ROWAN DRAKE

Date Signed: 2022

Label: Arthouse/Atlantic Records

Type of Music: Singer-songwriter

Management: Expand Entertainment

Booking: N/A

Legal: Todd Rubenstein, trubenstein@trlentlaw.com

Publicity: Christina Kotsamanidis, Christina.kotsamanidis@ atlanticrecords.com

Web: rowandrake.com

A&R: Kara Dioguardi, Arthouse Records / Kelly Sayer, Atlantic Records

Nineteen-year-old singer-songwriter Rowan Drake’s signing story is one built on ingenuity, adaptability and perseverance. The Ithaca, NY native first came to prominence as a competitive snowboarder. But when a severe injury ended that dream at 15, he shifted gears. “I was living in Colorado and moved back home after my injury,” says Drake. “I was a little lost in life, not having something to pour myself into anymore. I reconnected with a high school friend and started making music with him just for fun.”

Drake and his equally music-inclined buddy soon realized their musical aspirations ran deeper, so they schemed for over a year how to make the transition to a music hub like Los Angeles. “We just wanted to get out of our hometown and prove to everyone we could do it,” says Drake. “So our process was collecting emails of people at record labels and management companies. I was cold calling labels a year and a half before I signed with anyone. And the more we got in touch with people the more we realized everyone was located in L.A.”

“When we did the podcast last year, Marc [Shea] was super supportive of us and said that ‘Any way that I can push your band, I will,’” Kuchenmeister continues. “A few months later he emailed us and said that he’d had Bruce Duff, part owner of Kitten Robot, on and told him about us. Not long after that, Bruce reached out to set up a meeting.”

"I appeared on Performance Anxiety and after we finished recording, Marc asked me about Kitten Robot and told me that he’d interviewed Loki’s Folly,” Duff adds. “He gave me a bit of their backstory, I looked them up and thought that the band was a great fit for the label.”

True to the punk ethos, Sisu was released in multiple formats including lemon-yellow vinyl. “We’re all fans of vinyl and love to go record shopping,” Kuchenmeister explains. “Getting to listen to something physical is special. It’s also underestimated how you can find community by going record shopping.”

Sisu dropped in February with a guest performance by Soul Asylum guitarist Dave Pirner. The band aims to tour later this year. Given the youth of two of the members Oskar is only 12 band’s parents will accompany the three. – Rob

Putnam

Many contacts would come and go, but BMI executive Samantha Cox arose as a trusted ally and confidant. She introduced the prodigious young songsmith to a publisher that aligned him with several creative collaborators. One of those writers, Ben Levy, ended up writing a song with Drake that caught the attention of A&R scout Kara Dioguardi. She ultimately signed him to her custom label Arthouse.

Drake’s musical style has a touch of emo wrapped in ambience, heartfelt lyrics and lush haunting vocals. His deeply personal and observational songs are obviously connecting with fans as 20 million global streams, 5 million TikTok likes and 1 3 million official YouTube views will attest.

Drake’s EP Dear Ella was released on Arthouse/Atlantic Records June 9th. “We’re in an age where you put yourself in front of the people,” says Drake. “There’s so little between you and the consumer nowadays. People can see right through anything that’s not authentic.

“Dear Ella is a project very specific to one person. It’s very hard to market something for one person and capture what it’s trying to say to a wider audience. There’s the music and then there’s the personality of an artist. Marketing the personality side is challenging for me and something I’m trying to work on.” – Eric Harabadian

NPR “Favorite New Artists of 2023 (So Far)” singer-songwriter Jobi Riccio won 2023’s John Prine Songwriter Fellowship (JPSF) Award. Whiplash comes out alongside her Newport Folk Festival debut next month. The JPSF partners Prine’s family with the Newport Festivals Foundation.

Grammy award-wining rapper Lil Wayne will be presented with 2023’s BMI Icon Award at this year’s R&B/Hip-Hop Awards. With over 20 years in music, 5 Grammys, selling over 100 million records, he has also had 183 entries into Billboard’s Top 100.

2023’s SESAC Latina Music Awards top honors go to Eden Muñoz, Lenny Tavárez, and Yahritza Martinez (2023’s Breakthrough Songwriter). Frederico Vindver was awarded producer of the year. Pictured (l-r): Sam Kling, Celeste Zendejas, Frederico Vindver, Ana Rocha, Scott Jungmichael

Create Music Group has purchased Music For Pets, with another $10 million earmarked for investment over the next three years. As the leader in pet entertainment since 2017, Music For Pets has over 12 million hours of music and games created for cats and dogs.

Supporting over 20 million pets internationally with over 12 million hours of music each month with the “Relax My Dog” and “Relax My Cat” series, the company has tapped into a whole new audience that listens through DSPs (including YouTube and Spotify) around the world (dubbed with nickname ‘Petflix’).

Hip-Hop superstar Logic has sold his IP to Influence Media (backed by Warner Music Group and BlackRock) in a rumored eight-figure deal. The deal is said to cover 185 tracks, including “1800-273-8255” (featuring Alessia Cara and Khalid / 1.25b Spotify streams), “Homicide” (featuring Eminem / almost 500m Spotify streams), “Everyday” (featuring Marshmello / 517m Spotify streams), which Logic also wrote and/or produced. Signed to a multiple-album deal with BMG in 2022, his first release came out earlier this year.

With substantial financial backing, and, following the acquisitions of catalogs from Future, Blake Shelton, Skyler Stonestreet, there are rumors that Influence Media may be in the running to purchase the works of Michael Jackson and/or Queen.

Music distribution/artist services company UnitedMasters has partnered with producer Sarz from Nigeria to expand reach and opportunity in Africa. Sarz has already written hits for Wizkid, Drake, Tiwa Savagae, CKay, LoJay, and Chris Brown and the partnership aims to expand UnitedMasters’ roster in Africa.

The latest development follows UnitedMasters’ partnership with independent Nigerian label Mavin Records to release “How Many times” for DJ Big N ft. Ayra Starr & Oxlade, and future plans include expansion into Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa, and elsewhere on the continent.

UnitedMasters launched purchase and sale beats platform Beat Exchange in 2022, and partnered with the Coinbase cryptocurrency platform in 2021 as an alternative payroll option for artists. They also launched beatBread as a new artist finance tool that enables qualifying artists to take out loans against their work, and partnered with Paperchain to predict artist royalty earnings based on streaming data through the platform’s algorithms.

Just over two months after selling his publishing catalog to Sony Music Publishing, and a recent announcement that almost all of his hearing has been lost in his left ear, Paul Simon (81) has sold his royalty income, Simon & Garfunkel recordings and neighboring rights to BMG.

The latest development for BMG

Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artist Group (2020) buys Joe Cocker Estate catalog assets. With 22 albums, hit covers “With a Little Help from My Friends” (The Beatles), “You Are So Beautiful”(Billy Preston) and “Up Where We Belong,” Cocker is celebrated as one of the greatest singers of all time.

follows over 45 IP investments in 2022, including the works of artists Harry Nilsson, John Lee Hooker, John Legend, Mick Fleetwood, Tina Turner, Mötley Crüe, and others.

U.K.-based Downtown Music’s neighboring rights division (DNR) has signed an agreement with the Estate of Miles Davis covering his entire five-decade career and including releases Venus de Milo and Générique.

DNR has also signed Meat Loaf to represent his entire catalog, spanning his 40-year career and including hit single “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I won’t do that)” through the Michael Lee Aday Intellectual Property Trust.

Universal Music Group’s North American market (Canada/U.S.) revenue share was only 39% of global revenue in 2014, but now sits at over 50%. The European division took the biggest dip overall, with Asia’s revenue share remaining steady and accounted for almost 23% of the overall global music market. The latest IFPI Global Music Report just showed Asia (including Japan, China and India) with recorded music revenue growth at about 15% year over year (with North American remaining at just 5.0% year of year).

With UMG recorded music revenue in Asia topping EUR €1 billion for in 2022, they have just committed USD $45.5 million to acquire a majority stake (70% interest) in RS Group and their recorded music catalog, based in Thailand.

Concord and Pulse Music Group join forces, launching Pulse Records and signing on executives from TikTok, Atlantic and Alamo Records to develop imprint labels and acquire more catalogs, with Universal Music Group handling Pulse Records’ distribution.

Pulse has signed Ashley Calhoun (formerly of Rondor Music/UMG) to lead alongside Pulse Co-founders Scott Cutler and Josh Abraham. Lauryn Caldwell (formerly of TikTok and mtheory) joins the team as Senior Vice President and Tizita Makuria (who joined Pulse in November) will serve as Vice President of Creative, Publishing. Bel Mesbahi (from Alamo Records) has been named Creative Director, A&R for the publishing division. Twenty-year

Joining the conversation on legislative change, the musicFIRST Coalition is calling for legislation to compel recording royalties for terrestrial radio play with a hearing in Nashville (“Five Years Later The Music Modernization Act”). Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) CEO Kris Ahrend, DiMA CEO Garrett Levin, and Big Machine GM Michael Molinar attended, presenting the progress and improvements needed since the Music Modernization Act (“MMA”) was made into law in 2018. As it stands, AM/FM radio stations in the U.S. only pay for the use of underlying compositions and not recordings. musicFIRST also reintroduced the American Music Fairness Act, which would see traditional radio stations pay for recordings. musicFIRST includes the RIAA, the Recording Academy, SoundExchange and SAG-AFTRA as members. More at: bit.ly/ 3pzBtaS

ANDREA BEENHAM (aka Drea Jo) is a freelance writer and marketing consultant based in Southern California. The South-African born, Canadianraised California transplant has a passion for music, people and fun. She can be reached at drea@dreajo.com

Nashville-based singer-songwriter—and member of Jenny Lewis’ all-female touring band—Jess Nolan releases single “Emergency Landing” after joining Ani DiFranco’s label, Righteous Babe Records. Nolan has leant her talents to projects with Joy Oladokun, Katie Pruitt, Lydia Luce, etc.

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The 18th annual ASCAP Experience covered panels on the dynamics of collaboration, hitmaking songwriting advice, social listening, navigating A.I., 50 years of Hip-Hop, etc. Pictured (l-r): Paul Williams, Hitmaka, Anna Waronker, Steph Jones, Sarah Hudson, James Fauntleroy, Kristin Robinson.

in all songs because they’re familiar, they’re universal.”