the way we define ‘pop’ as a people.

The streaming business model is based on a simple premise: the service is provided for free, and within three months some percentage of freemium users will convert to paying subscribers.

Under this model, market population inevitably dictates the scale streaming companies can reach. Developed western markets may be tastemakers, but emerging markets will be where scale is achieved.

I’m not the only one who sees this coming; According to a 2019 report, Goldman Sachs projects there will be 1.15 billion people globally paying for music streaming by 2030, and 68% of them will be located in emerging markets.

The US, a market of 325 million people, has long been the number one music revenue market in the world, in large part because it has historically been the largest sufficiently regulated music market. Throughout Asian, African and Middle Eastern markets, rampant CD piracy was often the reality, and with a lack of collecting societies (or challenges in enforcement), a music publisher couldn’t easily monetize their rights.

We were resigned to an industry reality where we made 80-90% of our revenue from 10-20% of the world. Developed markets inherently became the industry’s focus out of necessity.

Streaming is changing that. It has become the

primary source of revenue for the industry, and streaming services are bypassing the traditional infrastructure around rights management, doing deals directly with rights holders, even in markets where infrastructure is missing.

We’ve moved from a one-time transaction (an album sale) to a transaction occurring every time a song is listened to. We are also monetizing nearly 100% of the time, a far cry from the days where piracy on physical sales across Asia/Africa was up to 90% or more.

As the historical market leaders, developed western markets have long defined ‘popular’ 75

Spek and Dream Warriors’ DJ Luv pictured in 1995

music – influencing not only the music we hear in the West, but what reaches into local markets in all corners of the globe. However, the lessons we have learned from streaming in new markets has highlighted an underlying emphasis on local music.

In China for example, it has been reported that only 2.5% of content on local music platforms is local Chinese content, but that 2.5% accounts for approximately 70% of the country’s music consumption. So, while the business model of yesterday was the export of Anglo-American pop music around the world, this new normal underscores consumers’ hunger for content from native creators in local languages.

With billions of people in Asia and Africa, the power in numbers is undeniable. Once that reality upends the historical status quo, I wonder how will that alter the fabric of global pop music and A&R as we know it? Pop is capricious, she goes where the action is – and right now, the action is moving eastward. DJ Snake’s Taki Taki, a cultural hodgepodge that brings together artists of different cultures and languages, was the most streamed song in Q4 2018. BTS’s Black Swan recently went to No. 1 on the iTunes chart in its 76

“Pop is capricious, she goes where the action is – and right now the action is moving Eastward.”

103rd country, breaking a record formerly held

by Adele.

A little closer to home, earlier this year I had the opportunity to connect two of our Reservoir writers, Indian hip-hop star Divine with BritishJamaican dancehall artist Stylo G, the result was the song Mirchi – a mix of hindi raps and Jamaican patois to a Latin groove and an Indian harmonium riff; the song hit over 10 million streams in less than a week and is on track to becoming the biggest song of both their careers.

These are not anomalies.

As we see the launch of new global streaming charts, aggregating streams from all services around the world for the first time, we must ask what will the Top 20 look like week-toweek, once emerging markets have built up their subscribers?

Here’s a clue: it won’t be dominated by the Anglo-American hits that has defined our pop music for decades. Yet it’s still early days and things are changing fast.

The big, multinational streaming services have only just entered many of these markets, and though they face a slew of challenges in converting people, when trying to understand

FEATURE

Spek, aged 16, pictured in his high school group, Mama Tung

the opportunity in the Middle East I tell people don’t take my word for it, just follow the data.

The region is comprised of an estimated 484 million people, 40% of which are under the age of 25.

Some of the highest broadband, social media, and mobile penetration in the world is in the Gulf states. Mobile phone penetration in Gulf markets like the UAE averages higher than two phones per person. There are little to no taxes and high levels of disposable income. Saudi Arabia is YouTube’s number two market in the world by stream count (second only to the US) and thus, on a per capita basis, YouTube’s number one market globally.

Only a few years ago, movie theaters and playing music publicly were banned in Saudi Arabia. The country is now invested in opening 2,500 cinemas over the next five years with public events, concerts, and music festivals on the horizon. Meanwhile, in India, a revised copyright act, the reconstitution of the IPRS and local mobile operators effectively absorbing the cost of data consumption for streaming services has led to a huge upswing in adoption and a youthful appetite for new local content.

Hanging with Nitin Sawhney in 1999 during the making of the Beyond Skin album

So yes, the music industry is poised for incredible growth, but it’s not because established English language pop stars will end up being 4X bigger than they already are. It’s because there’s new content expanding out of new markets. The influence of American and English language artists will continue, but the underlying fabric of pop is changing. You might say pop is moving from Campbell’s soup to a global gumbo!

So why would I move back to Middle East from New York? It’s a big world out there and I’m excited to be returning to run PopArabia, empowered by twofour54 and my new partners at Reservoir as we look to the next decade and beyond. I am eager and well-positioned to use my base in the UAE to lead Reservoir’s endeavors into new markets focused on the dynamism in MENA, Asia and Africa.

I believe the change I’ve outlined is quickly becoming a reality, and I intend to be on the front lines, leading the charge, delivering solutions to historical challenges and investing in local music that will travel around the world and tell its story. Just as I began this mission years ago, I remain bullish about the prospects ahead and no matter how this unfolds…it should be one hell of a story!

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‘IT’S TAKEN A LOT OF YEARS AND A LOT OF WORK TO GET TO THIS INCREDIBLE, LIFE-CHANGING MOMENT’ BTS’ Dynamite recently set the world alight, from Korea to the US and pretty much everywhere in between. Yet it was written, in its entirety, by two very British songwriters...

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hen word gets out that BTS (aka the biggest pop group in the world) are on the hunt for their first ever English language single, the normally quite collegiate world of behind the scenes songwriting goes a bit UFC. In such a raw, high stakes environment, you might not bet on two super-naturally sunny best friends from London – one a girl-group graduate, the other a former session drummer – as likely victors.

But, when the bell rang, it was David Stewart and Jessica Agombar, who, thanks to the explosive power of Dynamite, emerged triumphant, feet on the fallen torsos of vanquished rivals – or, more accurately, toasting each other on Zoom, 78

allowing themselves one orbit round Planet Crazy before moving on to the next job.

Landmarks on Planet Crazy, by the way, include: over 100m views on YouTube in the first 24 hours of Dynamite’s release (a new global record); 12.6m streams on Spotify in the same period; and reaching No. 1 in the US, so becoming BTS’ first chart-topper in the country.

As with all prize fights, it helps to have the right people in your corner. And as both writers explain, having the likes of Neil Jacobson (head of Stewart’s management company, Hallwood Media) and Tim Blacksmith and Danny D (founders of Stellar Songs, the publishing company to whom both writers are signed) behind you

does put some lead in your gloves.

But make no mistake, in a world where contacts are key but the song is king, this is Stewart and Agombar’s victory.

Especially so as the duo jointly wrote 100% of Dynamite (with Stewart taking on production duties).

Listening to Stewart talk about his songwriting ‘training’ regime, the MMA comparison doesn’t seem too far wide of the mark. “Neil has got me listening to an hour or of music every single day, different playlists,” he says.

“It’s like being an athlete, you know? You need to know exactly what these guys want.

So now, in the least sterile way possible, we know that at 40 seconds, we’re hitting our

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first chorus. At 55 seconds, we’re out into the second verse.

“It’s very rare now that we’d write a song over 3 minutes 20. I mean, almost every single song that we’ve probably written for the past year and a bit has been in that vein.”

Agombar and Stewart first met as artists.

Agombar was first signed, as a teenager, to UK dance label Ministry of Sound. That project never took off but, when the A&R who signed her, Ben Cook, moved to Atlantic, he recruited her for a second girl band, Parade.

This time, there was a flicker of success, in the form of a Top 10 UK single, Louder. But, the group broke up after a disappointing debut album. Agombar has no regrets about giving it a go – and less than no regrets that it didn’t work out: “It was a useful experience, because we used to [perform] songs we had no emotional connection to, and that never felt right.

“The way I’ve turned that around now is that whenever I’m with an artist, I take my ego, anything I’m going through, out of the room.

Even if me and David write [a track], even if we write the lyrics, we talk about the artist’s life, we talk about their story.”

Stewart started off drumming in a band supporting Simply Red across the UK, playing 15 arenas. He then graduated to playing guitar and touring the world with British solo act Example, before putting together a mixtape that featured, amongst others, Ed Sheeran.

He recalls: “It blows up, I get a bunch of record deal offers and a bunch of publishing offers, which I didn’t take, thank God, because they just would have been wrong and I would still be in them now.” Instead, the buzz was loud enough to reach the ear of Ludacris’s team, leading to an unlikely development deal out of Atlanta.

Stewart says: “That was totally weird and wild, but an amazing experience. I was cutting my teeth and learning the ropes as far as how quickly those guys work – they’re doing three sessions a day sometimes. It was a real boot camp into how American music is made.

“But ultimately it didn’t work out. I was trying to be R&B, but also trying to be pop. The main thing I heard from every A&R was, ‘You’re an incredible songwriter, you can sing these records amazingly, the production sounds great, but we don’t know who you are. You’re doing too much.’

“I was flown out to New York, I did a showcase for Republic, for the Lipman brothers, but it didn’t go to plan. And I’m not surprised it didn’t, because I wasn’t good enough. I was nervous. It was all just flying by the seat of my pants, I’m happy to admit that.

“That all came to an end about five years ago, and I decide to make a conscious effort to make a living out of what I know I’m good at – songwriting and production.”

Stewart got some cuts quite quickly,

Prior to running his management company [Hallwood Media], Neil was the president of Geffen Records [and] a legendary A&R at Interscope for many years. We had a conversation at the start of lockdown and he said, ‘You should go back and listen to some Jamiroquai, I feel like we could really get into the weeds with that kind of stuff.’

I was just like, ‘Cool, leave it with me.’

And literally two days after we’d had that conversation, we delivered Dynamite.

So you wrote it specifically for BTS? DS: I think it was half and half. We knew what they were looking for, so it was still in the back of our minds, but also, about a week before, we were told that they were holding another one of our songs – so we were like, ‘Oh, okay, we might already have this! But let’s just write this anyway...’

And then after a few weeks passed, our management send the song to Ron. It also got sent to Big Hit, BTS’ label. Our publishers [Stellar Songs] also sent it to Ron. It was a two-pronged attack. And then I get a FaceTime from Ron, probably at the start of July, and he’s like, ‘Yeah, they’re cutting it.’ Two weeks later, it was recorded.

“Whenever I'm with an artist, I take my ego out of the room.” with big artists on major labels, but it was when he crossed paths with Agombar – an old friend he’d first met on the UK radio promo circuit – that the fuse for Dynamite was lit...

How did your involvement in Dynamite come about?

DS: I already knew, before we even got into this, that BTS were looking for their first English language single; it was like the Holy Grail of cuts.

Everyone that I knew in America was fighting for it. I had conversations with a lot of my peers out there, and people who have had far more success than I have were fighting hard for it.

For us it starts with Ron Perry, who’s the Chairman of Columbia Records, who had a conversation with one of my two managers [Neil Jacobson, the other is Charlie Christie]. He basically explained what they were after: something that was fun, exciting, with tempo, and kind of left it open-ended.

How do you both complement each other as writers?

JA: We always look forward to working together. One part of what’s incredible about working with someone like David is I always know we’re going to have a productive day. We’re going to start at the same time, eat lunch at the same time... our work ethic is exactly the same.

The enjoyment that comes with working with David, I’ve never found elsewhere.

We’re so similar in our work ethic, and what we want to get from music, and where we see ourselves going; we have the same tunnel vision.

DS: There’s honestly no set way of working for us. I might have a beat idea before Jess walks in; Jess might come in with a full page of lyrics; we might sit down and have a conversation that sparks something.

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BTS, performing during their record-breaking livestream event earlier this year

Jess is an all-rounder. There’s nothing that she can’t do, as far as her writing is concerned: she’s a phenomenal lyricist and incredible at melody.

What are your memories of the Dynamite writing sessions that changed everything?

JA: Honestly, if someone says, ‘This is what we need, can you deliver?’, we can always deliver, I know we can. But, in this industry, as we all recognize, it’s sometimes up to the Gods, it’s sometimes down to timing, it’s about a whole load of things.

I remember having a really special feeling towards this song, just because I knew it was instant, it was high energy, I knew it sounded American, I knew it sounded like a worldwide hit. That’s not me being arrogant, I just think you have to believe in everything that you create. And I truly believed in Dynamite.

mean for you both?

DS: It was pretty insane. I felt instantly sick, because it was just so exciting. It was funny, because actually, a few days before I had just had an offer accepted on a flat, and I said to my parents, ‘Imagine if I could just get one big cut, just to cement this whole thing and make me not worry

the way I’ve dealt with it was spending time with family, and I’d speak to David about it a million times a day, because he’s the one person that understands.

Then, honestly, it’s just on to the next.

We’re in the studio now [as we speak], waiting for the artist to come by and start work: let’s crack on. That’s the way you get past the heat of the moment. Our mentality is, ‘That’s it. It’s done. It’s amazing. It’s incredible. Now let’s get back to work.’

“A&Rs would say: You’re an incredible songwriter but we don't know who you are.”

What was your reaction when you realized what Dynamite was going to 80

about everything moving forward’. Four days later we were put in the stratosphere.

How much of a surprise was it when it became record-breaking big? And also, what does it feel like to be in the center of the BTS hurricane like that?

JA: Well, basically, it’s that: I’m at the center of a hurricane. It’s very surreal, and I think it could be overwhelming. For me,

Did you get much feedback from the BTS themselves, or Big Hit? Or does that all go through label and publisher?

JA: Yeah, Big Hit were amazing to work with on the song, and really communicative.

When we were going back and forth with the A&R at Big Hit, talking about lyric tweaks and changes, they were totally open-minded, they gave suggestions.

Me and David were totally open to that, of course, because, culturally, we wanted to learn from them. Ron Perry at Columbia has been amazing, and messaged

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David Stewart

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Jessica Agombar

congratulations, and we speak to him all the time. The only thing we need to do now is meet the boys, which sadly we haven’t been able to do personally because of COVID. How has life changed since the single broke, in terms of the calls you’re getting, the conversations you’re becoming part of, and the projects you’re being connected to?

DS: I mean, as far as what we’re doing, as Jess said, nothing is changing because we were in the studio the day after it came out, and we’re in the studio right now. We haven’t stopped working hard. I guess the difference is that the doors are open to working with an awful lot more people, we’re in that league now.

JA: They say it takes 10 years to have an overnight success, and it has taken a lot of years and a lot of work to get to this incredible, life-changing moment. I think 82

we’ve always known that we were going to do it, it was just when. And hopefully it doesn’t change our lives too much – just for the better, but not for the crazy.

Can you talk at all about what you’ve been working on since, or what you’re working on now?

JA: There’s a lot of stuff in the pipeline.

There’s an artist that we’ve been working with, signed to Interscope, she’s called Claudia Valentina, and we’ve got her next single. And there’s an incredible American artist called Anthony Ramos, who is also signed to Interscope in the US. He’s an amazing actor, he’s in quite a few films, and he was the lead in Hamilton on Broadway two years.

And will you be working with BTS again?

JA: Yes, we’re working on something at the minute for them, yeah, which is even more exciting. I think it’s the start of a great

relationship with the boys.

You’re both signed to Stellar Songs, and that’s one of the things that brought you together. What do the founders of that company, Tim Blacksmith and Danny D, bring to your game?

JA: Having people like Tim and Danny in your corner is just incredible. Their legacy, their wisdom, their knowledge, the success that they’ve had, over years and years. With Tim and Danny, you’re literally one call away from anyone you’d want to talk to within the industry. Honestly, it feels more like working with family than someone in a suit that doesn’t understand music, and just puts up the money to publish it.

DS: It means we’re speaking to real music people. So when they’re giving constructive criticism, we’re getting it in a musical way rather than having to try and read between the lines. They really know what they’re talking about. n

and the entire MUSIC BUSINESS WORLDWIDE team wish all of our readers and subscribers a 2021 packed with joy, fortune... and good news.

VEVO’S ARTISTS TO WATCH 2021 One of the first 2021 tip lists to emerge is VEVO DSCVR’s Artists To Watch List, and with a track record of highlighting superstars in the making, it’s one that’s well worth studying. Here are the artists the firm is backing for next year and beyond – and the story behind the line-up…

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EVO has been running its DSCVR Artists To Watch programme for seven years. It has hit a bit of a groove and, with Billie Eilish, Sam Smith and Lewis Capaldi amongst previous featured artists, it also has quite a track record.

This year, though, of course, has been different – logistically, at least. Because the Artists To Watch list isn’t just a list, it’s a suite of content and global promotion that gives young artists and their managers an invaluable boost at a key point in their journey. And that’s not easy in the middle of a worldwide pandemic.

Thankfully, VEVO has found a way to not only select a stellar and diverse group of talents from around the world, but also work with them to film exclusive performances that will generate more views and new fans via the company’s channels, socials and playlists.

How is the awareness and popularity – amongst the industry – of ATW growing and how is that manifesting itself in terms of engagement with managers and labels etc?

Claudia de Wolff, VP, C&P, UK & International: 2020 marked our seventh year of curating our Artists to Watch list, as part of our DSCVR programme – and we received a record number of submissions from artists across the global, spanning all genres.

We are always excited to see the response to the sessions that we shoot as part of the campaign, and the continuous growth of the format as a whole, meaning we can offer more exposure for the up and coming acts that VEVO is committed to championing.

What sort of exposure can these featured artists expect?

David McTiernan, Senior Director, Artist & Label Relations: Our editorial, programming and marketing teams put the full weight of our platform behind this program – it’s the largest campaign we do every year.

Over the course of the next month, we’ll devote millions of impressions to surface this content across our network of channels on YouTube, our socials, and our connected TV platforms.

What do you think the final list tells us about the current trends in future hitmakers?

DM: This year’s list really reflects how many artists are achieving success by blurring the lines of how the industry has traditionally categorised genre.

It’s indicative of today’s musical landscape that there are so many artists in this group with broad appeal, blending pop, hip-hop and latin, or alternative and R&B, or all of the above. It’s always our aim to have this list represent an accurate snapshot of what’s resonating across the industry, and the 2021 class is extraordinarily diverse in that regard.

“There’s such a rich diversity in music, and we’re delighted to celebrate that.”

What challenges has the pandemic caused to compiling this year’s list – and the content that goes with it – and how did you overcome those challenges?

Carl Young, Head Of Music & Talent, EU: 2020 has been a challenging year for everyone in entertainment. Instead of becoming overwhelmed by the task of booking and executing live performances during a pandemic, we decided to focus on the positive: a record amount of artist considerations and an unmatched talent pool to choose from.

We saw it as a chance for evolution and innovation, and our production team’s planning completely exceeded our expectations. Every shoot abided by strict CDC guidelines, and we were more than happy to take precautions that ensured the safety of our team and artists alike.

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Are there any big changes to ATW this year either in terms of the selection process, the promotional package that goes with it etc.?

CDW: With the music industry as a whole continually adjusting to COVID-19 protocols, we knew we faced an uphill battle with production, since our artist selections are on such a global scale.

With careful and strategic planning, following ever-evolving safety precautions, we’ve been able to still select our artists on what is most important: talent. Our selections get a full editorial push across our platforms, including socials, linear channels, playlisting support, CTV and more, resulting in millions of new sets of eyes and ears on the artists’ music.

CY: What this list represents is incredibly exciting talent from all areas of music all over the world. There’s such a rich diversity in music currently and we’re delighted to celebrate that with our DSCVR Artists To Watch 2021 series.

We’re offering a global platform and are seeing artists music crossing boarders and reaching new audiences, there’s a real push for VEVO to represent a wide range or new artists coming from incredibly diverse music scenes. This list tells us there’s rich diversity in new music and these scenes should have the spotlight and be celebrated. n

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24kGoldn

Alfie Templeman

Bow Anderson

Dylan Fuentes

Finn Askew

Flo Milli

Giveon

GRACEY

Holly Humberstone

KennyHoopla

Kylie Morgan

Olivia Dean

Pa Salieu

Remi Wolf

S1mba

Scribz Riley

Shaybo

Surf Mesa

Toosii

Label: RECORDS/Columbia

Label: Polydor

Label: Platoon/Independent

Label: WMG

Label: Black Butter

Label: AWAL/Chess Club

Label: RCA

Label: Arista

Label: Island

Label: Astralwerks/Capitol

Label: Island/Interscope

Label: Epic

Label: UMG Nashville

Label: Parlophone

Label: Neon 16

Label: Heartsong

Label: EMI

Label: RCA

Label: Capitol

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Jordan Jay (left) and Ross Gautreau pictured at Karma Artists’ offices pre-lockdown

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‘EVERY DAY IS A SCHOOL DAY IN THIS INDUSTRY’ With a growing roster of producers, songwriters and artists signed variously to management and publishing, Karma is a company looking towards the top of the class...

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espite the challenges brought about this year by the coronavirus pandemic, the duo behind songwriter and producer management company Karma Artists, Jordan Jay and Ross Gautreau, have been charging full-steam ahead.

In July, they announced a JV between their publishing company, Karma Songs, and German-based Budde Music, which aims to expand global reach. In October, they made their first hire in the US in LA with former Kobalt exec Anna Schlafer, who is tasked with growing the management and publishing businesses. In addition, Karma clients have been busy creating during lockdown and the company has cuts coming up with artists including James Arthur, Cheat Codes, Mabel, Nathan Dawe, Ella Henderson, Anne-Marie, Little Mix and Matoma.

Jay and Gautreau founded Karma Artists after working together at Polydor Records in A&R in 2011. After getting frustrated with not being able to work with potential signings who weren’t right for the label, they decided to set up their own company to focus on artist development. Gautreau explains: “Now it is completely down to us — who we want to work with and how we want to do business. It’s very liberating to be able to make every decision, but daunting as well.” Jay, who is also Senior A&R at EMI, adds: “There’s always a way to work with someone. Be it through our writer and producer management arm, potentially through my role as A&R for EMI, or our publishing company if an artist or writer is unpublished but has management. That’s what we always wanted to create — opportunities to always be able to find a way to work with people that we really liked and thought were really talented.”

Producer and writer team Red Triangle and remixer Monsieur Adi were the first Karma management clients (the former still are), and Jay and Gautreau also built a collaborative creative relationship with fellow producer and writer management company XL Talent.

Over the course of building their roster, the duo has maintained A&R consultancy services for EMI, Warner, Universal and ITV and Freemantle for shows including The Voice and X Factor. Later, Karma moved into the world of publishing in order to help songwriters develop their careers.

In recent years, Karma Songs has had success worldwide with 6x Platinum hit Lo Malo by Aitana and Ana Guerra, The Official Cricket World Cup Single Standby by Loren & Rudimental, as well as publishing major cuts with artists such as Tom Misch, Martin Solveig and The Vamps with their UK #1 album, Night

& Day. The most recent addition to the Karma publishing roster is singer/songwriter Nick Bradley, who Gautreau describes as “a fantastic lyricist and melody writer”.

Writers and producers signed through Karma Artists Management, meanwhile, have had success over 10 UK No.1 albums, working with artists including Charlie Puth, One Republic, Zedd, Mabel, Tom Walker, Alesso, Take That, Craig David, The Vamps, James Arthur, Little Mix, Olly Murs, The Script, Jason Derulo, Sigala, Lukas Graham and Katy Perry.

What are your memories from the early days of setting up Karma Artists?

Jordan Jay: We started on my living room floor mapping out what we thought a brand new company could be and trying to get across all the ideas and things we wanted to try out.

I think at the beginning, we tried to do too much too quickly so, within the space of the first year, we’d managed to narrow it down and had our first couple of clients. We took on some guys we still work with now called Red Triangle, who are extremely talented writers and producers, and we took on a DJ called Monsieur Adi, who at the time was becoming one of the go-to DJs. When Hype Machine was a really big deal, he had 12 consecutive Hype Machine No.1s and off the back of that, got asked to go on tour with Beyoncé and we got a deal for him with Relentless as an artist.

In terms of some of the hard things, the hardest thing when starting a new business was getting a bank account. I remember calling Barclays who I’d just gotten a mortgage with and they would give me the mortgage, but not a business bank account. I think it took like four months to get a bank account opened for this new business. So that was definitely a challenge!

“There is nothing like not having a regular wage coming in to motivate you.”

Ross Gautreau: When anyone starts a new business, it’s never easy. The one thing that I love is that we got to do it together. We’d worked at Polydor together and we had, and still have, a brilliant relationship. I don’t think we’ve ever had a proper argument – which is quite something!

The partnership was so important to have each other to bounce off of and to question and debate decisions. But there is nothing like not having a regular wage coming in to motivate you as a new company to succeed. At the same time, we are both workaholics so that helps when you’re starting a new company.

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Karma Songs, the company’s publishing arm, has scored cuts with artists such as Tom Misch (pictured), The Vamps and Loren & Rudimental

What’s the secret to your successful working relationship?

JJ: Balance, probably. I think we balance each other out. I’m the nice guy... it’s the other way around!

RG: I could be accused sometimes of being too nice and you could be accused of being too firm. The space in the middle we always know is the right place and ties into what we’re all about — honesty and trust. It’s difficult to have 100% trust in someone else in any industry and that’s one of the things we’re really lucky to have between us. We both trust each other and can be completely honest with each other. It’s definitely key to our relationship and the success of the company.

You’ve said that your name, Karma Artists, was born out of a business ethos to conduct business morally in an industry that has a reputation for not doing so. Can you expand on that?

JJ: We’ve always been conscious that our name can never become ironic. I think for years there’s been a reputation of people in the music industry not necessarily acting in a fair way — friends that I speak to about the industry who don’t work in it, are always a bit like, ‘Oh, there’s untrustworthy characters in there isn’t there,’ and that has to stem from somewhere.

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RG: Ultimately, our role as managers is that we represent our clients within the business community so their reputation is just as important as ours. We are there to make sure we are doing business fairly on their behalf and that’s what all of our clients want just as much as we do. That’s always been a really important value to the company and how we operate. We are not the type of managers to bash the door down, but at the same time, we are always going to make sure the deals that we do for our clients and the company are always [done] in a fair way. Everyone we work with is likeminded and shares the same values as us and that’s definitely a big part of what we are about.

How do you approach working with artists and songwriters?

What’s your A&R and management strategy?

RG: Progress is what it’s about in everything that we do with our clients. The music industry is such a speculative industry — you could have success really quickly but it can sometimes take time as well.

There is such a boost with any creative to go ‘We succeeded, we’ve achieved something,’ and I think that is so important. So for every client we work with, we have a unique strategy of how we’re going to achieve success, reach the goals that we want to and the various routes that we are going to need to make those things [a reality].

FEATURE

JJ: It’s like setting a 12-month plan up for each artist or writer — both financially and creatively. Also, the confidence levels of artists, writers and producers is key. Because everything is on social media, everyone can see who is working with who constantly, and people often question themselves and feel they are not good enough if they are not in the room with certain people. Our job as managers is to ensure people feel confident and that is becoming more apparent than ever.

Aside from progression, do you have any other strategies for instilling that sense of confidence?

JJ: Trying things out – we are quite A&R focused in what we do and a lot of the time it’s about making sure that clients are working with artists we feel are up and coming and really talented. That’s as important as going to the A-list sessions.

We did quite a few early Lewis Capaldi sessions because we just thought he was great. So it’s making sure that there is a balance in terms of pushing our clients in different lanes and directions and making sure they constantly feel challenged.

RG: It’s got to be inspiring. It is a creative entertainment industry and there’s got to be a level of excitement.

Are there any big mistakes that stick out in your mind as examples of things you’ve learned from?

JJ: Like I mentioned before, I think we probably tried to do too much too quickly. We put our own money into certain things which didn’t work, we almost lost the company at one point, but we managed to pull it back.

RG: The lessons you learn, like financial loss, has protected us from making that mistake again or making an even bigger financial loss.

Every day is a school day in this industry, it’s consistently evolving, there’s always something to learn or do in a different way, which keeps it extremely exciting.

How have you as a business and the clients that you work with been navigating the coronavirus crisis this year?

RG: We are so proud of all our clients and everything they’ve done during this time. Every single one of them has been writing some of the best songs they’ve ever written and producing some of the best records they’ve ever produced.

JJ: And learning to do it while not in the room, with people through Zoom, which is a challenge in itself, but pretty much all of them have taken to it really well.

“Celebrate the successes you have, because they are few and far between.”

What are the biggest lessons you’ve learned overall while working in the music industry?

JJ: One of the key things that I’ve learned over the years is to make sure you celebrate the successes that you have because they are few and far between. Also, and more importantly, really learn from any mistakes you make because that is ultimately what teaches you and helps you develop as an executive.

RG: The importance of collaboration. That’s something we’ve done a lot more of in the last couple of years by partnering with people, whether it be XL Talent, who we partnered at the start of the company and we work with very closely, or our new JV publishing partner in Germany, Budde Music. Collaboration is so key in terms of utilising both our own and someone else’s expertise, contacts, relationships and opportunities. It’s been invaluable.

JJ: And having other people to bang heads with and come up with ideas together as well. The other thing, which might sound a bit contrived but I think it’s so true, is to make sure you treat everyone with the same level of respect and be gracious, whether they are a runner on a video set or the chairman of a company. I think everyone deserves to be treated exactly the same. That’s come from me seeing that myself when I was a scout and probably Ross when he was a scout as well — you remember the people who gave you the time of day when you were at a more junior level.

RG: Throughout that, we’ve just tried to provide them with as much information as possible, whether that be things about the best studio practices — how to make the studio a safe environment for as and when they are starting their in-person sessions — or the technical side of writing and collaborating.

Even financial support — there are a number of funding schemes and grants so we’ve been making sure our roster is aware of those schemes and how to access them, if relevant.

Songwriter and producer royalties have been in the spotlight again recently thanks to Tom Gray’s Broken Record debate.

What do you make of it?

RG: It’s a really important debate and things feel like they are on the cusp of changing. As a manager of songwriters, anything that can maximise our client’s income has got my support 100%. As both music consumption evolves and especially in times of hardship like we’re in at the moment, I think it’s massively important.

And what do you make of Kanye West’s recent plight to get all artists and songwriters to own their masters? Is that a fair thing to demand and does it make sense for the music industry?

JJ: It’s not a one size fits all type of thing. I work for a major as well, and we as a company work with major labels, and I think ultimately, some artists need the infrastructure, the expertise, the financial resources and the international set up that a major label 89

offers to be able to sustain what’s developing. It’s an interesting debate but it doesn’t necessarily apply to every artist.

love to see something like that going into the wider industry and being thought of in more practical terms.

RG: It depends on the level of the artist as well. Different stages of a career will warrant different levels of potential investment or how you do things.

JJ: We would both like to see a bit more mentorship as well. We were both fortunate enough to have great mentors in the industry when we started quite a few years ago but it seems like there isn’t the time spent developing the next breed of executives to come through. It’s such a highly complex industry that you are just thrown into and you have to figure it out as you go along — there is no rule book. I think it’s really important to give back to future generations if we are to sustain an industry for a long period of time.

What would you change about the music industry and why?

RG: The lack of diversity is an ongoing battle and it’s one that every one of us is responsible for. Mental health is something that we hold very close to us as well as a company. We were talking to one of our artists recently about this — you see an equipment budget in a record or publishing deal or you might see a travel fund in a deal as well, but one thing you don’t see is a mental health fund.

We were talking about putting a mental health fund and clause into an agreement, which we think is massively important. We’d 90

Who were your mentors?

JJ: Mine was my dad [songwriter Barry Blue], Peter Loraine and Colin Barlow. Peter was more of a marketing guy and a journalist

FEATURE “Our client’s reputation is just as important as ours,” says Ross Gautreau

That role itself was fantastic — I was everyone’s friend, essentially, you are not a threat to anyone. You get to meet producers, songwriters, record labels, publishers, managers, lawyers, and hang out, talk about music, go to gigs and build a fantastic contacts book. Everyone liked you because you worked at a company that paid out royalties.

You recently made your first hire in the US — what are your ambitions over there?

JJ: To continue to grow. Anna is one of the best and most proactive publishers we’ve ever worked with. We set up loads of sessions through her when our clients did US writing trips, she always pitched great songs as well to me as an A&R, so when she told us that she was no longer at Kobalt, we had to find a way to work with her.

Also, we’ve just had two Top 10 albums in the US with our clients — we were No.2 with the SuperM album and a week before that we had two songs on Keith Urban’s album, which hit No.1 on the country chart. So we are off to a really good start and bringing Anna in will hopefully keep that building.

RG: Between us, we’ll be out in LA at least four times a year and sometimes we go over there for a month-long visit. So while we’re not able to visit the States, we needed someone on the ground more than ever who was in contact with everyone and to help continue the great work that’s been done over there and help grow the roster as well.

In terms of moving forward, what’s important in terms of expansion is that we do want to expand the team, bring more people in and expand the roster but we never wanted to be the biggest management company, we want to be the best. So the more staff and the more amazing people we can bring in, the better.

so I got to understand that side of the business through him quite well. Colin was one of the best and most successful UK A&R executives of all time so I got to learn about the record-making process and how to work with artists, and that was invaluable.

Through my dad, I got to understand the artistic temperament and was fortunate enough to be in the studio when I was young and got to appreciate how the process works. I then became obsessed with album credits and reading who wrote what song and just became a bit of a geek really, which has stood me in good stead because now I do need to know that!

RG: Mine was a gentleman called Sean Devine who I worked with at ASCAP. He kind of gave me my first job in the music industry and he was a fantastic boss.

I learnt so many valuable lessons from him both in the business as well as just personally that have stood us in good stead today.

JJ: Also it’s such a global market now with how everything works with DSPs, so having someone on the ground in the US is great, as is having our partnership with Budde on the publishing side.

Our grand plan is to ensure that we have got solid footprint in key territories ultimately, which benefits all our clients.

How do you see the industry evolving over the next five to 10 years?

RG I think the only guarantee is that it will change and evolve as it always has done. For us as a company, it’s about moving quickly, being nimble, innovating and adapting to the situations.

The lack of gigs has been really tough, but it was amazing to see James Bay’s livestream at the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, and the same with Billie Eilish too. And even how technology is developing with things like holographics — in the next 10 years, it’s an absolute possibility that you’ll be able to have a livestream of Billie Eilish in your living room with her as a hologram.

JJ: And how gaming is having such a huge reach to a younger audience. Seeing what Travis Scott or Marshmello did with Fortnite — it’s quite exciting to see how that’s going to evolve and develop as well. n 91

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INTERVIEW

‘IT’S A BIT LIKE GOING TO YOUR FAVOURITE PUB’ Tileyard is the London home of companies and artists including Apple Radio, Platoon, Noel Gallagher, Good Soldier, Believe and The Prodigy – a roll call that is testament to nine years of success and expansion. 2020, however, brought the hub’s biggest challenge yet.

Co-founder Nick Keynes explains how the Tileyard team stepped up and stayed strong in the age of coronavirus...

W

hen your business is built around networking and one of your major USPs is never knowing who you might literally bump into, a global pandemic is not what you need.

It’s hard, of course, to think of any businesses that have benefited from the ongoing COVID crisis (pop-up track and trace ‘experts’ on certain SPADs’ Christmas card lists aside), but Tileyard, the creative hub based in London’s King’s Cross, with a majority of music industry-associated residents, functions and flourishes in almost perfect opposition to the climate and mantras of 2020. It is very much handshakes, face-to-face and shared space.

But the other key concept behind the Tileyard project is community, and that is what has strengthened and resonated during the current crisis.

The site has been curated by co-founder Nick Keynes such that, whilst it is a collection of separate studios and businesses that cover every area of the business from lawyers to live agents and management to merch, there is a common culture, one that is dedicated to creativity but also committed to co-operation, shared success and shared responsibility.

Says Keynes: “Everyone has been very supportive of anyone struggling, whether that’s temporary offers of work, new collaborations or just a friendly chat on those dark days.”

In a sadly remote but determinedly positive interview with MBUK, he also outlines how, despite the challenges of simply staying open and keeping going, much of Tileyard’s 2020 has been about planned expansion, at King’s Cross, in the North of England and around the world.

The good news is that there are a number of success stories too, which is very positive and heartening, and I think it does give hope to those that are struggling.

It sounds like a cliché, but we’re all in this together. It’s times like this when the value of our community is really evident. It’s always inspiring to see our community come together, and especially during these chaotic times.

What were your main initial responses and how have you subsequently found a way to stay open for business and provide an environment in which clients can work – especially in the studio spaces?

At Tileyard, we made a decision right at the beginning of this crisis to do everything that we could to keep our doors open for those that needed their spaces.

The campus-nature of the London site has been very helpful in being able to provide COVIDsafe access to the various studios and flexible workspaces, which has been a real godsend for some, and provided a sanctuary for the large numbers of people that chose to submerge themselves in creativity over the pandemic.

That said, it’s certainly been challenging. We’ve had to keep on top of all of the ongoing developments as the landscape continues to change, but we remain resolute in our attempts to keep the wheels turning.

“It’s times like these when the value of our community is really evident.”

As a community and business based on networking, collaboration and chance encounters, how tough has COVID been for Tileyard?

COVID has been tough for everyone – and devastating for a few of our residents. In particular, anyone in and around the live music, and events sectors are in a pretty grave situation right now, so we are doing everything we can to help these members of our community.

Has the pandemic delayed the opening of Tileyard North? And can you outline the scope of that project, including any details of numbers of clients from day one?

We are quite fortunate in that the Tilleyard North project [in Wakefield, West Yorks] is very much in its initial enabling phase right now, and, thankfully, construction sites haven’t been too badly affected by COVID. TYN is effectively a complete regeneration of an old textiles mill that has been derelict and unoccupied for many years; the plan is for phase one to complete in Q4 next year.

So, with luck, we hope that the worst of the pandemic will be behind us by then, although nothing is guaranteed of course. But 93

Render of Tileyard North development

the site is coming on really well and we are all super-excited about delivering our vision for what this second Tileyard campus will bring to the region and beyond.

There is a lot of talent in the north of the country and we want to provide a home for creative people and businesses based in that part of the world.

I’m also happy to say that, despite COVID, we’re in advanced talks with many potential tenants from across the creative industries in the North (and the South!), and whilst I can’t announce names yet I can confirm there will be writers, producers, record labels, state of the art studios, events space, recreation activities, a Two Tribes Brewery tap room, a music business university and world class production and postproduction suites. We’re also in talks with several trade organisations who are seeking space for their members outside of London.

Quite interestingly, a few large music companies are also looking to adapt how they work post-COVID, with spaces outside of London. This could truly be the start of a thriving new creative hub in the North and I’m very proud of what we are building there.

digitally connected but physically distanced, worry you?

I have to say, it doesn’t. I think the type of people that we have at Tileyard were already working in a very flexible way.

A lot of our residents are creative visionaries who, for the most part, thrive on the connections that they make by being part of a community like ours. And, more to the point, it’s the collaborations that come from these interactions that bring value to those based here.

Whilst it has been enormously challenging for a lot of us, from the very many conversations that I have been having with all of our residents, it is apparent that people generally can’t wait to get back on site. Indeed, a good number have continued to work from Tileyard throughout the pandemic.

We offer a lot more than just spaces; we give people a chance to belong to something. I think it’s a bit like going to your favourite pub. We can all have a beer or a glass of wine at home, but there’s nothing quite like meeting people face to face, in a wonderful space, and having a proper interaction.

There will always be a place for technology, and a mixture of virtual connectivity and physical interaction is the key for me, but I do believe that nothing can replace the dynamic of having a face-

“We offer a lot more than just spaces; we give people a chance to belong to something.”

Does talk of a more permanent trend towards working at home, 94

INTERVIEW

to-face conversation with another human being, or being part of a unique creative community like Tileyard.

We’ve had some very interesting conversations with potential new tenants that I think will spark a whole new wave of innovation at Tileyard. There are many companies, large and small, questioning what value they are getting from their massive, soulless, overpriced offices in West London, and who are looking for smaller, more flexible solutions for their teams in a post-COVID world; we can provide those solutions here.

What about beyond Tileyard North? Where else are you potentially looking at opening Tileyard spaces?

Our aspiration has always been to have multiple Tileyards. It’s been flattering how many invitations we’ve had from people all around the world, offering opportunities to build Tileyard spaces in the US, Singapore, Stockholm and Berlin – to name but a few –and we will continue to evaluate these opportunities.

We are all about connecting creative people and businesses by building curated communities and there is an abundance of talent all across the globe.

Can you tell us what Tileyard Music consists of – and how it is something separate to but also integral to Tileyard as a whole?

Tileyard Music is an all-encompassing music company that consists of artist/talent management, publishing and we also have

a label offering that allows us to put out records.

TYM is made up of four partners – Michael Harwood (my former bandmate in Ultra), Charlie Arme, Paul Kempe (Tileyard owner) and myself. We were actually the first business to operate from Tileyard London as a consequence of Paul Kempe investing in our fledgling music company back in the mid-2000s and I think the four of us all bring something different to the table.

Michael and I used to be musicians and writers/producers, so we have a lot of empathy for those trying to get a break in the music business. We’ve been there ourselves and know how tough it can be, so hopefully that counts for a lot. Plus, Michael is an incredibly talented writer and producer himself, so that is a nice USP for our businesses.

Charlie has a label and publishing background and brings a fantastic amount of knowledge and expertise across the everevolving music industry. More recently, Neil Hughes, formerly at RCA, has been bought in as MD to help run the company.

And Paul, being the owner of Tileyard, is someone who is wholeheartedly passionate about supporting and backing talent.

Paul’s ethos and approach is at the very centre of everything that we do at Tileyard. I think it’s important that we are not just a property company specialising in the music industry. We are actually in the ‘business of music’ ourselves, which makes us far more credible when it comes to having conversations with anyone in our sector.

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One of over 110 bespoke studios at Tileyard London

Can you talk through some of Tileyard Music’s successes and how they’ve come about?

Tileyard Music is all about discovering talent, the development and nurturing of that talent, and then breaking an artist or writer and helping them build successful and meaningful careers.

On the artist side, two great examples of this are Ella Eyre, who Charlie has managed since she was 15 years old, and Sigala, who started as a writer producer here at Tileyard and is now a prolific artist with eight UK Top 10 singles to his name.

More recently, Joel Corry, who Tileyard took on before he’d had a great deal of success, has just had a run of six weeks at UK No.1 with his latest single, Head and Heart, featuring MNEK, also a Tileyard resident.

Another great example is an artist called Sorana who originally took a job in the Tileyard café, but was soon spotted and went on to write a recent Chainsmokers single which has gone Platinum in the US and she’s now signed to a large US label as an artist herself.

A definite key component to nurturing all this success has been using the Tileyard studio resource at our fingertips. This is possibly best exemplified by another success of Tileyard Music, which is the 96

writing camps that it regularly holds. Notable successes written on these camps include Kygo’s Stole The Show, Sigala’s Wish You Well and a new David Guetta/Galantis/Little Mix collab in the works.

Are there expansion plans for London? If so, what are the details and what do you hope expansion will help you achieve?

Our Tileyard London campus is ever-evolving and growing and we now have over 110 music studios, 200-plus businesses and over 150,000 square feet of real estate at our King’s Cross location.

An ongoing issue has been a lack of available space, but Paul [Kempe] has been tirelessly trying to acquire additional buildings so that we can continue to grow our footprint and I am pleased to say, despite many challenges, he’s been successful.

I think Paul’s relentless commitment to this vision needs to be appreciated, as without his drive and ambition Tileyard and its unique ecosystem simply wouldn’t exist.

As a consequence, you could argue that a number of businesses, careers and real success stories may not have materialised, and we are determined to play a role in a great many more success stories in the years to come. n

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Every Picture Tells A Story

Date: Summer, 2000 Location: Hakkasan, London My first job in the music industry was at Columbia Records in 2000. I worked as Press Officer for the ledge that is Carl Fysh.

Andrew Roachford was one of the first artists Carl allocated to me, and what an artist he was. Roachford is totally unique in British music – a black soul singer who crosses over into rock, blues and mainstream popular music. And he wasn’t just a one hit wonder with his top five smash, Cuddly Toy. He was actually the biggest selling British artist at Columbia Records for 10 whole years!

This picture was taken while we were out at dinner at Hakkasan, around the back of Oxford Circus, a favourite spot for the Columbia press office.

Working with Andrew (left) and his manager – and brother – Stephen was always such a pleasure. They were great fun, as you 98

can see, and we also all came from Battersea, South West London.

Stephen tragically passed away in March of this year, just before the lockdown. It came as a huge shock to me, and to many of us at Sony Music who knew him.

He was such a lovely, genuine man with an amazingly dry sense of humour. This is a tribute to him.

Indy Vidyalankara is the founder of Indypendent PR. Current and past clients include Tomorrow’s Warriors, Help Musicians, Girls I Rate, Jules Buckley, Youth and Nitin Sawhney. She is a member of the UK Music Diversity Taskforce and BPI Equality & Justice Advisory Group. She is a former Sony Music UK Director of Communications and spent 11 years at the BBC in publicity across Radio 1, 1Xtra and BBC TV.

Helpline: 0800 030 6789

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We’re a registered charity run by music industry persons for music industry people who are suffering from mental health issues, addiction or emotional and behavioural health disorders.

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