Music Business UK – Q2 2021 by musicbizworldwide

Q2 2021

IF YOU LOVE MUSIC SHOW LOVE TO MUSICIANS. FAIRNESS, TRANSPARENCY AND SERVICE SINCE 2008.

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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9 AT THE DE VERE GRAND CONNAUGHT ROOMS, LONDON WC2

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In this issue... 14

Alec & Alex Boateng

The BRIT Awards 2021

Joe Kentish

Dipesh Parmar

Sandy Dworniak

Mike Smith

Rudimental

Keith Harris

Adam Barker

Jess Kinn

0207 Def Jam

Warner Records

Ministry Of Sound

This Much Talent

Downtown Music Services

Major Toms

Did Ya Know

Universal Music UK

One Fiinix Live

In service of YOU.

downtownmusic.com

Contributors 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.

ALEX ROBBINS

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 Alex Boateng, the Co-President of 0207 Def Jam, in our exclusive interview.

EAMONN FORDE

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.

MURRAY STASSEN

SAMMY ANDREWS

RHIAN JONES

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 Jess Kinn.

Sammy Andrews is the founder and CEO of London-headquartered creative agency, Deviate Digital. Based in Tileyard, Deviate provides services to artist and industry clients including high-level digital strategies through to marketing, training, media buying and data insights/analysis. Andrews is also a board member of the Music Managers’ Forum (MMF).

Rhian Jones is a respected freelance journalist who often focuses on the music industry. In addition to writing regularly for MBUK and Hits Daily Double, she is a Contributing Editor for Music Business Worldwide. In this issue, Jones interviews Rudimental – all about their business successes and plans with Major Toms – as well as Sandy Dworniak.

WELCOME

EDITOR’S LETTER There are a few viewpoints put forth on the role of record labels in this issue of Music Business UK that are worth your time and consideration. Alex Boateng, for example, the new coPresident of 0207 Def Jam at Universal, talks of establishing a company where artists know and appreciate exactly what each member of staff has contributed to their projects. His twin brother and co-President at the label, Alec, discusses how things can get twisted when this delineation becomes blurred. “I’ve literally seen artists arguing with executives on the phone about what role they’ve each played in that artist’s own career,” he says. “That is mad.” Alec stipulates that 0207 Def Jam’s leaders will work hard to avoid the kind of environments within record companies that “create paranoia or anxiety in staff members who feel they have to present their value, all the time, to whoever their boss is”. Such uncomfortable job-justifying is ultimately rooted in uncertainty over the precise value that label employees believe they are delivering to artists. Now, there is a new narrative in the music industry that suggests the Boatengs’ vision (of label staff members being certain of, and confident in, their individual contributions) is only going to become more important in the years ahead. Mention the concept of fan-funding – of audiences directly financing artists – to many execs in this business, and they’ll tell you it has never worked, and will never work. They’re wrong. Naysayers might nod to German fanfunding startup Sellaband, which was founded in 2006 and raised $5m before going bankrupt in 2010. But modern fan-funding platforms look very different, and are starting to pose a real threat to record company financing models. Ditto Music CEO, Lee Parsons, has just raised $6.5 million for his blockchain-based service Opulous, which enables artists to sell fractional

Tim Ingham

“Mention fanfunding to many execs in this business, and they’ll tell you it will never work. They’re wrong.”

pieces of their copyrights to fans via NFTs. Those fans are subsequently financially motivated, via the royalties they’re earning, to promote the artist they’ve invested in on social media and beyond. (Opulous also enables artists to sell non-copyright goodies and VIP experiences as NFTs.) Some contemporary record labels are running towards, rather than away from, fanfunding models. Another startup, Swedishborn Corite, recently attracted a significant investment from L.A Reid and Charles Goldstuck’s HitCo – the Los Angeles-based label that last year broke the worldwide smash Roses by Saint Jhn. Corite enables fans to make monetary investments in artists, before getting a royalty return for an agreed (but limited) number of years. Reid believes the company is simply “revolutionary”. Pie in the sky? Nope. The fundamentals of the fan-funding model are actually already massive in the music industry – albeit via the back door. When BTS’s home Big Hit (now HYBE) went public in South Korea in October last year, swathes of BTS’s online ARMY fanbase bought shares in the company. That same company saw its market cap soar to $9 billion in June 2021 – up 10% on HYBE’s equivalent valuation when it floated on the stock exchange. The reason for this share price rally? The global chart success of BTS’s new single Butter, a US No.1. Butter’s chart performance drove significant market confidence, both in HYBE and in the enduring commercial appeal of its star act. But who was behind the wheel of Butter’s enviable achievements? Yep: the same BTS ARMY members who invested in HYBE themselves last year. This is the fan-funding model in action. With Butter, BTS’s ARMY skilfully gamed streaming platforms around the globe. It got their idols to the top of the charts – while also proving a nice return on investment.

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Brothers

GONNA WORK IT OUT

Photo: Olivia Rose

There’s a new UK major label in town. Not a sub-label; not an imprint. A fullyfledged, frontline, priority record company at Universal Music Group. 0207 Def Jam is being run by co-Presidents Alec and Alex Boateng – who happen to be twin siblings. Its first signing was some guy called Stormzy. Its philosophy, as decreed by Rick Rubin, is to “make things that have never worked, work”. The Boatengs tell Music Business UK about their roots, their industry experiences – and about the kind of record label they want to build, and definitely don’t want to build... 15

‘IT’S GOT TO BE REAL, BECAUSE ARTISTS ARE COMING IN YOUR BUILDINGS AND SEEING IT’ In the first of two interviews with the UK music industry’s most influential twins, we meet Alex Boateng – a live-wire, independently-minded leader who’s ready to establish a very different kind of major record company at 0207 Def Jam… In a different world, Alex Boateng could still be working in the office furniture industry. Actually, scratch that; it doesn’t sufficiently convey the mundanity. He could still be inputting data into spreadsheets in the office furniture industry. This was just one of a handful of pursuits Boateng tended to during a “mad period” in his late teens, as he wrestled with the vast unlikelihood that he could ever earn a living wage from working in music. After being “kicked out of college for misbehaving” in South London, Boateng finished his A Levels in a girls’ school nearer to his native Bethnal Green and Bow. At the same time, he was DJ’ing at local house parties with his brother, while moving in circles connected to MCs (from Wiley to Dizzee, Pay As U Go Cartel and more) who were taking their first steps towards mainstream recognition. “Maybe it’s because I’m a twin, and you always feel like you need to do something unique,” he says. ”But when everyone was [DJ’ing] garage and grime, me and Alec decided to play hip-hop and R&B. We got bookings because the whole party would be grime – but when you wanted the girls to get up and dance, it’s the R&B dude you call!” Agitated about and unsure of his future, Boateng eventually signed up to help out at an orphanage in India through the charity HOPE worldwide (“the first time I ever got on a plane”), but not before a pivotal moment in his relationship with the commerce of entertainment. “Someone gave me £20 to DJ, and I couldn’t believe it,” he says. “That was my first ever money from the music business. It was surreal.” “That period was so tied up in my

identity,” he adds. “It was frustrating not being able to see a route into the business side of music. It’s that thing of what you see, you can be.” Then two momentous things changed. The first saw Boateng enrol at Middlesex University to study marketing, where he found he had a natural talent for the discipline (one that would soon prove especially helpful for some of the East London MCs he grew up with). The second came via his twin brother, Alec, who raised money via the Prince’s Trust for he and Alex to create a mixtape, Split Mic (2004), featuring the cream of the aboutto-explode UK scene at the time – from

Stryder, Drake, The Weeknd and Nicki Minaj, while A&R’ing music for artists including JP Cooper, Sean Paul, Jack Steadman of Bombay Bicycle Club, Jessie J, Dizzee Rascal, Donae’o and Big Shaq. Before going full-time at Island, there were stints as a producer at BBC Radio 1Xtra, and running his own marketing agency, Angles, with 1Xtra DJ, G Money, which worked on projects for Dizzee Rascal (at XL), Ms. Dynamite and more. Alex, just like his brother, is taking the responsibility of 0207 Def Jam – and what it means to a new generation of British music executives – seriously. As the GhanaianBrit tells Music Business UK: “Our mum worked in clothes-making, and our dad worked in security, even though he was a qualified accountant. After they came over [to the UK] it was needs-must, rather than following a dream. “I guess what Alec and I are doing now, and what we achieve from here, is a manifestation of why they came over in the first place…”

“All that matters is that when the person presses play, it’s good.”

Kano to Ty, Estelle and Lethal Bizzle. Split Mic was an underground smash, and, as you’re about to learn, many doors flew open as a result. Today, Alec and Alex Boateng have just become co-Presidents of 0207 Def Jam at Universal Music, where they’ve already hired a staff of more than 20 people, with a roster that includes Stormzy plus emerging talent like Potter Payper and singer songwriter Debbie. For Alex, his path to running 0207 Def Jam included 10 years at Island Records UK, which he joined in 2010, and where he became President of the label’s Urban Division in 2018. At Island, he handled marketing campaign launches for Tinchy

Other than being paid £20 to DJ, what was your first experience of the business side of music? I was DJ’ing for my friend, Tor/Isatta Sheriff, and then she got signed by Ferdy [Unger-Hamilton] at Go! Beat. I remember going to the Go! Beat office and thinking: ‘Whoa!’ She got signed for what at the time felt like an insane amount of money. That was when I met Ferdy and I’ll always rate him because he remembered me from then on. I was talking to my brother about this the other day: The obvious thing to do there, with Ferdy, would have been to ask for work experience. But where we

Photo: Olivia Rose

The 0207 Def Jam launch team: (L-R): Back: Jackie Eyewe, Amy Tettey, Heidi Jacob, Alex Boateng. Front: Wretch 32, Alec Boateng, Char Grant

were from, unless you’re getting paid, or you’re hustling in some way, you can’t do that. Whereas if you’re someone from a different background, with parents who can afford to pay your rent, it opens up different options. It was when I went to uni that things started exploding in terms of MCs getting signed, especially in our corner of East. It was Dizzee, Wiley, Lethal Bizzle, Kano, pirate radio was poppin’. And we’d grown up around all these people. How transformational was the Split Mic project around this time? We, a team including Tim from Tim & Barry, DJ Hains and others, had no beats, no instrumentals – we didn’t even know what A&R was. But we thought let’s just get all these MCs on a project. This was a time where people are shottin’, making 18

thousands off white label vinyl. So we made the mixtape, and then it proper kicked off – we sold out in all the shops. Alec was getting a lot of emails, and one of them was from Ministry of Sound, offering him an A&R job. So he dropped out of uni for that. Then 1Xtra called us up to do an interview [about Split Mic]. They love how my brother sounds; he gets a show there, and I get a job as a producer. Around that period was the first time I went into Universal. When I came out I was a bit like, ‘Nah labels aren’t for us, man; it’s too different. I’m gonna go back to the street thing.’ But that was probably masking a lot of insecurity. I’d gone into this building, big American acts on the walls, really high ceilings; I was intimidated, to be honest. I was talking to people, there’s no eye contact, they’re not really taking me seriously.

But I also knew that where I’d grown up was where the real excitement was coming from; that’s the music industry to me – being in a rave and Dizzee picking up the mic, everyone goes mad, hip-hop and dancehall playing. And then I go to where I’m told the money is, and it’s a completely different world. I just didn’t feel like I would fit in. So I made an early decision: ‘I’m never going to end up here. I’m going to be on the outside and work out my own thing.’ That wasn’t to be your destiny... The company thing [Angles] was getting tough – we’d done some great things with Dizzee and XL and others, but there came a point I couldn’t just rely on that plus DJ’ing for an income. So I was in fullon hustle mode. I’d grown in confidence and [the music scene] was really poppin’

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off, with Dizzee winning the Mercury Prize [in 2003], MCs starting to get Top 10s, and British black music becoming really distinctive. I started going to labels and being like, ‘There’s a gap in what you’re doing.’ Now I look back, you might say that was arrogance, but it wasn’t – I knew there were definitely places that I could reach that the people in those buildings couldn’t. At the same time, I was DJ’ing for Tinie Tempah and Tinchy [Stryder] on their tours. I did some consultancy for Polydor and Atlantic, and that suited me; I didn’t want to go in [a label] and sit there every day. I wanted to bring something clear and tangible. But my friend Ben Scarrs had signed Tinchy to Island Records; I started talking to them, explaining the gaps on what they could do to help Tinch really blow up. And Sarah Boorman, who at that time was Island [UK]’s Head of Marketing, was like: ‘We should get you in more frequently.’ I was working for Urban Development [UD] at the time. I started at Island two days a week, and ended up being there for 10 years. When you joined the label, Darcus Beese was Island’s co-President, and later its sole President. Looking back, how significant was it for you to have a black executive running that company? Mad significant. Just the fact Darcus existed; I didn’t even interact with him too much for the first few years. That plus the fact you had Tinchy, Erykah Badu, Lil Wayne, Akon, Ca$h Money and Kelly Rowland [on Island UK] at the time meant, culturally, it felt like a safe journey into that machine. And then obviously Tinch exploded, so there was success attached to it all. And as we know, everyone was friendly to and excited about our culture when it was bringing success; the challenge that always happened at that time was unless you were [having chart success with black music] people didn’t really care about it, or give it the priority, resource or focus that it deserved. I learned so much at Island at that time, just from osmosis. Look at the team in a

Alex Boateng and Darcus Beese, pictured at Island in 2017

casual label meeting: You had Ted [Cockle] and Darcus running it, as well as Nick Shymansky [former Amy Winehouse manager], Nick Huggett [who signed Adele at XL], Ben Scarrs [now manager / label owner of Neighbourhood], Louis [Bloom, now Island UK President], Tom [March], Ben Mortimer [Polydor], Colin Batsa [Virgin Music UK]... all at one label!

How do you get from not wanting to sit in a label every day to running Island’s Urban division? One great thing about Island back then is it was probably the most unorthodox [major] label, particularly around the time when I started the Urban division. I used to go to Darcus and David Joseph with some wild stuff, and they never said no, 19

well, only sometimes! We did a movie, invested in theatre/books, on top of working with some great artists. This is probably a bit weird for people to get their head around, but at any point at Island, I was [prepared] to leave. As amazing as it was, I was never attached to it in that way. I didn’t want to become Head of Marketing, I didn’t want to become Head of A&R; I didn’t want to be [restricted] to career paths that were traditional. I’ve never cared about boundaries like that; I think at times the music industry does it too much. Like, ‘Are you at this level? Well then you can’t talk to this person. You can’t sign artists.’ Who cares! All that matters is that when the person presses play, it’s good. No one’s going to say when they hear a tune, ‘Oh, so the person behind the artist on this, were they in the marketing or the A&R team?’ It doesn’t matter! I needed that freedom, and that’s something I’m trying to maintain now with 0207 Def Jam. What did you learn running your own division at Island? It was a chance to create a space for people to be undiluted versions of themselves. If there was some young person in a hoodie coming into the Island building, everyone knew they were probably coming to sit in my office. Sometimes that was a work experience kid, sometimes it might have been Big Shaq, sometimes it might have been Stormzy. On one visit I played [Stormzy] a Nick Jonas single and he jumped on the remix to everyone’s surprise. Find it – tune! It was always my subconscious dream to create a space where no one’s saying, ‘What’s the difference between a mixtape and an album?’ or, ‘What does he mean in that rap?’ I ain’t got time for that. It was like, the gap between what’s going on on the street – in youth culture – and in here needs to shrink. You felt that gap working with labels during your career? I had to over-explain stuff to people who 20

had authority. So I always thought: if I ever get authority, that’s not going to happen. There’s going to be a shorter distance between authenticity and business. Some might say that when a genre of music becomes a commercial heavyweight, it’s kind of the duty of the head of a label to ensure they understand it. 100%. Some of the questions I’ve been asked at times make me laugh. Frustrating though. You get to the point where you’re like: ‘I know what success – or not success – is going to mean for this artist’s life, and you’re not taking it seriously.’ Leadership has a responsibility in that, and it’s not about your position or getting paid more. You have to appreciate how important your decisions are. It’s like,

much does all that really matter? There are clearly people who have had hits and sold records, and that may not be just down to [their] music or talent. At 0207 Def Jam, we want to be around real talent. We want music that people are still playing years later, that changed people’s lives, and that changed the artist’s life. Sitting in label meetings trying to attach ourselves to something that went viral to impress other people in the room? Nah. That’s not our vibe. We’ve got a responsibility to change the narrative. Hopefully we can bring a different perspective or a little less ego to things. Why do you say you have a responsibility? I think about the younger version of me. I think about the same kids from where I’m from that are going into labels that could be feeling intimidated. And I think about the artists that want somewhere safe, to know that the people at their label are ‘it’s not about me – it’s about you’ people. I’m not really into interviews, but the main reason I wanted to sit down with you to do this is the hope that a younger version of me can somehow benefit. Coming up in the industry it was hard to see and hear from people from similar backgrounds to myself, but things are changing and I need to play my part. At 0207 Def Jam, we’re not going to be chasing deals. The industry can have real challenges being able to quantify and make tangible what it is we offer to artists because artists can get a certain level of success independently. [At 0207] we’ve been digging deep on that, so we have a real clarity on who we are and what we offer. So that our artists can tell you what the A&R team did to make their record a hit, and what the marketing team did to make a difference. A lot of artists can’t do that – all they get to remember is the cheque, the signing picture, and the handshake.

“We want to top the charts, but we also remember Mr. Blobby went to No.1...” music ain’t life or death... but also it is life or death for many young [artists]. That’s the reality. It’s their one shot. You sound like you’re determined to focus on artists, and not get distracted by industry politics, at 0207 Def Jam. Yes. There’s probably going to be a bit of that going on at Universal, with [0207] being in the building and with me leaving Island and Alec leaving Atlantic – blah blah blah. We don’t care, we really don’t care, what other labels are doing. We’re competing for our audience’s attention, and that means we’re competing against Netflix, Snapchat, TikTok. So why would we waste time wondering what someone else is signing? Also, music isn’t a sport; it isn’t athletics where you ‘win’ something. That’s even the case with a No.1 record. We’re ambitious, and we want to be at the top of the charts – but we also remember that Mr. Blobby went to No.1. So at the end of the day, how

Ultimately, what do you want to achieve at 0207 Def Jam? There’s two main goals for the company: the best art, and everyone we work with being

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Photo: Olivia Rose

Potter Payper

the best version of themselves. Especially our team. If we do that, we can’t lose. I want to have a team of people that are confident when talking to the artist because it’s not just about: ‘We’re going to give you a deal and get more market share.’ When the record’s out, we want the artist to be able to point to [each team member] and say, ‘You helped me with that, you helped me with that.’ That’s the vision. You put together a ‘My Manifesto’ piece for Music Business UK a while back. Two things you wanted to see in the business were more female A&Rs, and more diversity in higher positions. How is the industry progressing on those points? Progress is being made. But more important than these things changing is people understanding why they need to change. You’re not just ticking a box in making sure you have diverse perspectives in an A&R meeting; you are enhancing the conversation around the art. If you’re just hiring one type of person, you’re going to miss out on sensitivity to certain things in the record. If everyone around you looks like you, you’re not going to deliver the best service to the artist. Our Director of A&R [at 0207 Def Jam], Char Grant, is female, incredible, and doing an amazing job. And this isn’t just a gender thing – all types of diversity, including neurodiversity, really matters. There were about five points in my career where I probably would have left [the music industry] if I wasn’t a hustler. And now I’m a label President, which is sick. But I wonder how many other people that could have been label Presidents ended up leaving, because there wasn’t that understanding around them. It’s no accident that I saw Darcus all those years ago and today I feel confident enough to step into this position. Even little things [with Darcus as the President] meant that round the office I didn’t feel intimidated, to dress in a certain way or eat certain food – because I knew that the person at the top wasn’t going to take the mick out of it, which happens. I could be freely myself. 22

With Drake (and his BRIT)

Darcus’s dad was Darcus Howe, and he was real militant when it came to matters of anti-racism, or discrimination. I think about that, the role it all plays, and I think about, on reflection, if I didn’t have that [security gleaned from having Beese as a boss] would I have left quicker? Remember, as a kid I assumed: ‘I don’t see myself here.’ Why else are you excited to be joining 0207 Def Jam? The industry now is so fragmented. When I first came into [labels], one or two phone calls could guarantee a certain level of success. You had X Factor, and you had Radio 1. Now it’s all changed completely. Those things are still important and could change the course of a campaign. But now if your team, your company, doesn’t reflect and understand all the places people consume art today, you’re losing. One of the sickest things about now is I’m not the most important person in the room – there might be an assistant with 10,000 followers who will tear your company apart if you don’t handle things right. Some people are nervous and

uncomfortable about that, but I love it. All the walls have come down. You can’t hide anything, you can’t pretend; you can’t just put black squares up. It’s got to be real, because artists are coming into your buildings and seeing it. I’m comfortable because I’m working for a company that has allowed us to build that. But these are interesting times. I’m mainly excited about the music, and building a team, culture and service that will develop artists and help more people hear our output. Because despite all the important issues and challenges around this industry, that’s what it’s all about. David Joseph has empowered you to build the 0207 Def Jam label at Universal Music UK – but he’ll also know that many of the things you’re talking about here, the way artists will feel “safe” in your building, also equate to a competitive advantage. Completely man, and that’s why I rate David so much – he’s put real resources and time behind us and made a real effort to get this right.

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I wasn’t going to leave Island and [Alec] wasn’t going to leave Atlantic unless we could compete service-wise and build an undiluted culture. We didn’t want this label to go ‘through’ anybody; we didn’t want to be a label that looks like a label but actually isn’t. David was on it, and we all shared a vision. Years ago David told me, ‘I see you running a company one day.’ He believed it even when I didn’t. You mentioned your mum and dad before, how they worked in “needsmust” jobs to give you a better future. What did they say when you and Alec told them you were determined to work in music? They weren’t happy about it until the BBC paycheck came to the house [from 1Xtra]. It wasn’t even about the money, it was about the BBC – that’s what they watch every day on TV. Something that made sense to them connected to our world. The music industry felt very uncertain to them; they’d never seen anybody have a career in it. But it was the same for half the kids in my area with parents from another culture – they [the parents] didn’t understand what was happening so we all found solace in one another. And to be fair, that probably added to the tension that fuelled the creativity. And the knowledge that we had to make it work.

– you need to reach millions of people! Sometimes you have to go against that kind of thinking. I remember when I was going to sign Big Shaq, and someone said to me: ‘This is going to be the biggest mistake of your career.’ And I was like: ‘Sick. Because if you hate it, that means the right people are going to love it.’

Personally, what is the biggest thing you want to bring to 0207 Def Jam? I really want to be a good leader. I think sometimes people fall into [senior] positions at labels just because they’ve had success years ago, and that’s often not fair on the team, and it’s not fair on the artists. If I say to an artist or manager today we’re going to be really successful, I say it because I know how lucky we are to have this great team. And so far, even with the small roster that we’ve got, when I press play, everything is sick.

“Some people are uncomfortable, but I love it. All the walls have come down.” I know the team we’ve put around this music is going to treat it like it needs to be treated; they’re not going to waste brain space trying to beat another label or get market share, or keep the boss happy. Hopefully we do all that and the boss is happy – but that’s not our obsession. That thing of people in the music industry dropping their shoulders and breathing a sigh of relief because the boss likes the song. The song is horrible! He’s one stream

You seem very focused on running your own race. I’ve been in meetings where people have talked for two hours about what other labels are doing, and it’s just like – what?! Like, I need help on this record; I want to know if the key’s right, or if we should use this BV [backing vocal]. Sometimes people discuss [the competition] because it has a consequence on what you do, but a lot of the time it’s just to make themselves feel better, or because of wanting other people to fail We’ve got no interest in that. Forgive me for not being, ‘Hmm, where were we on the chart this week versus them?’ It’s like, mate, I was just playing football on the estate, and now I’m at Wembley – on the pitch! We’ve got the resources, we’ve got the talent, and we’ve got a sick team around us. All our energy is pointing in the right direction.

Alex on Alec: ‘He’s very empathetic’ We don’t know about you, but working with siblings? Sounds… fraught. Not for Alex and Alec Boateng. We ask the pair the same three questions about one another. Alex, up first: What is Alec’s best quality, both professionally and personally? He’s very empathetic. He really gets in other people’s shoes, especially artists. Ask anyone from Jess Glynne to Stormz to Burna – these are real

relationships outside just A&R. He is very sensitive to what they need. How come you feel you can work well together? We both know what we’re doing is bigger than both of us. And neither of us is like, ‘I want the glory.’ We’re here to serve artists. We both recognise that no one out there I’m talking about the fans – cares, really cares, what it is we do. And they’re the people who are going to

fuel artist careers and pay our bills. So rule No.1: if it doesn’t serve the artist, it doesn’t matter. How are you two most different? His head is bigger. My trainer collection is better. I’m our mum’s favourite. Plus... professionally he’s definitely more ‘pure’ A&R; once he gets into that process it’s top of his list before anything else, which is largely why the music he’s involved in is usually so good.

‘MUSIC IS SUPERNATURAL. THAT’S WHY I TAKE MY JOB SO SERIOUSLY’ For a minute there, Alec Boateng kept the whole music industry guessing on where he would be committing his future. He explains why he chose 0207 Def Jam and Universal Music UK – and why his entire life has been preparing him for this moment…

lec Boateng believes deeply in the power of music. A man of faith, he tells Music Business UK that “there isn’t much more important” in life than songs – and that, for him, they’re even somehow “tied into a deeper purpose”. Clearly, this is not an individual who got into A&R just for the points. The (literal) level of reverence Boateng has for music helps explain the startling level of success the 30-something has already racked up in his career in the British music industry. Prior to launching 0207 Def Jam with brother Alex Boateng earlier this year, Alec spent over seven years at Atlantic Records UK, working closely with stars such as Jess Glynne, Burna Boy and Rita Ora. It was during his tenure at Atlantic that Boateng befriended Stormzy, and became the superstar British MC’s trusted A&R wingman – on both the landmark independentlyreleased 2017 debut album, Gang Signs & Prayer, and its 2019 follow-up, Heavy Is The Head. Both comfortably went Platinum. Boateng won an A&R Award in 2019 for his work with contemporary black British music, an achievement voted for by his peers. (Alec’s tenure at Atlantic also pulled him into the controversy surrounding the exit of his boss, Ben Cook, that same year – something we get into below.) Prior to joining Atlantic in 2013, Boateng ran a successful independent – Levels Ent – with his now sadly departed friend, Richard Antwi. The duo developed talent including Wretch 32 (in a JV with Ministry of Sound) while working with acts including Popcaan and Gyptian. Boateng began his career in-house at Ministry Of Sound, having made his name

by compiling and releasing the Split Mic EP in 2004, featuring a wealth of premier British MCs. (That mixtape not only landed Alec his first label job, but also led to him being hired as a presenter on BBC Radio 1Xtra, where he would continue to work for the next 16 years.) Today, at 0207 Def Jam, Boateng is assembling a roster that already includes Stormzy (for that much-anticipated third album) alongside other up-and-coming talent. The label’s A&R philosophy, Boateng insists, will be built on “timeless music [and] artists that matter”. And just

be in it to serve other people – to serve artists, mainly. There isn’t much in life that’s more important than music. People hearing artists’ art is essential, and carrying that in the best possible condition to the audience’s ears... that’s an amazing job, a real responsibility, and it’s something we have to do well. I’ve always had an emotional connection to the value and power of music. Some of it is tied into a deeper purpose thing. As life changes and you lose people, sometimes when you look at what remains, it’s just a song or a lyric that pushes a special emotional button only music can.

“There isn’t much in life that’s more important than music.”

like his brother, he’s feeling confident that success will follow. As he explains in our interview below, however, Alec’s rise through the UK industry wasn’t always a fairytale. In trying to get black British music prioritised within commercial organisations, he says, he faced barrier after barrier. The exact kind of barrier, in fact, that 0207 Def Jam is tailor-made to destroy... Let’s go back to the start: What do you think are the defining things from your childhood that still define how you treat people, and approach business? Faith is the big thing, and how that gives me a moral code. If you’re lucky enough to work in the music business, then in my humble opinion you should only

Sometimes music can actually trigger memories that you weren’t even aware existed. It’s supernatural. That’s why I take my job so seriously – something I might contribute, being even a small part of a song, it lives forever. That blows my mind.

What were you going to be if none of this ever happened? I was freakishly good at maths at school. So I thought I’d do accounting, maybe business, something in that area. I took a year out before uni, and started a job working for EMAP, which was the home of Kiss [FM]. I thought that in some way, that would bring me closer to a proper radio station, but I was in the accounts department. I lasted two weeks before I fell asleep and got escorted out the building [laughs]. Then I went to uni, and had this idea of putting together a compilation. My older brother went to college with Wiley and Target. And in my area, a boy I grew up with, Dizzee Rascal, was blowing up.

Photo: Olivia Rose

Photo: Misan Harriman

Stormzy signs to 0207 Def Jam. (L-R): Tobe Onwuka, Alec Boateng, Sir Lucian Grainge & Stormzy, Alex Boateng, David Joseph

Major Ace, RIP, was really the first garageinto-grime superstar from our area. I used to go round his house, ask him loads of questions about bookings and MC culture. He was the first MC I asked to be on the [Split Mic] mixtape. Then I went to the local council and gave it: ‘Ah, all us kids are bored and need somewhere to go. Can I have some funding for a studio?’ And via a Prince’s Trust scheme I got £1,800 for studio and CD costs. We then got all these [MCs] in and out for recording sessions, and then went round London collecting more freestyles from people who knew people. Split Mic blew up after it was released in 2004, during your first year of university. How did you get from there to A&R? We did a piece [on Split Mic] in ID Magazine. I left my email in the article, and five or six A&Rs contacted me. Two people who helped me at the time were 26

these photographers who documented grime culture, Tim and Barry. Tim was good friends with a guy called Richard Antwi, and said: ‘This guy’s a lawyer, you should go and see what advice he has for you.’ I went to meet Rich and we clicked right away. And from that moment on, he was always available, always consistent, always supportive. Rich explained there was a guy at Ministry who was very interested in the culture of garage and grime, and that was Ben Cook. Rich also introduced me to Glyn [Aikins], Darcus [Beese], Dan Stacey and others. I went to all these meetings and got asked 100 questions and asked a few of my own back, and then I went to meet Ben. And he was like: If you want a job, I’ll give you a job, but you’ve got to drop out of uni because this isn’t a part-time thing. You take that job and begin moonlighting as a 1Xtra presenter a month later. How

do things end up for you at Ministry? In 2006/2007, I got called into a room at Ministry and told: ‘We have to change your job.’ It was explained to me that the world I existed in no longer had value at the company. My role was changed to this consultancy thing; it was only a couple of months later I realised that was all actually a redundancy process. That’s a tough break for someone who quit university to dive into that job a year before. It was, but it taught me a lot of things. One of them being that who and what I am comes with conditional love on this side of the music industry. I realised: ‘Being black, being from this world, has a certain type of value only when there’s an economy around it. I’m going to have to ride that train, because there’s no consistency here. There’s no safety net.’ I was 23 and had only seen a handful of

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people who looked like me make a ‘record label job’ work. What was your mental response to that Ministry rejection? I still believed I was good at my job, and I still loved music. And to be fair to Ministry, they were never an artist-led label at the time. I’ve since discovered that the industry is lined with the corpses of people who were in my situation, who couldn’t hold on to [their label jobs] through drum & bass, or garage, or grime – whatever the hot sound was at the time. After Ministry, I started consulting at Sony Publishing. That came through Matt Chalk who is a force of nature and a great technical A&R who I learnt a huge amount from. More or less the first record I brought in [to Sony] was Rihanna Umbrella. I quickly learnt how to investigate unpublished records, and after I heard the Umbrella demo, I phoned the manager of Kuk Harrell in Atlanta, and discovered [Harrell was unsigned and] had a percentage of the record.

slowly developing this girl called Sadie Ama. I got a brilliant demo of hers called Fallin on the Radio 1 playlist, I got her in the 2007 BBC Sound Of… poll. Matt Chalk helped me out a bit with her but no-one else at Ministry called me back for about a year. At many points Richard [Antwi] committed to me existing. He always picked up the phone and always made the time to help me how and where he could, even through personal and professional issues. Because of that I feel like Rich played the biggest role in my industry career. I wouldn’t have stayed in the game if it wasn’t for him.

and even have those people returning his calls! A day with Rich could start with a meeting with the head of a label, into a lunch with an artist, to meeting up later to go to a grime rave, then leaving that grime rave to go to Stone Love vs. Bass Odyssey in the hood. And then we’d get up early the next day to work and go again. Rich said to me one day: ‘I want to start something new. I don’t believe you can just be a management company, or just a label, or just a publishing company in this new industry. I’m going to call it Levels; do you want to get involved?’ And I was like: ‘Rich, mate, I ain’t got a job. Of course I want to be involved!’ Then we signed a JV with Guy [Moot] at EMI for our [Levels] publishing company, and I was back on a wage.

“I wouldn’t have stayed in the game if it wasn’t for Richard Antwi.”

So you’re a junior UK publishing A&R consultant, who discovers and brings in a percentage of one of the biggest records on the planet. Were you aware of how seismic that was? No I wasn’t. Not until Rak [Sanghvi, then Sony Publishing UK boss] threw a party celebrating the signing. A few years later Rak and Matt Chalk took me to the Groucho and gave me a plaque. And it was a bit like, ‘Yeah, I mean, cool. But I only got about a few hundred pounds for a few months of work.’ I didn’t take any of it personally; I was there to scout, and that’s what I did. And other good things happened: I met Ed Howard who worked there, who is a cool guy and we obviously reconnected at Atlantic later on. After that experience at Sony, how did you stay in the game? I was still DJ’ing and presenting shows on 1Xtra, and I still had this £500 [per month] consultancy with Ministry. I was hanging in there because I was

Was anyone else helping you around this time? Salaam Remi. I barely remember how I connected to him; if anything, it would’ve been through my friend Amber Davis [then working at EMI Music Publishing]. But he gave me amazing advice that I’ve always carried. And Cameron McVey; he might not even remember me, but he made time for a session and it blew me away. I couldn’t believe I got one of my favorite producers of all time in Salaam and one of the UK’s most successful songwriters, Cameron, together with this artist [Sadie Ama]. That in itself gave me confidence. How did you and Richard then team up as partners at Levels? Rich was a G, and we all looked up to him. In the credits of Adele’s debut album she writes: ‘Thanks to Rich for spreading the word from before the beginning.’ And Richard was the beginning of so many things. It was so important for me to see someone, especially as a black man, who could pick up the phone and find a way to connect to execs, artists, or producers…

What was the first big breakthrough moment at Levels? One of the first things we published was Wearing My Rolex, by Wiley (2008) – which was the record that kicked off the belief that British black music could have hits in this generation. The guy who produced it, Bless Beats, is a friend of mine from my area. He came to our little Levels office with Wiley to play it to me the day after they made it. And I went: Oh my gosh, this is massive. At that time Levels only had a publishing and management company, not a label. [Boateng says he set up a meeting between Asylum, Bless Beats and Wiley, with a view to releasing the record as a Levels/ Asylum JV. In the end, it was a No.2 hit… on Asylum.] Around a year later, I get a call from Lohan [Presencer] at Ministry, and he says: ‘We really want to get back into records.’ That conversation eventually spun into a JV with Levels, and our first signing was Wretch 32, who was my favourite MC. Wretch was and is more than a rapper – he’s an artist, a songwriter, a brilliant performer and more. He was being managed by the amazing Zeon Richards. The first record we made together was Traktor, Wretch’s breakout hit, and we signed it to Ministry [via the JV] in July 2009 for £15k. 27

Wretch went on to have chart-topping hits, and Levels was a successful venture. Why did you ultimately decide to move into the world of major labels at Atlantic? One thing happened that changed a lot for me. That year [2011, when Wretch had three Top 5 hits and a Gold album] I said to Lohan: ‘It’s going to be amazing when Wretch gets nominated for the Brits.’ And he laughed. He said: ‘Alec, number one: We’re independent. And number two: Wretch is a rapper. It ain’t gonna happen.’ I didn’t see that as a criticism – he was giving me the harsh reality. But it made me think: ‘I don’t want to work with artists who are as good as this, and not have them celebrated as much as they deserve because of the situation they’re in. I’ve got to go understand this major label thing.’ I thought: ‘The next time I meet an artist who I believe is as great as Wretch, in whatever I’m able to provide, there are going to be no limitations.’ So it’s funny how talented and similar Wretch was to one of the next ambitious artists I met not long after [Stormzy].

I ended up joining Atlantic in May/June 2013; Max [Lousada] hired me, giving me my first major label job. One of the first artist meetings I had was Jess [Glynne]. It was me, her, Sam [Eldridge], and Max, and we were there for a couple of hours, talking about music, producers, voices etc. We all really hit it off. There was a quick run of success for Jess: Her features with Clean Bandit, Route 94, and Tinie Tempah all hit No.1. It was mad. Jess was an assistant for Kwame Kwaten at ATC not super long before the [Clean Bandit track was released]. She’d never even played a proper headline live show. We at Atlantic were sitting there looking like geniuses! But for both Briony [Turner] and I there was pressure to maintain the success. There was pressure on Jess too, to [develop] a live show, a profile, and to become a real artist proposition. She worked her arse off to get there. Sam [Eldridge] was brilliant, giving her the freedom and protection to

‘Who the hell is this?!’ First time I met him, he walked into Atlantic, and we had this free-flowing conversation about music and life which went on for hours. Stormz loved Wretch as an artist, and he was asking loads of questions about Wretch’s process, songs, producers, structures, studios, engineers, concepts. He also asked me loads of questions about Ed [Sheeran], and told me he had all these amazing ideas for songs he wants to make one day – one of which was Blinded By Your Grace. When did you know he was special? I don’t know anyone more in love with music than Stormz. He’s undeniably a great MC, a star, and he was always going to become a great writer. But one thing really stands out. Stormz had a mini-tour going on, and I went to the Manchester show which was at Gorilla. He was great but the show was a bit untidy, because Stormz had a DJ and a band, and he was trying to hop between the two – a very ambitious idea for someone at that stage of their career. I had a train to catch back to London, but I missed it, because Stormz said he’d speak to me after he’d spoken to his tour manager about the show. I swear he sat with that guy for two and a half hours, talking intensely about how they were going to fix the show and make it great. I knew that if he applied that seriousness to all areas of his career – which he did and does – his talent would do the rest and he’d go all the way.

“Everyone who said Stormzy couldn’t do it without them was wrong. He was right.”

So how do you end up at Atlantic? One of the people who made me want to go to Atlantic was Ed [Sheeran], who I’d known for a while – he even stayed on my sofa in 2009. Being around Ed, and then him signing to the person who gave me my first job [Ben Cook, who was at this point at Asylum/Atlantic], was fascinating. Ed was one of the first pop artists I’d seen truly understand the creative value of the black music scene. He knew that his relationships with Sian [Anderson], with JME, with Sway, with P Money, enabled him to add expertise, and to be embraced in what was then the most potent and exciting world in UK music. I don’t believe Ed Sheeran becomes Ed Sheeran without what the black music scene gave him. You could say he acknowledged and recognised the value of that [era’s] black British culture before any of the labels did. None of that takes anything away from Ed’s talent, by the way, which is phenomenal. 28

be herself, which the UK music industry on the label side hasn’t always excelled at, especially with female artists. Max was always involved from the start, and Briony is a brilliant A&R, so I knew with her and I working together the music was going to be great from that perspective. The Stormzy story was interesting because that groundbreaking debut album in 2017 was completely independent, but in the background, you were pulling A&R strings – including introducing him to Frazer T Smith. I came across Stormz in late 2013. Someone tweeted a video of him at like 2am: this urgent, hood, funny, cheeky MC with cold flows jumped out and I was like,

Didn’t you think about signing him to Atlantic Records? Yeah, but it was very obvious once Stormz’s good friend, the super-smart Tobe [Onwuka], started managing him that they had a whole new attitude towards the traditional music industry, and were building a business [#Merky] themselves. In many ways Stormzy’s debut album coming out on Atlantic would’ve got in the way of that. Is it correct that you introduced Stormzy to Ed Sheeran? First I got him together with Wretch in

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At Atlantic in 2017 with Cardi B, Ben Cook and Ed Sheeran

2014 on a remix of a Jacob Banks track. And after that Wretch was like: ‘That’s the guy right there. He’s got it.’ Stormz himself will be the first to say how important Wretch’s existence has been in his career. A few months later Ed messaged me and was like, ‘I heard you signed Stormzy.’ And I was like, ‘Nah. But you two should defo connect.’ We tried to arrange a time for them to meet up but Ed was away, but a while later [Sheeran] was back from something and messaged: ‘Bring him to my house?’ We hung out and those two just fell in love. As different as they seem to be, they’re kindred spirits and share so many human qualities. When you were helping Stormzy with A&R on an independent debut album, did you realise that you were directly helping create a project that was a threat to the market power of the major labels? Wasn’t that conflicting? Yes and no. No, because I’ve always understood my job to be nurturing artists

– that my service is to the art. If [major labels] don’t provide a marriage the artist needs, that doesn’t completely stop my job. And I’d be lying if I didn’t think [the relationship might eventually benefit] Atlantic, because Stormz was and is a hugely ambitious artist. Stormzy had the opportunity to make his debut album as his best self, in the right situation, independently, and everyone benefited from that. I’ve learnt more from Stormzy and Tobe about the future of music than I’ve learnt from the entire ‘professional’ music industry, to be honest. And what ultimately ended up happening off the back of all of that was his Glastonbury headline performance – after one album! Everyone who said Stormzy couldn’t do it without them was wrong. He was right. Stormzy did, of course, eventually sign to Atlantic Records UK for his second album via a #Merky JV. At that point, with you as a rising A&R star, Atlantic

With Jess Glynne and Stormzy at the BRIT Awards 2018

had never looked closer to black British music. And then the Ben Cook thing happened. Before we get into that, how did you rate Ben as an A&R during the time you worked with him? When I won the A&R Award [in 2019], I couldn’t accept it without thanking Ben. I really value A&R, so anyone who’s good at it, I hold highly. Ben understands, and can apply, the job of A&R better than anyone – in terms of knowing when an album’s incomplete, what needs an edit, if something’s under-produced. And he can identify stars. Via osmosis, I learnt a lot about A&R by being around him, both at Ministry and Atlantic. Let’s talk about his exit from Warner and Atlantic. How did that play out from your perspective? There was a picture, a screenshot, of Ben at this party years before that someone had shown to fellow members of staff, and those members of staff were understandably very upset. There was a lot of discussion and 29

the process went on for a while with many twists and turns, until Ben finally lost his job [in October 2019]. It was a difficult atmosphere, with the possibility of the picture just popping up anywhere. Fair play to those [employees] who were affected, we all still managed to get our heads down and deliver for the artists while this was going on. In hindsight there are a lot of ways it could’ve been handled better, and some apologies were made [to the Atlantic team] for that. Was the Ben thing the first race issue [in the UK music business] that needed action? Definitely not. Was it the first one I’ve seen go through a disciplinary process? Yes. It’s been nearly two years since it happened. In hindsight, what are your thoughts on it all? I’m disappointed at the fact it wasn’t the teachable moment it could’ve been. Had that happened, there may even have been the possibility Ben could still be in his job. A label boss dressing in blackface as a tribute to his favourite artist was really clumsy, and the lack of awareness of the offensiveness and racist history [of blackface] was the deeper problem. Blackness is not a commodity; it’s people’s proud reality. It’s my proud reality. In my humble opinion, the industrywide nervousness around talking about race and race issues was a big factor in how the Ben thing all played out. That’s much clearer to see in a post-George Floyd world – post the black squares and the funds. We should all just talk and listen more! What helps with those discussions is having more [diverse groups] of people in all rooms. We can see a lot of positive change across the whole industry in the short time since [2018]. Had that been the case back then, it might have allowed the Ben situation to be handled differently. You speak for no one but yourself. But do you see a way back for Ben Cook in the mainstream music industry? Of course. No one on earth is not going to want forgiveness for something one day. I spoke to Ben about what happened 30

Alec winning an A&R Award, voted for by his peers, in 2019

at the time and we got past that particular issue – he’s a human being who did something stupid. I think the world can move on from it. It’s the court of law and God that make the judgements that matter. I’m learning that we shouldn’t base too much on anything else in between in terms of how we treat people who make mistakes. You left Atlantic shortly after all of that, and were revealed earlier this year as the co-President of 0207 Def Jam. The setup there gives you the freedom to largely focus your time on A&R. It’s often said that being promoted to the sole President of a label can harm the ability of brilliant A&R people to continue to zone in on their biggest skill, because they’re distracted by all of the operational stuff. Completely; I’ve seen it happen to people I know well. I knew I had to shape my next move around what I’m best at – and I also had to make sure I wasn’t getting used as ‘the black PR solution’ to any situations.

I’m lucky that I learnt many great things from the best in the business, in every department, at Atlantic. Putting aside some of the issues there – which, by the way, weren’t and aren’t unique to Atlantic – so many people at that company were just really good at their job. I’ll never forget watching the [Ed Sheeran] Multiply campaign from the beginning; it was like, bloody hell – this is a military operation! Now, as 0207 Def Jam, we’re the newest major label. Some might think that comes with a certain level of pressure, but I don’t buy into that: I honestly believe we’re only as good as our artists and their music. And our artists are great, so if we can make sure they are working at their best, we will have success. How did you tempt Stormzy over to 0207 Def Jam? It was just like, ‘Let’s carry on.’ I sat Stormz and Tobe down and told them what was happening, and they just cracked up. They were like, ‘You’re bold, mate!’ And then it

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was, ‘This is cold; let’s do it.’ That was one conversation, we maybe spoke about it once or twice after. The lawyers did their thing and then a few months later it’s us, Alex, Lucian and David in the signing photo. Stormzy’s got the same ambition now as he had all that time ago when I first met him. What’s most important to fulfilling that ambition is the music, the art. That does 90% of the work. And that’s ultimately the case with all the campaigns I’ve ever seen do well in this industry.

has been there 10 years, and he’s managed to survive it and stay sane. So maybe I’ll be ok [laughs]? One big thing for me was after Glastonbury [2019], David [Joseph] sent Stormzy a handwritten letter, very heartfelt and human, thanking him and congratulating him on this massively important cultural moment. He included a print of a record they had both been talking

label life. The level of self-importance in this business is crazy sometimes; I’ve literally seen artists arguing with executives on the phone about what role they’ve each played in that artist’s own career. That is mad. I get it, though: I think a lot of that is to do with environments at major labels creating paranoia or anxiety in staff members, who feel they have to present their value, all the time, to whoever their boss is. The form of leadership we want to build puts no value on that type of atmosphere. For our team it’s like, please don’t keep telling everybody what you did on a project, or why you’re so good at your job – prove it, do it. Let’s really add value. We’re going to be small and intimate enough as a team to be able to know that stuff anyway, especially from the way the artists feel about our input.

“No one on this earth is not going to want forgiveness for something one day.”

You’re jumping into business with David Joseph at Universal. Why do you think that relationship will work? I always admired the way David believed in Alex [Boateng] and encouraged and empowered him whenever they interacted. The things Alex heard from David, that level of belief, I never heard about myself in the companies I worked for. All you hear about Universal from the outside is how competitive it is, how it’s dog-eat-dog. When people at Atlantic and Warner found out I was going, they would say: ‘You’ll hate it there! They [the Universal labels] try to kill each other!’ And it’s like, well, my twin brother

about months before at the Brits. I know now for a fact that David thought Stormzy was in a long-term deal with Atlantic when he did that. He just did it to recognise the achievement, and I really respected it. What do you definitely not want 0207 Def Jam to be? I just want to do our best to treat people well. To be void of some of the egoled approach that can come with major

Above anything else, what do you want to achieve with the label? Timeless music, artists that matter, and the idea that people liked us existing. That’s it. And… I’m trying to find the right way to say this. And to do it without being a knob. There. I know it’s the music industry, but you really, really don’t have to be a knob. n

Alec on Alex: ‘We have similar values’ Music Business UK asked the two new co-Presidents of 0207 Def Jam – twin brothers Alec and Alex – the same questions about one another. Over to Alec... What’s Alex’s best quality, personally and professionally? Balance. It’s an underrated quality. It gives him a good perspective on things. In the world we exist in, there’s a lot of noise, so it’s important to have consistent spirits around you. What’s the biggest difference between you and your brother?

Maybe I’m a bit more sensitive; I take things to heart more than he does. I’m the emotional one! If you care about projects when you work at major labels, you have to beat away the noise, and that means being a bit of a politician, keeping the right people happy. That’s one of the things I’ve admired about Alex; he’s not only survived that environment, he never seemed stressed by it, his character didn’t change, and he remained principled. How come you feel you can work well together? Also, is there anything in the idea of telepathy

between twins? Nah. I broke my leg playing football when we were kids and he laughed. So aged 12, I knew the ‘shared pain’ thing was a myth! We have similar values. We’ve both developed similar perspectives on what’s important – and we appreciate we’re now doing something that’s important. We’ve both got the same destination in the satnav, basically – whatever way we get there, we’re gonna get there. For both of us, the artist and their art, plus the experiences of the people who work with us, is paramount.

WINNERS

7 BRIT AWARDS WITH GLOBAL ICON, MASTERCARD ALBUM, RISING STAR, FEMALE SOLO ARTIST,

GLOBAL ICON

TAYLOR SWIFT

INTERNATIONAL GROUP, INTERNATIONAL FEMALE SOLO ARTIST AND BRITISH SINGLE.

RISING STAR

GRIFF

HAIM INTERNATIONAL GROUP

INTERNATIONAL FEMALE

BILLIE EILISH HARRY STYLES BRITISH SINGLE - WATERMELON SUGAR (CO-WRITTEN BY KID HARPOON AND MITCH ROWLAND)

1 (PHOTO BY KELIA ANNE MACCLUSKEY)

NOMINEES ARIANA GRANDE

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

BURNA BOY

FRED GIBSON

GRACEY

HEADIE ONE

JESSIE WARE

JOEL CORRY

S1MBA

PERFORMERS COLDPLAY

DUA LIPA (TAP MUSIC)

HEADIE ONE

GRIFF

YEARS AND YEARS & ELTON JOHN UMPG WOULD LIKE TO CONGRATULATE ALL OF OUR WINNERS, NOMINEES AND PERFORMERS AT THE 2021 BRIT AWARDS.

The BRIT Awards 2021 A BRITs like no other took place at the O2 on May 11. It was one of the first big music events to be held as the UK tentatively poked its head out of COVID restrictions – and it was something of a triumph. Helmed by Universal Music’s Selina Webb and Rebecca Allen, it showcased a diverse range of emerging talents, and acknowledged the achievements of artists including Dua Lipa, Little Mix, Arlo Parks and Taylor Swift...

All pictures: John Marshall/JMEnternational

Little Mix made history, Coldplay kicked things off, Arlo Parks was named Breakthrough Artist, while HAIM won Best International Group.

GALLERY

Dua Lipa picked up two of the night’s big awards, while Taylor Swift was hailed as a Global Icon.

Olivia Rodrigo performed Driver’s License, while Harry Styles collected an award for Best Single for the ever-catchy Watermelon Smile.

The BRITs audience of 4,000 on the night included 2,500 key workers. And government testing after showed zero COVID cases resulted from the event.

GALLERY

BRITs: all the winners Album of the Year (Presented by Lewis Capaldi) Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia Best Single (Presented by Boy George) Harry Styles – Watermelon Sugar Male Solo Artist (Presented by Kurupt FM) J Hus Female Solo Artist (Presented by Mabel and MNEK) Dua Lipa British Group (Presented by Adam Lambert and Olly Murs) Little Mix Breakthrough Artist (Presented by Clara Amfo and Maya Jama) Arlo Parks International Male Solo Artist (Presented by Michelle Obama) The Weeknd International Female Solo Artist (Presented by Annie Mac) Billie Eilish International Group (Presented by Billy Porter) HAIM Global Icon Award (Presented by Maisie Williams) Taylor Swift BRITs RISING STAR (supported by BBC Radio 1) (Presented by Celeste) Griff

There were nine performances on the night, six of which were able to be staged live in the O2 arena. Coldplay performed live... on the River Thames.

Rag ‘n’ Bone Man ‘n’ Pink closed the show; Little Mix collected the Best Group award; Griff was the night’s Rising Star winner. Headie One (pictured on opposite page) performed two tracks, the first with AJ Tracey and the second with Young T & Bugsey.

GALLERY

Headie One

Get to know…

Photo: Billal Taright

JOE KENTISH

FEATURE As restaurants open up (and, please, for all that is good and holy, stay open), there’s one individual who might just find himself invited to more power-player lunches than anyone else in the UK music industry this summer: Joe Kentish. That’s because, as of 1 June, he has been the President of Warner Records UK, taking over the reins from his friend, Phil Christie (who has decided to step away from the record company later this year following half a decade of hits). Here, Music Business UK presents seven key facts about Kentish’s life, career, and A&R philosophy... 1) His industry break came via Gorillaz

2) Jamie Nelson saw the potential in him early on

Out of University, Kentish was a co-founder of the London-based indie label, Middlerow Records. A tastemaker in UK garage, Middlerow’s Ladbroke Grove studio just-so-happened to be adjacent to something life-changing. “Damon Albarn’s studio was next door and he was doing this strange side project with animated characters,” Kentish told Music Business UK in 2019. “[Damon] said, ‘I’ve just finished this record by a sort of concept band that we’re going to call Gorillaz, do you guys want to remix any of these tracks?’” One of Middlerow’s producers, Ed Case, picked Clint Eastwood, and remixed it with Sweetie Irie. Middlerow put out the white label of the record, and it exploded. From there, Kentish got a consultancy A&R gig with Parlophone, and he was on his way.

These days, Jamie Nelson is VP of A&R for BMG’s frontline record business. But, back in the noughties, he was at Parlophone, heading up its Innocent imprint. Nelson decided to hire Kentish full-time at Parlophone, and Kentish fully credits him for the foundations of what came next. “Jamie was an incredible mentor,” Kentish told MBUK in 2019. “He was always empowering me and he had such a great understanding of the A&R process. He would always encourage me to make decisions, and that was invaluable. “Jamie knew that at the heart of being a really good A&R person is the ability – and willingness – to make creative decisions, to trust your judgment. To learn by sometimes making wrong decisions, but to take responsibility for the choices you make.”

Gorillaz

who some are now tipping for a big future over the Pond. But when Music Business Worldwide recently asked Kentish if there was a specific way to tailor British music to give it the best chance of success in the US, he wasn’t having it. “I think all of that is an absolute red herring,” he said. “Every time I hear an A&R person talk about making a record for America I roll my eyes. I can’t think of a recipe to make a worse record than to approach [A&R] like that.” Added Kentish: “It’s like, don’t make records that other people might like – make records that you think are great.”

5) But he does believe in the power of doubt

3) His father was a Mangrove Nine hero – alongside Darcus Beese’s parents The Mangrove was an all-night restaurant in Notting Hill that opened in 1968, and was well-known for its Caribbean cooking. So much so, it was visited by sixties icons like Jimi Hendrix, Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye. But in December 1969, Kensington & Chelsea council told the restaurant’s owner, Frank Crichlow, he had to shut at 11pm each night, removing his licence to do otherwise. The restaurant was then regularly targeted by police, amid a reported upsurge in police harassment of Black people in the area. A subsequent organised protest in August 1970, which began outside the Mangrove, led to clashes between protesters and the police, and the arrest of the ‘Mangrove Nine’ – who included both Darcus Beese’s parents (Barbara Beese and Darcus Howe) and Joe Kentish’s father (Rothwell ‘Roddy’ Kentish). The Mangrove Nine went on trial at the Old Bailey in 1971, and were all famously acquitted of the main charges of incitement to riot. Roddy Kentish faced a retrial on a specific charge relating to the protest, however, and was subsequently sentenced to 36 months in prison. Question marks remain over whether Kentish – a respected community leader who died in 2019 – even attended the 1970 protest in the first place.

4) He doesn’t believe in ‘making records for America’ Joe Kentish knows what it is to have hits in the USA. Six years ago at Warner Records, he signed (and has since developed) Dua Lipa, who’s won three Grammys and released two Platinum-selling albums in the States. Kentish also signed BRIT winner Griff, 46

Kentish admits his A&R process, even on Dua Lipa’s megasuccessful Future Nostalgia album, involved more than a little second guessing. “You should doubt yourself now and again when you’re helping great people make records, because if you don’t question yourself, you’re going to make serious mistakes and lead people down the wrong path,” he says. “At the same time, your job is to keep as much of that [doubt] as possible away from the artists, shelter them from it, so they are on a forward trajectory and feel free to create.”

6) He wasn’t supposed to sign Dua Lipa - but he did anyway In his 2019 MBUK interview, Kentish recalled signing Dua Lipa following a fateful meeting with Ben Mawson at Tap Management. Thing is, Kentish wasn’t at that meeting to sign anyone… initially. He explained: “I was there for a general meeting, the conversation got onto Dua and [Mawson] played me a song. I was like, ‘She’s great, I’d love to meet her.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, but she’s not doing any label meetings; we’re not quite ready to show her to labels yet.’ “Then, just by chance, [Mawson] took a phone call and when he finished he said, ‘You’re in luck, she needs to come here and sign something, so you are going to meet her.’ “She walked into the room and had an incredible energy to her. I just thought that she was exactly the type of artist that we wanted to work with at the label. The offer went straight in and we were able to wrap it up relatively quickly.”

7) He’s a big fan of the man he’s succeeding at Warner Records Kentish joined Warner Records (then Warner Bros Records) in 2014 as Senior A&R Manager, working under the then-Head of A&R, Phil Christie. Christie was subsequently named President of Warner Bros, and has led the label to impressive levels of success via acts like

FEATURE

Photo: Markus Pritzi

Dua Lipa signed to Warner Records via Joe Kentish in summer 2015

Dua Lipa, Liam Gallagher, Royal Blood, Griff, and Pa Salieu. Kentish first worked with Christie all the way back at the start of his major label career at Innocent/Parlophone, where Christie was a TV plugger. “Actually, when I left, I recommended him for my old job,” Kentish recalled in 2019. “We’ve remained friends ever since.” That much was clear in the official Warner press release that recently announced Kentish’s promotion to Warner Bros UK President, and Christie’s decision to step down from the label (he will depart towards the end of this year). Said Kentish in the PR: “I want to thank Tony [Harlow] for this opportunity and Phil for his ongoing support and guidance; we’ve had an unbelievable journey together. I feel very lucky to have worked with such an incredible boss and true friend.” n

Joe Kentish: CV ● President, Warner Records UK: 2021-onwards ● Head of A&R, Warner Records: 2018 – 2021 ● Senior A&R Manager/Director of A&R, Warner Records: 2014 - 2018 ● A&R Manager/Senior A&R Manager , Mercury / Virgin EMI: 2006 - 2014 ● Junior A&R, Innocent/Virgin 2004 - 2006 ● A&R Consultant Parlophone 2004 ● Director, Middlerow Records: 1999 - 2003

KEY SONGS IN THE LIFE OF…

Dipesh Parmar It’s the turn of Ministry of Sound’s President to go through the pleasure and pain of picking five tracks that have shaped his life and career… 48

PLAYLIST

s a kid, Dipesh Parmar used music both to fit in and to define himself. He says: “I grew up in the North East, in a little town called Newton Aycliffe, with very few ethnic minorities around me, and I think that had a part to play in the music I listened to, just in terms of my peer group. I went through everything: dance music, pop, rock, indie, R&B, hip-hop. “But what that meant was that I genuinely loved – and still love – a huge range of music, and that’s definitely something that’s helped me in my career and shaped who I am. It also meant that narrowing this down to five tracks was pretty much impossible!” Parmar has certainly delivered a more eclectic selection than you might expect from an exec who has spent two decades at the UK’s most famous dance music label, Ministry of Sound. He started pretty much straight out of university, on the frontline, DJing, re-mixing and helping to pull together the company’s juggernaut compilation series. A move into A&R saw him part of the signing and development process behind artists such as Example, Wretch 32 and

London Grammar. The latter group were a passion project for Parmar and one of the success stories to catch the attention of Sony, which bought the label in 2016. Last year, he was promoted to President of the MoS label. “It’s been quite mad,” he reflects, “because it was announced pretty much at the start of the lockdown. I went around to every single person, at every level, spoke to them, and said, ‘We’ve got this; we’ve got some key releases coming, let’s make sure we work together.’

Jhn, Roses, the Imanbek Remix, and that came off the back of Sigala, Wish You Well; Regard, Ride It, which was a big global hit; and Riton, Turn Me On. “So we had a bit of momentum, which was great, especially in that very uncertain phase of lockdown, no one knowing what was going to happen. That really motivated the team, and we went on to have 10 Top 10 hits in the last 18 months. “We had at least one track in the Top 10 singles chart for 39 weeks in 2020. We were recently Sony’s No.1 [UK] airplay label, and the third biggest behind Atlantic and Polydor. We’re definitely punching!” Even now, five years since being absorbed into the major label system, you sense Parmar likes to foster an underdog spirit and independent attitude at a company whose DNA he doesn’t just understand, but pretty much shares. It is, perhaps, why he says: “Since we got bought by Sony, I’ve wanted to prove a point, to vindicate the fact that they bought us for the right reasons. We were coming off the back of nine No. 1 singles at the time, and then when we got bought, streaming was already flipping the industry,

“I wanted to prove to Sony, to everyone, that we’re a great label in the major system.” “Amy [Wheatley] and Negla [Abdela] really stepped up, they got their promotions into senior positions during the lockdown [to Managing Director and General Manager respectively] and they have been hugely influential on the team. “We had the first No.1 single of lockdown, for two weeks, with Saint

and it was really hard to navigate; it was quite disruptive at the start. We lost a lot of the team and we had to figure out how we could take flight again. “We came in, we had a few hits, London Grammar had a number No. 1 with their second album, but it was sporadic, and I just wanted to get back to that consistent level of success. I wanted to prove to Sony, to myself, and to everyone, that we’re a great label within the major system. I think we’re now doing that.” 1. The Prodigy, Everybody in the Place (1991) This was probably my introduction to the world of electronic music. I was 13 and I first heard it on a cassette called Rave Generation, which then became like my Bible. It opened up a whole new world of rave – Altern8, SL2, Utah Saints... I think The Prodigy had two tracks on there, Charlie and Everybody in the Place, which was track one. I was just hooked from the first note. It starts with a distorted raw synth sound. It’s quite industrial, almost quite punk in a way. I’d never heard anything like it. And then the vocal just says, ‘Let’s go’, and it erupts into this wall of sound and this huge party. I think it’s rave personified in a song and it’s one of the most important tracks in rave culture. It’s an absolute anthem in every sense of the word. It was a gateway to listening to more Prodigy, realising what a genius Liam Howlett is, and beyond that a whole world of dance and electronic music and all the different nuances within that, whether it was rave, breakbeat or drum and bass and whatever that led onto. What I could never have imagined was, fast-forward 10 years or so, and one of my first jobs in the music industry was to work with Nick Halkes, who signed Prodigy to XL and gave me my first job at Incentive Records, which was a JV label [with Ministry of Sound] at the time. And for The Prodigy to go on to have a career of that lifespan, to become so 50

important to UK club culture – to culture in general, in fact – for people still to be discovering it and for it to still be resonating with young people, that’s a legendary act right there.

really propelled his music. The partnership between him and them was so powerful and really set them apart. He will continue to be a legend for all eternity.

2. Bob Marley and the Wailers, Trenchtown Rock (Live at the Lyceum) (1975)

3. Come As You Are, Nirvana (1992)

It was really difficult to pinpoint just one song, because they all mean so much to me, but I went with Trenchtown Rock, the live version. There’s that roar of the crowd, the organ builds, the guitar comes in and sets the tone; it’s a feelgood classic. It just spoke to me, especially the opening line: ‘One good thing about music: when it hits you feel no pain.’ That’s so fitting even now, especially now, in these times. Some of my friends were listening to him when I was growing up, and it’s like with The Prodigy, I heard one track and wanted to discover more and more. Exodus became such a massive album for me.

“It’s about accepting misfits, and I think I was a bit of a misfit where I grew up.” And then I was just a huge, huge Bob Marley fan. I was so obsessed with him, I may or may not have ended up having dreadlocks in my teen years; it’s probably best not to dwell on that. I painted Bob Marley pictures for my GCSE art exam. And my bedroom wall was covered in pictures of him smoking spliffs – goodness knows what my mum thought. He’s probably the artist I’m most gutted I didn’t see live. You can see from the footage and hear on the live albums that he was a truly captivating and mesmerising performer. I think the make-up of Bob Marley’s vocals, with the I-Threes, the trio of female vocalists that were on stage with him,

Again, it was really difficult to choose a particular track, but Come As You Are was one that really spoke to me. It’s kind of a timeless record. This album [Nevermind] was very big during my latter years of school, and I really got into grunge/indie rock, things like Green Day, Metallica, Sepultura, Rage Against The Machine. But Come As You Are struck a chord, I think, because it’s about how people are expected to act, about how people expect you to act. It’s about accepting misfits, and I think I was probably a bit of a misfit where I grew up. There was a lot of trying to belong in a largely white area, and this song was a case of, Fuck it, come as you are, be different. I liked the punk attitude and it gave me confidence in certain situations, it definitely helped me and shaped me. A lot of people think, Oh, you’re a dance A&R, you probably only like dance music, but my palette is so broad. With Come As You Are, the guitar solo is incredible and Kurt’s vocal is just insane. I think having a grounding in all types of music has enabled me to think about things a bit more holistically rather than just see – or hear – what’s in front of me. 4. Music Sounds Better With You, Stardust (1998) Anyone who knows me knows how much this song means to me. I was a fan of Daft Punk’s through Homework, but probably not as much of a fan as I went on to become. They weren’t at legendary status back then, they were more of a big dance act. Then came Discovery, which changed everything.

PLAYLIST

Later on I saw them live at Wireless in 2007, which is still one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to. What I love about this is that it’s the only track that [Thomas] Bangalter made under the Stardust moniker; I think that’s part of what makes it special. He obviously made it with Alan Braxe, and Benjamin Diamond, who’s the vocalist on the record. I first heard it in my friend’s mum’s car when she was driving us to the train station in Darlington to go to Gatecrasher in Sheffield for the first time ever. We were very giddy, very excited, we had Radio One on, Pete Tong was playing, and he dropped this track for the first time. It was a lightbulb moment. The sun was shining, that song came on and me and my friend were about to embark on this amazing journey together; it was just out of this world. I think what I like about it is that it doesn’t follow a typical song structure. It’s built from a simple loop that just keeps going, the vocals come in, the guitar filters in, there’s a big breakdown in the middle, the music comes back in, and then it just fades out. It doesn’t sound like it should have been a hit. I was a real trainspotter about things like that. I recorded Pete Tong and Judge Jules, studied the songs, the labels, it was a good grounding – but back then I was doing it because I was a DJ more than anything. I was probably over-analytical on the music side of things, but I knew when something just felt good as well, when a song just leaves you wanting more, like this does.

Although, in this case, it’s actually nice that there was never a follow-up, so it remains, for me anyway, that perfect moment in time. You won’t believe this, but as I say, we heard it in the car and it was one of those things where you think to yourself, I would love to hear this in a club, through a big system. I kid you not, we walked into Gatecrasher a few hours later and the first song we heard was Stardust, Music Sounds Better With You. We literally ran to the dance floor and we didn’t leave it until 6am the next day. 5. If You Wait, London Grammar (2013) This was probably one of the first demos where I heard Hannah [Reid]’s voice for the first time and it just completely blew me away; it was stunning. Initially I didn’t think I’d be able to work with them, being primarily a dance A&R working for a dance label, but I just fell in love with the music. I heard three demos at the very start: If You Wait, Flickers and Darling Are You Gonna Leave Me?, and I just knew I had to do everything in my power to try and sign them. They didn’t have any management at that time, and then Jazz Summers came on board and touted them around to every single label under the sun, much to my annoyance, because I’d been in since the start; we were the first label they talked to.

I’m pretty sure they were thinking, Hmmm, is Ministry right for us? But they could see that I was so passionate about what they did, and I think that really resonated with them. In the end, they went and did the rounds for everyone and luckily they came back to me. It was probably the first time in my career that I’d dealt with a slightly wider sonic palette, really pushed myself as an A&R. And then that first album went on to sell millions, win an Ivor Novello, get a BRITs nomination – they’re definitely one of the acts I’m very proud to have signed and worked with. They were hugely important to Ministry as a label. London Grammar enabled us to show the industry that we could do more than just dance singles, that we could develop artists. We’d developed and had a lot of success with Example, Wretch 32, DJ Fresh and Sigala, but London Grammar were something different again. And I think they were probably one of the many reasons why Sony bought us. I heard something special straight away, in this track particularly. Hannah’s vocal was other-worldly, what Dan and Dot created around it was beautiful and fragile and soul-bearing. The songwriting was very different, it wasn’t a typical pop song. And actually we ended up going with that vocal, the version I first heard and was blown away by. We did re-record it, but we made the decision in the mixing room, right at the end, to just pull Hannah’s original demo; there was a magic you just couldn’t recreate. n 51

Numbers

you need to know The second quarter of 2021 brought with it two things that many of us hadn’t felt in a while: sunshine and the genuine feeling that things really were on their way back to some kind of ‘normal’. Pubs and restaurants became a thing again, as did festivals (going on sale, at least). As for nightclubs and large concerts, Boris Johnson’s notoriously scientific strategum delayed their grand re-opening into July. The period also brought with it a whole lot of eye-popping statistics for the music industry that are worth keeping in your noggin. Here’s the best of them…

ANALYSIS

$4 billion:

YouTube sets out its challenge to Spotify Remember when YouTube was the undisputed enemy of the music business? When barely a week would go by without a label head or industry body raining down criticism on the ‘value gap’ and the pittance paid per-stream on user-generated content? Everything seems far friendlier these days, which might be to do with the fact that YouTube paid out over $4 billion to music rightsholders in the year to May 2021. That’s according to YouTube’s Global Head of Music, Lyor Cohen, who claims YouTube Music is the “fastest growing subscription service out there”. He also says that YouTube wants to “become the leading revenue generator for the music industry”. That will take some doing. According to Daniel Ek, Spotify paid out $5 billion to the music industry in 2020. But Cohen is confident, not only thanks to that fast-growing subscriptions business, but also because of ad revenue: YouTube claims that 30% of the $4 billion (around $1.2 billion) it paid rightsholders in the past year came from ads on usergenerated videos, not including ads on ‘premium’ music video content. Spotify’s advertising business was worth ‘just’ €745 million ($842 million) in 2020, of which rightsholders would have received around 65%, or $547 million. In other words, YouTube’s UGC ads business is now worth more than double Spotify’s entire advertising business for the music industry.

Total YouTube ad revenues in calendar year and Q1 ($m) n Q1 n FY

19,772

15,149

11,155

6,005 4,038

3,025

2018*

2019

2020

2021

Source: Alphabet SEC filings. *2018 Q1 figure not provided 53

$7 billion:

Rob Stringer reveals the wild size of music M&A Music Business UK’s sister site, Music Business Worldwide, is forever writing headlines with dollar signs in them. But the cumulative worth of those dollar signs knocked even us for six. Sony Music Group Chairman, Rob Stringer, revealed in a presentation to Sony investors in May that, according to his company’s calculations, over $7 billion was spent on music industry M&A (mergers and acquisitions) in just the first four months of the 2021 calendar year. Putting the mammoth size of this number further into context, Stringer noted that it was almost as large as the entire amount spent on music M&A in the whole of 2020 – a year that saw huge deals cemented, including the $300 million-plus acquisition of Bob Dylan’s song catalogue by Universal Music Group. Sony’s been no slouch itself in the M&A stakes, of course. Stringer confirmed in May that, in the prior six months, Sony’s music acquisition expenditure had topped a whopping $1.4 billion – a figure which included its $430 million buyout of Kobalt’s AWAL.

$1 million (per hour):

Billie Eilish

Photo: Kelia Anne Maccluskey / press

The sheer global scale of Universal Music Group becomes apparent Universal Music Group isn’t just the biggest recorded music company in the world – it obviously also runs a major music publisher with a $1 billion-plus turnover (Universal Music Publishing Group), as well as an international merch arm (Bravado), plus other business lines. When all of these are combined, things go gangbusters. As Music Business Worldwide reported in April, Universal Music Group’s total company-wide revenues hit €1.81 billion ($2.20 billion) in Q1 2021, up 9.4% year-on-year. That $2.20 billion quarterly turnover was, in turn, equivalent to $24.5 million a day, or – oh yes – just over $1 million an hour. It’s stats like these that make current UMG majority-parent Vivendi so confident in its plan to spin-out 60% of Universal onto the Amsterdam stock exchange later this year. Experts are expecting a $40 billion-plus valuation for UMG ahead of that move, meaning that this public listing (again, with 60% of the firm hitting the market) should raise anywhere upwards of $24 billion.

ANALYSIS

$2.21 billion:

The number that reveals Merck’s sitting on a goldmine

Andrew Watt and Merck Mercuriadis (with Scooter Braun in the background)

Hipgnosis Songs Fund recently revealed its preliminary results for the 12 months to end of March 2021. The filing confirmed that Merck Mercuriadis’ company had spent over a billion dollars ($1.06 billion) on 84 catalogues in the period. These deals took Hipgnosis’ portfolio, as of the end of March, to 64,555 Songs across 138 catalogues, including 3,738 Songs that have held No. 1 positions in global charts, and 151 Grammy award-winning songs. This portfolio, said Hipgnosis, has recently been independently valued at $2.21 billion, reflecting a multiple of 17.96x historical annual net publisher share income. The company says it’s spent an average/blended acquisition multiple of 15.32x on the portfolio so far. Approximately $2.0 billion has been spent by Hipgnosis on catalogue buyouts so far, revealed the document. In Q2 alone, Hipgnosis acquired catalogs from Grammy winners like Andrew Watt, Joel Little, and Andy Wallace.

1 million:

Here’s one you might have missed: In May, DIY distribution platform Distrokid revealed that it was now ingesting and processing more than 35,000 new tracks every day – a number it suggested was “significantly more than any other distributor”. Playing around with that figure, it works out to around 24 tracks per minute… or more than a million new tracks every month. This came after Daniel Ek confirmed in February that Spotify was now seeing more than 60,000 tracks uploaded to its service every day. The sheer volume of tracks pouring out of the DIY artist sector is clearly shifting the dynamics of the music industry. Spotify reported in its most recent annual report that the market share of streams from music controlled/distributed by the three major record companies plus Merlin fell to 78% in 2020, down from 82% in 2019, and 85% in 2018. As well as reminding us that successful indie acts keep emerging in this business, these statistics also speak to another, less celebrated fact: There are a lot of mums and best friends out there, each sympathetically listening to their mate’s / offspring’s amateur efforts a couple of times a week – and transforming the shape of the business while they’re at it.

Distrokid has worked with artists such as Ludacris

Photo: Jamie Lamor Thompson / Shutterstock

The DIY revolution keeps on throwing up mind-boggling stats

WHAT I WISH I’D KNOWN Sandy Dworniak established the writer and producer management company This Much Talent in 1991. She has gone on to build an impressive roster which includes Jim Abbiss, Liam Howe and 6 Figure Music, amongst many others. Her clients have worked with the likes of Adele, Arctic Monkeys, Lana Del Rey, Stormzy, Massive Attack and Foo Fighters. She recalls some hard lessons learned across her career… What I wish I’d known before I started my career in management is that people aren’t your friends. You have to be mindful of your relationships with clients, especially because things can get very tough. It’s a really weird situation, because you can be like best friends, but if something goes wrong, that best friendship can end forever. That’s what I struggled with in the early part of my career — being so close with people and then being really disappointed and heartbroken by the end of the relationship. I realised this the first time I was sacked by a big client. That happened about six years into my company, so I was still pretty young. The reason I was sacked was because I had an assistant who basically undermined me and he [the client] sacked me out of the blue. I was so invested in this relationship because we’d worked together since he was a young artist and had nothing, and then suddenly he was earning tonnes of money and we were working on really big projects. My assistant left, started a company and took this client, so then I had to go into a legal battle to get paid, basically. That was really ugly and went on for five years. That’s another pitfall of being a manager — people will decide that once they sack you, they never have to pay you ever again, so you have to battle for your right for post-term commission. I didn’t have any contracts in those days either, so that’s another one I wish I’d known. Not every person needs a contract, but in that situation I didn’t have one and they basically denied that I was this person’s manager. So I had to fight and it was absolutely heartbreaking, not just because I was so invested in his talent, but because I saw the trajectory and knew that he was going to be huge. 56

“I find the morality of the industry quite difficult to deal with sometimes.”

It also taught me that lawyers can be really difficult because it’s their job to resolve a situation in someone else’s favour, even if someone else is completely wrong. It’s immoral. I find the morality of the industry quite difficult to deal with sometimes. Ultimately, that experience taught me a lot about how important it is to have clear boundaries, and if you have a deal with someone that isn’t in writing, make sure they fully understand what that deal is, have acknowledged what their deal is, or that there’s someone else in the room who heard you say those things. We resolved it in the end, but it was a horrible, nasty battle that broke my heart and taught me everything about how to be a manager. You have to be mindful that it’s a business at the end of the day, and not get too emotionally attached. As managers, it’s hard not to be emotionally involved in the work we do, because we do a lot of it for free; that means we have to love what we do. But I’ve learned how to hold a piece of myself back, so I’m not invested on every level, like you would be in a friendship. That said, for every client that fucks you over, there are 20 who won’t. I’ve got people who’ve been with me for as long as I’ve had my company and have been incredibly loyal. We grew up together, we learned how to do it together, and they’re still here. Like Jim Abbiss, and Liam [Howe] who I’ve been with for 17 or 18 years, and Barny [Barnicott] for 20 years. Also, as a female in the music industry, there are a lot of sharks. Navigating the shark infested waters is something I wish I was more skilled at when I was younger. Things are changing so much in terms of the perception of women in the industry, and we feel we’re equal now, but when I started, it wasn’t like that. I was one of very few women that did the job that I do, so I had to

Photo: Chris Frazer Smith

FEATURE

Liam Howe

work hard to prove myself. I found that brains are more important than anything else. You have to have the confidence to use your experience and intellect to get through certain situations. It was intimidating when I was a young woman walking into a room full of men in the music industry and I couldn’t use the flirty element, or try to be charming. I found that my best strategy was to be the smartest person in the room in order to get people to take me seriously as a manager. It’s really important to understand that you need to know what you’re talking about, or at least you’re able to bluff your way through it. I also wish I’d known that working in music was going to be a difficult life, that I’d have to learn fast, think on my feet and rely on my own intellect and nothing else to get through. There was no way of learning, there was no teaching [management] — I wish I’d known how to do it when I started, because I had literally no idea. Because of that, I’m never afraid to go, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t understand, can you talk me through this?’ I

“I found that my best strategy was to be the smartest person in the room.”

learned that by having to deal with these massive bigwigs in America. Rather than be scared, I just said, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, talk me through it’ – and people were really open to that. Trying to blag your way through it sometimes doesn’t work. To this day, if I’m dealing with some arsehole lawyer somewhere and I don’t know what they’re talking about, I’ll make them explain their own contracts with me, because then you learn. This job is a continual learning curve, which is why I’m still doing it; it keeps me interested. Running my own company has been fabulous because I’ve had freedom. I was also always incredibly insubordinate, so I was useless as an employee. If you’re starting your own company, be aware that lots of people will want your job, lots of people will try to take your clients, but you have to be really confident in your own ability and talent to see through that and don’t be scared. Be brave enough to do it by yourself, just go for it and handle the pitfalls when they come. There’s also always people around who will help you when things are really tough. I still 57

Barny Barnicott

have people I call when I’m having a crisis. I never stopped, even when it got really hard it’s been, ‘Right, I can do this, I’m good at this’, and I’ve carried on and trusted my instincts. When you start your own business, you have to be prepared to be really poor for a while. I think that’s a big one for a lot of young managers — they are scared to be by themselves and want to attach themselves to other companies, build their roster through someone else. But I think the most important thing for me has been understanding that you can do it, you don’t need anyone else. You will be poor for a little while, but if you’re good at what you do, you will find amazing talent and it won’t be long until you start to make a living. I love my job, I really do, even though there’s been some dreadful times, I’ve never regretted taking the plunge to be my own boss for one minute; it’s very freeing. There have also been times when we’ve worked on some incredible projects. One of my first was Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet soundtrack. That was the biggest learning curve because I’d 58

“When you start your own business, you have to be prepared to be poor for a while.”

Sandy Dworniak with Jim Abbiss at the MMF Awards

never worked on a film and I had to do all the UK supervision. I had to run a 70-piece orchestra and all the budgets. I was working 18 hour days, because LA starts at six, and they wouldn’t let me get off the phone until I was going, ‘Please let me go to bed!’. I learned really fast how to manage a project of that size, and it went on to do incredibly well. That was a pivotal moment — when I suddenly realised what kind of living you can make out of this. I was a bit naive to the success side at that point. Some of the projects we’ve done with Jim, like Arctic Monkeys and Adele, have done incredibly well, and each time you have that kind of success it reminds you what a brilliant job you have and how incredible it can be when things go well. It also changes your status completely, because as soon as you start to have some success, people take you very seriously. So, now, rather than me knocking on everyone’s door, people come to me when they have a project. As a manager, suddenly you are someone who has something to say, someone who has got a set of ears and someone who can run a business.

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OF COURSE ARTISTS AND SONGWRITERS SHOULD BE PAID MORE. BUT… It’s a debate that continues to lack essential nuance, and essential italicised emphasis. Eamonn Forde takes a stab at injecting both back into proceedings… The #BrokenRecord campaign in the UK and the Justice At Spotify movement in the US have done incredible jobs in getting their points across about creator remuneration in the streaming age – including the former’s loud and clear voice throughout the parliamentary inquiry into streaming economics. The entire system, they argue, is stacked against both songwriters and recording artists and – unless something significant is done, and done quickly – we are going to be facing a creative crisis on an unprecedented scale, where talent either bleeds out of the business or simply bleeds to death. These are not quixotic demands, they argue: the system can and should change to pay musicians better. How much better is the harder part to define, but the intent is clear. Yet, peppered throughout the wider campaigning here is an analogy – if we are being pretentious, a leitmotif – that is used as if it were the final and incontrovertible argument. The ideological smackdown. It runs that musician X generated Y streams and only made Z income in the past month which, when it is all totted up, falls criminally short of the minimum wage they would get from working in, say, Starbucks that month. It’s horrific, right? Of course artists and songwriters should be paid more. But... The thesis that earnings from streaming do not add up to a minimum wage is a hugely (and deliberately) emotional one – the goal being to point out that streaming income for many artists is tiny or non-existent and they are consigned to a cruel world of penury. It is designed to frame the argument in terms that the layperson can immediately grasp and innately understand: streaming is a rigged

“The thesis that earnings from streaming do not add up to minimum wage is a hugely emotional one.”

game, only the hugest artists benefit and there is a growing underclass of musicians who cannot afford to eat or pay their bills. And yet… as a leitmotif in this growing movement, its deployment is doing everyone a considerable disservice. It also does not make explicit its own inherent complexities. Here are the facts. The UK government lists five bands to the minimum wage – going from apprentice level (£4.30 an hour), up through the under 18s (£4.62), 18-20 (£6.56), 21-22 (£8.36) and finally 23 and above (£8.91). These bands and rates have been revised over the years, but this is where they are today. They exist to protect part-time, casual, disabled or foreigner workers who are often employed in manual or low-skilled jobs. This is often hard, dangerous, risky (both in terms of actually doing the job and in terms of job security) work. These minimum wage bands are far from great – especially as the gig economy becomes the norm 59

Photo: Pictorial Press / Alamy

Keith Richards is said to have written Satisfaction after the components of the song came to him in a dream

for so many – but they are legal measures that go some way towards protecting certain classes of workers. There are many professions or vocations that do not fall under these protections. Top of the list here are “self-employed people running their own business”. That means me, as a freelance writer. It also means the vast majority of musicians. The minimum wage does not include us, and neither should it include us. Because what we do and how we work is different. Of course artists and songwriters should be paid more. But... So, if we pick up this concept of the “minimum wage” for musicians, how do we actually implement it? Is there an interview and recruitment process to find the most suitable candidates? Do we 60

“Do we introduce job tiers? Are there performancerelated reviews every quarter?”

introduce job tiers? Are there performancerelated reviews every quarter? Are there productivity goals to be hit? Can individuals be let go because their work and attendance records are sub-standard? How do disciplinary hearings work? Returning to the point about wage bands, if artist X makes Y% more than their particular wage band for that month (let’s say a song has gone viral), do they have an earnings ceiling which, if they exceed it, they pay back into a central pot? Will anyone willingly pay back money that exceeds their pay scale? And is the 20-year-old guitarist in a band happy to take £6.56 an hour while the 23-year-old drummer gets £2.35 an hour more? Because, if you are going to take the logic of the minimum wage and run with it, these are the issues and complexities you are going to have to untangle. The other – and biggest point – to remember

is that minimum wage is based entirely on a one-off payment for work done. There are no recurring payments or royalties for that shift in the factory, on the farm, or on the building site (for the record, these are all jobs I have done myself ). The labourer does not own or have the ability to license their eight-hour shift. They do the work. They are paid for it. They are not paid again until they do another shift. There is no (even slim) possibility that the shift you did in that chicken hatchery (yes, I am drawing on my own experience again here) could land a sync in a TV show or video game. No one is going to pay £25 (plus booking fee) to come and watch me do my hatchery shift live (the factory is hot, it really smells and is no place for the squeamish). No one is in the market for a T-shirt of my shift. The chances of someone doing a cover version – or even sampling – my shift are so slim as to be non-existent. I cannot parlay that shift into monetisation elsewhere. The underlying point that this line about a minimum wage is trying to make is correct: the language it is using to try and make it is not. What you also have to be sensitive about when reaching for the highly charged and emotional argument around minimum wage is the people who are actually working minimumwage jobs and are unlikely to ever break out into something more secure, something that is better paid. Let’s get even more emotional about it in our descriptive language. Someone getting two buses across London at 4am to break their back mixing cement, cleaning an office or stacking shelves in a supermarket before most of us get out of bed is perhaps not going to respond well to the reality they live being appropriated by others to suit their own ends. If you want to reach for the emotional argument about minimum wage, you have to understand that it is not an abstract for many: it is their daily grind. And if you want to use an emotional argument about minimum wage, it is only right and fair that it can be used back at you. Of course artists and songwriters should be paid more. But... The other point to remember through all of this is that musicians turn to music because they do not want (or feel they are utterly unsuited to) “a

Photo: Tania Alieksanenko / Unsplash

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“Yes this is work, but it is work unlike any other and it does not fit the template of work produced for the minimum wage.”

normal 9-to-5 job”. They are also dealing in the mystical realm of intellectual property – where at 9am on a Monday a song or a recording did not exist and by 5pm that same day/a week later/a month later it does exist. Music creation is alchemy. There is no other term for it. Songs can land fully formed inside the creator’s head (Keith Richards had the entire riff and title of (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction come to him as if in a dream), they can be summoned up (Paul McCartney has talked about sitting down with John Lennon and saying “let’s write a swimming pool” as they crafted life-changing hits to order), or they can take years of refinement and reworking to complete (Leonard Cohen reportedly took five years to write Hallelujah). Yes, this is work, but it is work unlike any other. And it does not fit the template of work produced for minimum wage. The language here is wrong or confused or confusing and it does no one any favours. You can make the same points – make the same calls for better payment terms – in a different way. A better way. A more effective way. These are creative people involved here – so it feels like a betrayal of that creativity to be relying on an ill-fitting argument slipped inside a wholly inappropriate turn of phrase. Of course artists and songwriters should be paid more. But... 61

After the recent sale of 145,000 of Downtown’s copyrights, Mike Smith now finds himself embarking on a new life as the Global Head of Downtown Music Services. He is relishing the change, and the challenge – and has suggestions for a few more of both that he believes will lift up the entire industry...

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ike Smith is a good person to talk to about change right now. He has, after all, just gone through the most radical upheaval in his 33-year professional life. When he joined Downtown Music Publishing as Global President, after a three year stint running Warner/Chappell in the UK, it was another senior role in an area of the business with which he was very familiar and within which he was widely respected. That was less than a year ago. Now, since as recently as late April, in fact, following Downtown’s sale of 145,000 copyrights to Concord, he is Global Head of Downtown Music Services. It’s a very new role in a (kind of ) new company. And, he says, he couldn’t be happier. “It’s interesting, because when it was first discussed, I was kind of, wow, this is a hell of a pivot, let me think about this for a bit. “And then I slept on it and just thought, this is absolutely brilliant. This speaks to me about what I want to do in the music business, and what I’ve always wanted to do in the music business, which is to discover new talent, to help that talent get to the next level and look after themselves. “Downtown’s got previous in this area, it’s been buying service industry companies for years, be that AdRev, DashGo, FUGA, Songtrust, etc. The only anomaly, ironically, within the Downtown portfolio, was the music publishing side. “By selling the owned and co-owned copyrights, it’s made everything much clearer. We are now entirely in the service and innovation business, helping songwriters and artists build great careers for themselves, and keep ownership in their hands, which is how I think it should be.” It’s a philosophy that feeds into Smith’s manifesto, one that touches on copyright, remuneration, diversity, inclusion and mental health – all of which sit under the overarching aim of fixing the planet. (Smith recently joined the board of EarthPercent – give it a Google and do some good if you fancy it.)

He’s also a good person to talk to about change because he believes it’s already happening and he’s determined to be part of it. His manifesto is born of enthusiasm rather than exasperation. It is not a list of demands, it’s a series of signposts on journeys already begun. He says: “Everything I’m going to talk about today, I’m really thrilled about, because I see it all heading in that direction. It’s not a case of ‘the music industry’s got to stop doing this, we need to do this’... I feel everybody knows this stuff, and we’re getting to a much better place. We’ve got a long old road to travel down, but there’s no doubt we’re on the way...”

for organisations that are really making a difference where it matters. It’s particularly good for the music industry, because our industry has a lot of accounting systems set up to deal in fractions of income, from your merchandise, from PPL, from PRS, from MCPS. A fraction of those fractions can be diverted at source to EarthPercent. So we’re looking to engage with musicians and songwriters and producers to see if they will give a very, very small amount of their income to support environmental charities. I believe by doing that, we will educate people and we will massively change the world. The music industry has an awful lot of influence that goes into so many other areas of society. For an example, look at Billie Eilish’s attitude to the environment, particularly her veganism, and the fact that the people in her crew are vegan. They support vegan businesses within the community; that’s making a big impact. It’s about educating people and showing the alternatives that are there. Meanwhile, artists are looking at how they tour, Coldplay have re-invented how they tour, the same with the 1975. These artists are leading the way and hopefully we’ll get to a place where it will be embarrassing to tour in the oldfashioned way.

“Hopefully we’ll get to a place where it will be embarrassing to tour in the oldfashioned way.” 1. Fix The Planet

Far and away the biggest issue is the environment, because if you don’t fix the planet, then arguing about how much songwriters are receiving in streaming royalties is somewhat prosaic. The environment is undoubtedly the number one challenge we face. But, immediately, you’re thinking, well, which charity do I support? You know, I’ve been involved with Julie’s Bicycle, it’s great. And I love what Client Earth are doing, that’s great. The music industry’s involved in several different charities, so what do you do? This was a common thought and a common issue, and one answer is EarthPercent. You donate a fraction of your income to them, on a regular basis, and they pass money through to environmental charities that are doing tremendous work across the board. It’s a great way of providing sustainable, ongoing support

2. Respect The Song

We have to talk about the primacy of the song, because I would love to see the song recognised just a little bit more than it is, particularly in terms of remuneration for the songwriter. Obviously, I’m a music publisher at heart, I’ve been in records and I’m back in records now, through Services, but I am a music publisher; it was my first job in the business and it’ll probably be my last. So that might be an influence, but to me the songwriter is the one that seems to be making the least amount of money in the new environment in which we find 63

Smith applauds Coldplay’s efforts to consider environmental concerns when it comes to touring

ourselves. And yet you take the song away and everything collapses. Some of the most successful playlists on Spotify don’t have artists! It just seems so wrong that the songwriter is getting such a small slice. Now, I know there’s a very broad debate going on at the moment about how we can better remunerate songwriters, and I don’t particularly want to weigh in on the detail of that. I just think, with lots of very clever people in this industry, in big corporations, and independents, and in government, between all of us we should be able to come up with a better deal for songwriters, because at the end of the day, if we don’t, I don’t know if they can continue doing what they do. There are an awful lot of vested interests that are very happy with the way things are, I know, but the wonderful thing – and this applies to everything I’m talking about today – is that the way things are now are not the way things are going to be. In 10 years’ time, there are going to be more independents in the charts than there are majors. There’s going to be more independent artists and labels being streamed than there will be from the majors. So, either it gets sorted out now, or it gets sorted out in the next 10 years. 64

Personally, I think it would be better for everybody if we sorted it out now. It’s going to change, it’s absolutely going to change, because it’s changing already. So, which side of history do you want to be on?

3. Value Mental Health

The issue of mental health in the industry is something I’ve spoken about a lot and it’s an area where I think I’ve got an opportunity to do some good, to benefit the mental health of songwriters, the mental health of artists and particularly the mental health of executives. The music industry has been, and still is in many ways, appalling in the way that it treats people. There is still a bullying culture within a lot of the business. There’s a relentless drive to get artists out on the road, to make a record, and then to make them feel guilty if they don’t release a record in time, because the profits of the company are going to suffer and people might lose their jobs. What the hell has that got to do with the creative? They got into the business to write songs and make music.

And that’s what the business does. It’s all about, ‘If you don’t work hard, you’re gonna lose your job, or your best mate’s gonna lose his job’. I started working properly in the business when I was 21, I was a talent scout at a music publishing company. And because it’s so hard to get into, and because you love music so much, you’re terrified that you’re going to get found out and thrown out. So you put up with everything and anything. And instead of thinking the industry is so lucky to have somebody who’s as passionate as me, that cares as much about music, songwriters and artists as I do, you spend your whole time thinking, my God, I’m so grateful to be here, I’d better do everything I possibly can, work 80-90 hour weeks, just in case I lose my job. Now, I’ve actually done pretty well out of that model, but that’s not the point, that doesn’t mean the model works. And it’s down to people like myself to show that shouting at people in front of others in a planning meeting is not cool; it’s about getting away from that kind of bullying approach to business. You can still lead with authority, and you can still be very successful, but you can’t be

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forcing people to work all the hours that God sends. When your finance director is at the office until midnight, you can’t be holding that up as a good example to everyone else. No, we need to change. I think there’s a new generation of people coming through in the business that have finally cottoned on to the fact that if your artist is having a nervous breakdown, it’s not good for business. In the past, your artist would have a nervous breakdown, you’d inject them full of something and everything’s going to be fine. That’s changing. People are giving artists a lot more space, there are a lot of strong mental health programmes within major labels and publishers and that’s great.

Smith says the joy of working on the catalogues of artists like Bob Dylan’s is “getting the music to as many people as possible” – rather than merely boosting valuations

4. Copyrights 4 Creatives

I got into the music business because I love musicians, I love songwriters, I wanted to help them, I wanted to get their careers going, I wanted to get the music that I loved into the charts. I didn’t think in terms of growing the value of copyrights. When I returned from records to publishing in 2016, publishing had moved on so much; it was all about the acquisition of copyrights. It’s always been that way to some extent, of course, you’re trying to collect copyrights and you’re trying to add value to them. But that wasn’t what you based your job around. It certainly wasn’t the reason you did your job. I loved working with catalogue, for instance. But, for me, working with catalogue was all about making artists like Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen or Barbra Streisand still feel contemporary, about getting their music to as many people as possible – because it’s great! It wasn’t about, How do we make this as valuable as possible and then sell it off? Unfortunately, that’s where music publishing has got to today. I don’t feel the age of streaming is serving the artists and the songwriters particularly well. It’s obvious that the people that own

the copyrights are the ones that are making the most money, a lot of deals that exist within the business mean that artists really struggle, and will struggle, to own their copyright. I appreciate, if you want to be a global superstar, if you want to have an awful lot of money spent on you, then you’re going to have to give away something, and that will probably be the ownership of your masters. But, ultimately, and even more so now than ever, I believe copyrights should be in the hands of the creator of that copyright, not in the hands of a bank or an entrepreneur. And that shouldn’t be something for the industry to worry about or shy away from; I genuinely believe that we can move to much more equitable models and all still make plenty of money.

5. Diversity, Inclusivity, Equality

It’s very important to talk about meritocracy, I really support that, but, at the same time, I think it’s beholden upon

us to always make sure there is a diverse and inclusive range of candidates for every role you’re looking to fill. And it’s not just about hiring people, it’s about mentoring people from minority backgrounds. Look at your board and ask yourself, Does this reflect society at large? And if it doesn’t, do something about that. Find people within the organisation, mentor them, enable them to grow, and grow strong, and eventually they might get to a position to lead the company, certainly to influence the company. Because, at the end of the day, if you’re a white guy that’s been to Eton, chances are you’re going to be a bit more confident than somebody who’s come up from a poor background, a minority group, who’s had a real fight in life. But, with the right mentoring and coaching, that person can be just as good as – let’s face it, an awful lot better than – that guy from Eton. And again, guess what, it’s actually good for profit; it’s good for the business. Everything I’m talking about today is going to make us richer, both financially and in the broadest possible sense. None of it is scary or risks harming your business. It will improve all aspects of our business. n 65

'WE'RE THE NEW MOTOWN, NO LESS!' New music is coming, but the industry story from Rudimental is about expanding their label and publishing company...

hart-topping dance quartet Rudimental have had an impressively productive lockdown. Firstly, they’ve finished their fourth album, which is due out on Atlantic in September. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly for the purposes of a trade publication such as MBUK, they’ve been busy readying the start of a big expansion plan for their record label, publisher (administered by UMPG) and now creative agency, all of which sit under the Major Toms brand. That expansion includes moving from their studio in Hackney to a new complex that will house multiple studios across several floors and a multimedia recording space. At the same time, the label has a busy year of releases ahead with Anne-Marie — who started the year with No.2 hit Don’t Play, alongside KSI and Digital Farm Animals — set to release her second album via Major Toms/Atlantic, while Ella Henderson (also signed in a JV with Atlantic) is also working on an album following her top 20 track Let’s Go Home Together with Tom Grennan. Developing artist Morgan (who is signed solely to Major Toms) is working on an EP after guesting on Rudimental’s Be the One alongside rapper/songwriter Tike, who is published by Major Toms. Other acts published by the company include composer, songwriter and producer Renell Shaw, who won an Ivor last year for his jazz EP, The Windrush Suite, and has new music coming under duo 2fox; production duo Slim Typical; and songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Beanie Bhebhe. There’s also an expansion of their team on the cards (which currently includes Rudimental members Piers Aggett, Amir Amor, Kesi Dryden and DJ Locksmith as well as GM Gabby Endacott), and they are working on building an app that aims to help support artists’ wellbeing and mental health alongside a dedicated programme called The People’s Mantra. Here, we chat

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Ella Henderson

Tike

to Aggett, Amor, Dryden and Locksmith about their ambitions, their approach to artist development, and what they think about some of the major music industry issues of the day. Morgan is an artist you’ve developed yourselves without signing to a major label — would you like to do more of that under Major Toms as you expand the company? Amir Amor: We’re exploring that idea. I think it’s about being able to hire the people that we want to hire, to create a team that we want to create, and find the best people for the right project. It can feel a little bit restrictive being connected to just one entity. We’re exploring the idea of nonmusic industry funding and we’re funding it ourselves. But ultimately, it’s going to be a mixture — some artists we might find and think this should be a joint venture with a label or, like with Morgan, we decide to do all of that development ourselves. The idea of taking an artist, whether it’s Morgan or someone else, to major levels of success entirely independently is definitely something we want to explore and I’m sure that will come with time.

DJ Locksmith: In terms of the record label, we’re relatively new to this game, even though we’ve had so much success for our artists in a short period of time, and we’ve got to get out and get that experience for ourselves before we start jumping in 100% and investing our own money into our artists because that can be a deep dark hole. Sometimes it can be a fun dark hole but it still burns your pocket. So, in order to acquire the team we want for our artists, we’re going to have to sometimes look at doing joint ventures. The model at the minute is starting off our artists and trying to invest our own money at the very initial stage, help with the creative side as much as we can, teaming up as Rudimental when we go on tour and then start looking to team up [with partners]. The fact we’ve had so much success with Anne-Marie and Morgan makes us want to jump into the deep end straight away but we’re still learning and need some more experience. We’ll get there.

“We’ve had the potholes, the dodgy A&Rs and battles with various labels.”

How does the fact that you are creators, first and foremost, have an impact on how your label operates or any point of difference that it offers? Amir: I think that’s our main point of difference. We are artists

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Morgan

and we’ve been independent, we’ve signed to majors, and we’ve all done different things individually as well. So we’ve got this wealth of experience on the creative side of the industry and, as Locky said, we’ve been developing our experience on the business side as well over the years. We’ve had the potholes, the dodgy A&Rs and battles with various labels, whether it’s for features or for our own projects, and we take all of that experience into our ethos and understanding of how to work with artists. That goes across everything that we do. When you walk into a room with us, you don’t feel like you’re sitting in front of someone who’s a failed musician or who’s never really experienced that side of it, at least to the extent that we have and are continuing to do so.

Kesi Dryden: As artists, when we want to release music, sometimes the label might be like, ‘No, we’re not ready, we haven’t got this plan, we haven’t got this or that’. But it can be important to get your music out there. An example of that was at the beginning of the pandemic, Morgan was about to release an EP and we all decided, ‘Okay, maybe we should move it back a little bit’, but there was a song that Morgan really wanted to put out. We believe in our artists and if an artist feels so strongly about a song, we push them to put it out. So she released it and it’s actually been one of her biggest songs so far. So coming from that place where we’re artists ourselves, and we have a talent that wants to release something so bad and feels so strongly about something, I think it’s very important that we give them that opportunity to put the piece of music out. 69

Beanie Bhebhe

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Locksmith: Also, when we come to that decision making process with an artist, we sometimes ask ourselves as artists, ‘Would we like it if the record label did that to us?’, and that allows us to look at it through our artist’s eyes and be compassionate to their thoughts and creativity. I think that’s so important, because it allows the artist to feel more confident in themselves and have the belief that they can go on and produce some of their best work. With that said, we have been around the block a few times in the last 10 years, we’ve had the experience of not only playing in front of thousands of people but selling millions of records around the world, so we’ve got an idea of how to go about that and we can share that experience. Amir: At major labels, people have limited timescales in their jobs, they’re in and out really quickly. There are huge teams, there isn’t that much invested responsibility in things, projects get spread out over people, and it kind of gets lost. You also get this terrible overthinking… these are all things we’ve experienced first-hand working with different labels and these are things that we actively avoid. We make sure that it’s creative-led. If someone really believes in something, then we trust their belief, and allow them to explore that belief without putting too many stoppers in the way and without getting too many people involved.

them as if our older selves would be advising our younger selves. Kesi: One last point to add is that labels tend to sign artists who’ve already got some kind of success nowadays, who are already on a million TikTok views, already doing this or that. They sign them, they’ll put out a couple of singles and then they’ll go, ‘Oh, now you want to change direction? You want to try something different? Nah, stick with what works’. They get into these battles simply because they haven’t grown with the artist and understood them. So another major thing in our ethos is to grow with the artist. You have to gain trust both ways — the artist has to trust you and you have to trust the artist. That’s what I mean by being creative first, because you have to trust each other and I think that’s a pitfall of the major labels, this whole new ethos of just waiting until artists are already kicking off and offering some services, being like a service provider. We’re not just a service provider, we are an incubator, we incubate and we develop. Locksmith: We want to grow, we want to become a big label and we understand that we may have some of these issues that the bigger labels are having now in the next five to 10 years. But it comes down to what Amir was saying earlier in terms of the projects that we’re trying to build, and building a team around us that share the same values that can grow in numbers, where everyone’s thinking on the same wavelength. It may take us a lot longer, but that’s something we want to stick with. Look at Rudimental, we don’t stay in a box, we’re not one specific genre music band, we’re able to mould with the times, and that’s what we like our artists to do. We’re not looking for the next TikTok arsehole, we’re looking for someone who has talent and wants to grow.

“We're not looking for the next TikTok arsehole, we're looking for someone who has talent.”

Kesi: You have to listen to the artist. It happened to ourselves a few years back — our label wanted to put out a different song for Rudimental and we were fighting for Waiting All Night because we’d been playing it live during our shows and felt that the reaction we got from the song was so big. We really had to battle with the label to make it our next single but we won that battle, we got to No.1 and it’s one of our biggest songs.

Piers Aggett: It’s happening all the time — that’s happening right now! We’re handing in our next single tomorrow and the label are unsure, but we’re sure. It’s part of the game and, most of the time, labels mean really well, they want the best for their artists and that’s why they signed them. But not everything that they want is always the best for the artist, I think artists have to listen to themselves. Locksmith: At the end of the day, it comes down to music, and music is a very personal, emotional thing for an artist. They have to feel like they’re heard and they have to feel like they have a connection with ears that they trust. And sometimes, with bigger labels, who have a lot more responsibility and a lot more people on their roster, that connection can sometimes feel like it’s further away. Whereas with us, we’ve got that instant connection through our creativity, we’ve got our artists in the studio with us, we’re coproducing on their records at the same time, and we’re advising

Are there any cons to having a relationship with your artists that is so close creatively, as well as looking after the business side of their career for them? Amir: I don’t think there are any cons other than things take a bit longer. You have to invest more time and more money, but it’s worth it. Piers: And you can still disagree on things, we still disagree with Morgan on stuff, but I feel like we disagree in a different way than we disagree with our label, Atlantic, as a band because maybe we understand a bit more what they are going through. It definitely feels like a different type of relationship. You still have the, ‘What single should we put out?’ dilemma and you’ve still got to navigate through that. Especially in Morgan’s case, she’s making lots of different songs and using different sonics and 71

different producers, creating different sounds, so for her, especially early in her career, what type of sound and what type of artist she wants to be is really important. Locksmith: I think the cons are outside perception. Yes, things may take a little bit longer and there may not be instant success, but at the same time, I believe that if you stay true to your goals and true to your ethos and what you’re about, then you start to bring people into your world and cons over time start to feel like positives. Like Piers said, there will be disagreements but I have disagreements with my brother daily and I still love him. I feel like that’s what this label is, it’s like a family, the way we work with talent is through them coming on tour with us and that whole tour cycle is a family-oriented tour. Amir: It’s about that close relationship, so if we’re in the room with Morgan and she’s playing all of her music, management is there and we’re all together, we can discuss our ideas and opinions. And what we’ve found with the label world sometimes is there’s a separation — discussions happen, you’re not involved, you hear about them through this channel, it turns into Chinese whispers and then you get into a battle, where, really, you’re both on the same side. With that close relationship, with that trust, and spending time together, you avoid those pitfalls, because we all want the same thing, you discuss them, and you come to a conclusion. Here’s a big picture question: the economics of streaming have been under close scrutiny in the UK thanks to the Government inquiry. On which side of the debate do you sit? Piers: If you’re signed to a major record label, streaming really isn’t going to pay much and I think that is an issue. If you’re an independent artist in the streaming world, it can be pretty good. Kesi: I wouldn’t say it’s pretty good. Piers: Well, no but I’m saying it’s better because the major label’s not taking a massive chunk. Locksmith: It’s a difficult one. You’ve got the labels, who are going to put you in front of the world and help your music reach the heights that you want it to reach. If you’re independent, there’s only so far you can go. So then if you are streaming reasonably well as an independent person, you’re still not going to break through those massive barriers without the label. I would like to see the statistics on it before I make a 72

proper call on it, but for us, a band that’s been going for 10 years, we’ve made a living out of this. So I feel like it would be pretty patronising if we were to say that streaming doesn’t do well at the minute, because it’s got us to where we are now. Kesi: But I think we could all definitely say that the streaming platforms could pay the artists more. Amir: Yes, I fully agree, but I think it comes down to transparency. There isn’t really any clarity of how the money flows from the Spotifys and the Apples, although some are clearer than others, and then you’ve got the labels who blur the picture even more. We know, as artists who 10 years ago were selling CDs, now it’s entirely streams and vinyl, and we can see that there are more people consuming the music, but the money you get from royalties on the mechanical side is relatively less to the [consumption] numbers; it doesn’t quite add up. There’s tech companies who seem to be at the forefront of pushing this dynamic and it feels like the labels are following behind. We’re not quite at that stage yet where we’re innovating how music is consumed. This lack of clarity on how the money is trickling down is creating distrust between artists and labels — you don’t trust labels because you feel like they’re taking a big cut and passing it on to Spotify. There’s no distribution anymore, it’s all done digitally, so it doesn’t really cost anything, and all these questions are not fully answered. That’s why people are getting really excited about NFTs, because they offer a glimpse of hope that you can distribute directly and not have to go through the gatekeepers. Right now, the gatekeepers are kind of keeping this veil and making it look really complicated and complex and saying, ‘You don’t know what’s going on here, don’t worry about it.’ Piers: All the different companies pay differently, too. But who is representing the artists? PRS represents the songwriters and do a really good job, but between the labels and the Spotifys, no-one is representing the artist. Amir: That’s a really good point. There was a time when The Musicians’ Union represented especially classical musicians and set a standard of how much they should get paid and then you wouldn’t be a broke musician if you were Renell Shaw

FEATURE

Anne-Marie

Slim Typical

performing at a certain level. That is gone, there is no representation for the creatives against the tech giants, we’ve got the labels in the middle who have their own interests, and a lot of them have vested interests in the tech giants. Aside from more transparency in streaming, are there any other big changes that you’d like to see in the music industry? Amir: Representation for songwriters, for artists. We’re the creators but it feels like we’re at the bottom of the food chain. The tech is at the top, the labels are somewhere below that and it kind of trickles down. Also, I’d like to see an overhaul in the way [streaming] is done, because it all stemmed from that era of piracy that went into iTunes and the labels are sort of catching up. We’re still working from a mentality that has stemmed from that era. It doesn’t feel like the creative and music side has innovated on how we reach our audience, we’re still really reliant on these huge gatekeepers, and we’re becoming more and more reliant. So I’d like to see representation, some kind of union, The Musicians’ Union, perhaps, and I’d like to see some innovation from labels around the fact that music fans want to go directly to artists.

Locksmith: It’s something we have to think about as the Major Toms label. Amir: Yeah, definitely. We have to be more tech savvy, we have to get that side of things down. I can’t give you the answer right now, but we definitely need to innovate and be creative in how we’re reaching artists, because those traditional gatekeepers are doing what they’ve always traditionally done, which is take our money and close the gate.

“A lack of clarity on how the money is trickling down is creating distrust.”

What are your ultimate ambitions for Major Toms as a brand of companies? Amir: We’re the new Motown, no less! We bring the ethos of family, growth, development and we are a creative, artist-led label – and that goes across our creative agency side as well. We want to use our unique position with artists to create more natural brand engagements and natural and better content. Locksmith: To be the biggest that we can be, carry on finding and nurturing talent as much as we possibly can and see where that takes us. n 73

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INTERVIEW

‘I WAS SEEING TOO MANY TALENTED ARTISTS NOT GETTING ANYWHERE BECAUSE THEIR CAREERS WERE BEING COMPLETELY STIFLED’ MBUK’s partnership with the Did Ya Know? podcast series continues with Decisive Management co-founder Adrian Sykes talking to one of the most experienced and respected black British execs in the business, Keith Harris…

eith Harris was raised in Whitehaven – a town which, he reflects, was “very appropriately

named”. To prove the point he tells the story of paying a nostalgic visit to his old school a few years ago. He was peering over the wall when an elderly lady started talking to him. He explained that he used to go there. Ah, she said, you must be one of Dr Harris’ children… Indeed he is. And he was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. Unfortunately, explains Harris, he wasn’t quite up to medicine, and the best/closest he could do was a degree in Zoology at Dundee University. His parents must have thought it was quite the diversion. They hadn’t seen the half of it. Whilst at Dundee he became Entertainments Convenor, booking bands including Thin Lizzy, Yes, Wishbone Ash and Supertramp. He also started managing a band called Peaches, eventually dropping out of university, moving to London and taking various casual jobs to pay the bills whilst waiting for his clients to hit the big time (his temp jobs included putting up shelves at C&A in Marble Arch – “you could see my ones for years afterwards; all the clothes were bunched up at one end”). After two Peel sessions and a lifetime’s worth of in-fighting, Peaches split – “and I realised I might have to get a proper job”. Happily, for literally generations of artists and colleagues, and for the good of the UK and global music industry, in some ways he never did…

How did you break into the business? In 1975 I answered an ad for a Promotions Manager for Transatlantic Records. I got an interview and got the job. Pretty soon my patch was the whole country. Transatlantic was a very small company, and my expenses couldn’t cover a hotel, so I had to try and get bed and breakfasts. Now, you can imagine what it was like for a black guy, on his own, trying to get into a bed and breakfast in the far flung reaches of the UK in 1975. After two weeks I used to drive home from Newcastle, Manchester or wherever rather than have the humiliation of going to people’s houses, asking them if I can get a bed for the night and them slamming the door in my face. Somewhere I’ve got my passport photograph from that time and I look older then than I do now. That’s how things were then; you got bitter or you got on with it. I did that job for about 18 months, and then I had a disagreement with the General Manager and we mutually decided it was probably best if I didn’t work there anymore. So, I walked to the nearest record company, which was EMI’s Licensed Label Division, it was literally 100 yards down the road. They said the guy that’s doing promotions for Motown, which was one of their licensed labels, was about to leave, would I be interested in taking over? So I said [laughs], well, you’re obviously gonna have to force me...

You didn’t ask about the salary at that point? I did not ask about the salary. And that started you on this journey, working at Motown, which morphs into something very special, doesn’t it? Well, what actually happened first was that the General Manager of the Motown label inside of EMI, a guy called Julian Moore, said it’s probably best if I go down and see

the people at Motown International, in Rathbone Place; go and introduce yourself and tell them that you’re going to be doing promo for Motown. So I went and saw them, everything was fine. Two weeks later I went to start my job, got called in to the General Manager’s office again, and they said, ‘Listen, I’m sorry, but you can’t actually have the Motown job.’ I said, ‘What do you mean? You offered it to me!’ It turns out that the people running Motown International had said they didn’t want a black person working for Motown; they wanted a white promo person. In the end, they put someone who was already working there on Motown and they gave me four other labels: EMI International, Ariola, Fantasy and Casablanca. So, I’m no longer doing regional radio, I’m now doing national radio. Radio 1 and Capital are my primary targets, and I’ve gone from a small label doing folk music, to pop labels; that was a big jump. The next thing that happens is, because I’m having a bit of success, I get a call from Elton John’s then new label, Rocket, asking me to do promo on his new album, Blue Moves. A little later, I’m at the launch party, I’m talking to this woman, and Ken East, the Vice President of Motown International, the guy who had seen me a few months earlier and decided he didn’t want me working for Motown, came across. He said, ‘Oh, I see you’ve met my wife, Dolly,’ to which she said, ‘Oh, yes, Ken, what a charming young man.’ The next day, literally the next day, I got a phone call from Ken to say, ‘I think I made a mistake, will you come and work for Motown?’ That just happened to coincide with the launch of another little album, called Songs In The Key Of Life. So I had Elton John’s Blue Moves and Stevie’s Songs In The Key of Life; as a promo person, you couldn’t have had a better calling card. Oh, and I was also doing the club promotions as well. Back then, in 1976/77, every record company had one black employee. And in every case, that one black employee did disco/club promotions. Except for me, 76

With Stevie Wonder on the weekend they first met, 1977

because I was at Motown I was allowed to be the Head of Promotions. Did you guys have a sort of support system amongst each other? We naturally supported each other, because we’d find ourselves in the same clubs at one o’clock in the morning. We’d see each other a lot and talk a lot, but it wasn’t like a support bubble so much as, at that time, Black people all supported each other. If you saw another black person in the street, you would always say hello. Even if you didn’t know them, you would not walk past a black person without acknowledging their presence. So when you were in the same business, of course there was a feeling of support, even though I don’t think any of us told each other our various complaints; I certainly never told anybody my story about what had happened at Motown during that time. We were basically just getting on with the work. So you’ve started working on Songs In The Key of Life, but it’s also The

Commodores, Rick James, The Supremes, Thelma Houston… And Smokey Robinson. I say that because Smokey was one of the first artists who came over that I was responsible for looking after. He came over with his wife, Claudette, and his two children. You can imagine what an incredible thrill it was for me to find myself in the presence of Smokey Robinson. He was so humble, and such a genius. I learned such a lot from the way he conducted himself. This guy was – and is – literally a living legend, but he was just so down to earth. That’s where I got support, from the black Motown artists when they came over here. Because they were all shocked to find a black person doing promo in the UK. I got a lot of support from them. I got support from Thelma Houston, I got support from the guys in the Commodores, particularly Clyde, the drummer, we all got on very well. And even Rick James. Rick was crazy, you know, but we acknowledged each other, because there weren’t that many black people in the UK working in the

INTERVIEW

Backstage with Scherrie Payne and Susaye Greene of The Supremes, 1977

music industry. So whenever the Motown artists came over, they were very supportive of me, and that was a source of strength. What made you make that move to Los Angeles? In October 1977, I was on tour with Smokey Robinson. We were in Manchester and I got a phone call from the General Manager of the Motown label. He said to me, ‘You need to come back down to London tonight. Stevie Wonder’s coming into town, he wants to go out and we don’t know where to take him, so come back and take him out.’ Of course I was thrilled, because Stevie was arguably the biggest artist in the world at the time, and I’d been a huge fan from way before I joined Motown. I drove down to London, met him at a club called Gulliver’s and we spent the next three days together. We just got on, we were two guys, roughly the same age, from different backgrounds, but with the same outlook.

When he went back to LA, we kept in touch. He was calling me up saying, ‘Hey man, you should come work for me.’ Now that’s a big jump. LA was a long way away in 1978, let me tell you. But, again, this is how these things happen to me, I sort of got pushed into it.

of an afterthought, he said, ‘We’re going to get someone with more experience.’ There wasn’t much I could say about that; I’d only been there a year and a half, maybe two years. About a month later, he called me in again and said, ‘We haven’t found anybody yet, so would you take over, do the General Manager’s job while we continue to look around?’ I took over and ran the label for about four months. They then told me they’d found a man called David Hughes, but, they said, he doesn’t know too much about marketing and some of the other areas, so would you look over his shoulder and help him out? When you get told that they’re bringing in a white person, who’s less experienced than you, to do the job they told you that you couldn’t do because you weren’t experienced enough… the writing’s on the wall. So I called Stevie and said, ‘Listen, is that job still going?’ He said yes and I moved to LA.

“They didn’t want a black person working for Motown; they wanted a white promo person.” I was called in to the Managing Director’s office at EMI Licensed Label Division one day, out of the blue, and I was told that the General Manager of Motown in London at the time is leaving. He said, ‘It might seem to a lot of people that you’d be an obvious choice to take over the job, but I’m calling you in to tell you that I’m not going to give it to you, so don’t bother to apply.’ I was like, ‘Really? Okay…’ And then as I was on my way out the door, as a kind

Do you remember how you felt, stepping off the plane? There was a lot of fear and trepidation, because I didn’t even really know what job Stevie wanted me to do. And it became very clear fairly quickly that Stevie himself wasn’t actually sure what he wanted me to do exactly; he just wanted me to be on his team. I was in LA and I was kind of looking for work. I knew quite a few of the people who worked in the Motown office in LA, I’d met them in London. At the time, Motown had moved from Detroit to LA, but it still had that Motown family thing, so all the artists had an office in the Motown building, on Sunset Boulevard. I spent a lot of time there, learning who did what. I was also driving Stevie down to the studio every day and just generally making myself busy. Being in that Motown office and seeing how things worked on the black music scene in America, that was fascinating, because I had no prior experience of that. The whole idea of having a record company where 90% of employees were black and 50% the employees were women... Motown had more women in senior positions than any record company I’ve ever been in, even to this day. It was just remarkable, and a complete culture shock. And through all that, gradually, I found a role. At the time Stevie had two key people on the management team: one was a guy called Ewart Abner, who was a former president of Motown. And the other was a guy called Johanan Vigoda, who was Stevie’s lawyer. He had done his deal when he turned 21 and then when Songs In The Key Of Life came out. These were his two key consiglieri. They were older guys, they were in their fifties or sixties at the time. I became a third person in that triumvirate, someone nearer Stevie’s age. We’d talk things over, I’d give my opinion. I was attending the meetings, hearing what was going on and telling Stevie what I thought. My title then became Operations Manager, because I was at the hub of all the things that were going on. It was a fantastic experience. I learned a lot, I travelled a lot, 78

Leading Stevie Wonder across the stage, Wembley Arena, 1980

we did a couple of world tours. They were just establishing the American Black Music Association and I had a seat at the table with all these people who were vastly more experienced than I was. It was just great to be able to be there and sit and listen and learn and soak it all up. I was just very privileged and I Iearned a lot in a very short space of time – because I had to. How did you make your way back to the UK and what did you learn from being in the States with Stevie and Motown? I’d been working for Stevie for nearly three years, working between 16 and 24 hours a day, and I was very tired. As time went on, as I was getting more and more central to the organisation, I realised that either I was going to commit the rest of my life to looking after Stevie Wonder, or I was going to leave and try and do something myself. I chose the latter. I said to Stevie, ‘I’m going to leave at Christmas, I’m going to go back to London.’ I don’t think he really believed it. We kind of talked about it from time to time, but it wasn’t really discussed. And then, just before Christmas, I said, ‘You know I’m leaving in two weeks,

right?’ And actually, when I left, I hadn’t made a plan, because I thought it was disrespectful to start looking for other work when he hadn’t really acknowledged that I was going. And what had I learned? A lot, obviously. I couldn’t mix with the people I got to mix with without learning a phenomenal amount. And I also developed a lot of contacts. I think probably the biggest thing I learned during my time with Stevie was that anything is possible; you just have to get things done. I think when I started, I probably had much more of an attitude of, Oh, no, that can’t be done, that’s not possible. By the time I left: whatever it is, there has to be a way – that was much more my attitude. I remember Stevie calling me up one day and saying: Listen, I’ve got this great idea; I think we should pick up Congressman John Conyers’ idea of trying to make Martin Luther King’s birthday a national holiday. I said, ‘Yeah, that is a good idea.’ At which point he said, ‘Right, I want you to organise it.’ Whoa, what?! [laughs]. But the point is, when I started I’d have said, ‘Nah, I can’t do that.’ But then you think, okay, yeah, there has to be a way.

INTERVIEW

Stevie had said he wanted to have this march on Washington, like Martin Luther King’s. So I then had to think about how are we going to do that? How are we going to get people on side and make it happen? And we did. That was definitely one of the standout moments from my time there, and a big part of making me realise that you actually can make things happen. What did the UK music industry look like when you came back in 82? Had there been any significant changes? There have been some changes, because I was away during the punk rock period, so I came back to the post-punk world. The industry seemed to have contracted – prog had gone, disco had died. It was looking for something new. One of the first people I spoke to was Barry Marshall of Marshall Arts, and he suggested that maybe I would like to come and work with them. I was reluctant because I was thinking of doing my own thing, or maybe getting back involved with the major record companies. But then he said to me, ‘What about this young guy, Junior Giscombe? He seems to be getting some attention in America, someone’s talked to me about getting involved in managing him, would you be interested in coming in on that?’ I went to meet Junior, we talked and Barry and I took on joint management. Mama Used To Say had been released in the UK and had been ignored. I had some connections in America, so we went there with it, with a remixed version, and it became a number two R&B record. It was a big moment, because I think it was the first time a black British act really started to happen over there. There was another band, called Central Line, who I started managing and they had some success in America. From there, I ended up embarking on management.

Yeah, well there was Junior and Central Line. I managed a guy called Paul Johnson, and a band called The Walkers, who deserved to do a lot better than they did. I really just got my head down and got stuck into the whole British soul thing, as well as obviously trying to have pop success. And then later on I ended up working with Omar, Lynden David Hall, etc., but that was much later. Before that there was the battle of the eighties, with bands like Light of the World, Beggar and Co, Shakatak, Billy Ocean, all these people making really good records, and they were all struggling to get any kind of attention on British radio.

familiar with this, because he sort of said, I’m surprised you’re taking this line, Keith, you’re not like those others… [laughs]. He didn’t actually use those words, but you knew the implication. He said he couldn’t see there was a real issue. I mean, after all, and this is his actual phrase, ‘there’s a fair sprinkling of black faces on Top of the Pops every week.’ And I’m thinking, What does that mean, ‘A fair sprinkling of black faces’?!! We had a robust exchange at that point. It was a matter of making people aware that we weren’t about to take this, you know. If nothing changed behind the scenes, we were going to start to openly criticise and openly comment. And it wasn’t just me, I had allies. The British Black Music Association was formed by Root Jackson and Byron Lye-Fook. I remember we made a TV programme called Soul Searching, looking at why there was a lack of black talent in the chart, and why so few black artists have long-term careers, and it provoked a really furious response inside the industry.

“It was a matter of making people aware that we weren’t going to take this.”

And you put a great little roster together didn’t you, working with artists that anyone who cares about black British music should know about.

There was a battle to be fought. And because I’d been a radio plugger, I was able to go into battle and start to try to harass people into being fair. I didn’t want anything other than fair treatment. It just seemed like that there was almost a kind of a ‘one at a time’ policy, you know? ‘We’ll let them have a hit, but then drop them.’ If you looked at the make-up of radio, Radio 1 had no black producers, no minority producers of any kind, and usually only one black presenter – and they did the soul show. So the people who were judging the music had absolutely no background and no knowledge of it. It seemed to me that they were saying, Well, I suppose we ought to let one of these through at a time. How did you go into battle? I particularly remember a letter that I wrote to the then controller of Radio 1, Derek Chinnery, pointing out that they were treating black British music unfairly. He wrote a letter back which was remarkable, and black British people will be

What was that response? A lot of people were very defensive. The reaction was, That’s not true, nobody can accuse me of being racist, I’ve played this particular record etc. They just didn’t get it. I remember one A&R guy who’d been very successful with a lot of black acts, I was doing a conference with him. On the panel he was saying, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, think of what I’ve done for black music in Britain, all the hit acts I’ve had.’ I said to him, ‘Have you ever thought about what black music’s done for you?’ He actually offered to fight me outside. And I said to him, ‘There’s only going to be one winner here – and it’s not gonna be you’ [Laughs]. This is a side to Keith Harris I’ve never seen before, but I like it! I wasn’t advocating violence, but I am a fourth dan black belt in Taekwondo, so I was saying that with some confidence. 79

You’ve always been at the vanguard of diversity, inclusion and equality in our industry, and you’re now Chair of the Equality and Diversity Taskforce. Tell us about that, and about the differences you see between the times you’ve been talking about and now? Well it’s interesting, I remember Stevie asking me once, ‘What are you doing? Why don’t you come back?’ And I told him what I ideally wanted was to have a black music infrastructure in the UK. To me, if I could have something as a legacy, that would be it. I said, ‘In America, they’ve already done it; in the UK, we need to develop something.’ I was seeing too many talented artists not getting anywhere, because their careers were being completely stifled.

And I think that having now reached a kind of almost a critical mass in terms of the number of minorities involved in the industry, it is only a matter of a relatively short time before one of those people has massive success. I am quite optimistic, because the door has been opened; it’s the thin end of the wedge. I’ve seen a lot of people who have been given an opportunity, and I know that they have the talent and the ability to go on to create something really substantial. They are the kind of people who are going to make a difference, because they

across society. The music industry really should always have been a leader, but it’s been slow – so let’s hope we can catch up and then start to get ahead of the game. Are you still involved with Stevie? Yeah, I mean that’s gonna be a lifetime thing. I only get involved in his business a little bit these days, but we still talk very regularly. There’s too much history and we know each other too well for that to come to an end. Let’s go back to 2015 for a minute, when you were awarded your OBE, because we were all so proud. Tell us about that. It belongs to a lot of people. I mean, I have it, but I’ve had a lot of help on the way, from people like yourself, and many others, who’ve been very supportive. Sometimes it’s a pretty lonely road, because it’s a lot easier to say nothing than to say something. The other point I want to make is that there have been certain black music industry executives who have been successful in industry, and people have said, ‘They don’t say anything, I don’t see them raising their heads above the parapet.’ Well, listen, they don’t need to, their work speaks for them. You need some people in those positions, who are highly successful, who just do the job really, really well, so it just confirms that if you give minorities a chance, they can be as good as anybody else. I think of my friend Dej Mahoney, who was Head of Legal and Business Affairs at Sony for 12 years, people like that. All I want them to do is just be so good, which they are. He now has his own very successful company, and hopefully the industry realises what they’re missing, because that’s happened so many times. n

“He offered to fight me. I said, There’s only going to one winner here, and it isn’t you.”

Clearly things are moving in the right direction, and we’ve seen a lot of change recently, so where do you think we are right now? Right now, I’m really optimistic. And one of the reasons is because social media, and access to marketplaces, other than via the long-standing, more restricted channels, has really changed things. You can see what’s happened with grime. A group of people just said, we’ll do our own thing, we’ll find a route to market for ourselves; that’s much healthier. And something we’ve always known: where the money leads, the industry will follow. And, you know, so much money started to be made out of black music, the industry had to say, Hey, welcome, guys – you’re carrying cash! And that’s great, but what we don’t have at the moment are people of colour running major labels… Yeah, but I do believe, as I said, that where money leads the industry will follow.

have not just their own successful careers, but they have some historical depth. They have some understanding of what needs to be done, they are looking out for minorities and looking out for the people who they can promote and accelerate and bring through. That’s going to make a dramatic change. Talking of that, what does success in this area look like for that generation, in the years ahead? I want to see proper diversity, I want it to not be remarkable that a woman is running a major label, or a black person is running a major label. That should not be even remarked on, that should be the new normality. It’s going to be a little while before we get there, but I think it will happen. The dam has burst. Hopefully, it will happen right

This interview is taken from a new podcast series, 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 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.

Changing the narrative, one story at a time.

Did Ya know… Pioneers, the podcast. The stories of the executives of colour that have led the way. Available from wherever you get your podcasts.

‘THE AMOUNT OF MONEY BEING LEFT ON THE TABLE IS OUTRAGEOUS’ Sammy Andrews is CEO of Deviate Digital, an independent marketing agency across the music business. Here she discusses the most crucial elements a digital marketing campaign requires in the modern age – and shares some of her best tips and biggest frustrations… It’s fair to say Deviate Digital has had a good run in 2021 so far. We’re averaging at least two top 10 UK records a month and have already helped land two No. 1 records for our roster this year (Tom Grennan and You Me At Six), as well as achieving countless international top 10s, predominantly running global digital advertising with a specialised focus on paid social. I formed Deviate out of both love and frustration: love for my job and our industry, frustration that people are still getting it so terribly wrong, from the top-down and the ground up; it both baffles and infuriates me. I saw a real opportunity for an agency to sit in the middle of all stakeholders and help change the business, by understanding the game better than anyone else and, perhaps more importantly, understanding all stakeholders’ objectives and how they need to work together in the digital age to achieve success for artists and campaigns. The idea of change, progress and advancement for the industry is just as important to me as personal and professional success, something that has no doubt been both a blessing and a curse for my previous employers, but something that has helped Deviate thrive. And I know it’s important to our clients, indeed sometimes it’s exactly why they come to us. The week before I announced Deviate publicly I was offered a dream role as Head of Digital at one of the most respected major record labels in the world. I sat, (probably far more merry than I should have been) with Alison Bonny (former UK VP Comms at Spotify) in Spotify’s BRITs box at the O2 getting texts from the floor with ridiculous offers to halt the announcement, scrap the company and move in-house with them. Alison is, without doubt, the best person to have by your side in a wage negotiation, 82

despite, or perhaps because of, being a bottle of champagne deep, and she insisted, never mind seeing more zeros than I could have ever dreamed of, that I text back and ask for more. As tempting as the increasing six figures looked, I declined the role that night, because I believed I could achieve more, for both myself and the industry, with the freedom that running an agency offered. I am delighted to say, despite the fear, trepidation and challenges that come with running your own business, it was the best decision I have ever made. We now have clients all over the world and a hand-picked team of some of the greatest minds

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the music business has to offer. And I’ve learned a lot over the last few years, seeing people make the same mistakes again and again, watching people miss tricks left right and centre. With that in mind, I wanted to share a few of the brilliant things happening across the digital landscape, as well as some of the mistakes I see the business make consistently, in the hope that maybe we can work together to build a better, stronger and more successful business for all. Stop Putting Artist Data Behind Walled Gardens This is one of the biggest gripes I have with our industry and one of the most detrimental things anyone could do to a campaign and to an artist’s career. The most incredible thing about the digitisation of the modern music business is the incredible wealth of data we are generating. Used correctly it will both inform and transform a campaign, but far too many parts of our industry are locking it behind walled gardens and it has to stop. I have zero doubt that over the coming years

“We’re going to see an epic legal and moral battle over data ownership.”

we’re going to see an epic legal and moral battle over data ownership vs access, and talent will go where they can be in control of this. I hope that ahead of this battle all stakeholders wake up and smell the coffee. Across streaming data and fan data, locking this away is an absolute nonsense in the digital age and will never allow for a fully connected digital campaign (which is insane). In an ideal world managers and artists need to own their data and allow relevant partners access as and when required. The same partners generating an additional set is fine, but locking managers and artists out of the data flow, usage, reporting and collection is a fucking farce. You’re cutting your nose off to spite your face, but also your artists’ in the process, and believe me when I say savvy managers are taking names of the worst offenders across the board and looking to jump ship as a result…. we hear from most of them! If you silo an artist’s live, ticket, e-commerce, fan direct, streaming, sales, advertising and social data you have yet to fully realise the potential of the digital age. 83

Catalogue Is For Life, Not Just For Christmas Catalogue is an ever-increasing area of growth across our business. There was a time when catalogue campaigns existed purely to peddle out a shitty, overpriced box set, but the huge rush in rights grabs and the unstoppable rise of TikTok and streaming has the industry fully embracing the fact that songs have the potential to make money all day, every day. Investment in paid spend, content marketing, content creation, UGC encouragement, influencer marketing, playlisting, or savvy partnerships means the potential to breathe new revenue and life into older tracks has never been more tangible and achievable. We work with some very forward-thinking managers and labels who understand that using existing catalogue to heat up the algorithms ahead of new releases is a win-win for all. We are increasingly brought into campaigns ahead of any other team members for this very reason. Make Sure Your Advertising Is Always-On A successful advertising campaign is not just running a few token ads around a track release. But that’s what many of you are doing. The smartest labels and managers we work with understand the need to invest, nurture and cultivate a campaign and fanbase way ahead of, during and long after any release. The ‘always-on’ approach is not one anyone should apply to their daily life, but it absolutely is one everyone should take in advertising. The Ecommerce Journey Should Be Smooth, Simple And Connected The amount of money being left on the table out there is outrageous. When we get new clients in, we sit and audit the full digital footprint and I can’t believe how many don’t have fully functional integrated e-commerce solutions across all available platforms. Even less have full conversion tracking and re-targeting set up. It’s absolutely bonkers to me that in a world where a sale is a click away, people are missing this easy, fruitful trick. And whilst we’re talking clicks… if it takes more than a few to buy a T-shirt or a ticket, you’ve lost more than half of them already. It’s time to up the industry’s collective game. Some of our biggest platforms are archaic in comparison to some of the bright young tech solutions. 84

Tom Grennan

“It’s bonkers to me that in a world where a sale is a click away people are missing this easy, fruitful trick.”

Always spend time understanding the user journey across any of your properties and don’t be afraid to speak to your partners about improving them. Indistinguishable From Magic Working with visionary partners makes our job so utterly rewarding and we are very fortunate to work with some of the most forward-thinking companies and individuals in the game. Some people just ‘get it’ and are prepared to write the new rule book with us. I am forever grateful to the clients that took a chance on us over the dusty old existing industry architecture. In the digital world, pushing the boundaries of innovation and technology is vital and finding new ways to help our clients succeed is quite frankly thrilling. Each day presents new challenges and opportunities and at Deviate we not only welcome them, we actively seek them. Deviate Digital is based at Tileyard, London, located in Kings Cross, Europe’s largest community of artists, studios and businesses, all revolving around music, ideas, collaboration and creativity.

INTERVIEW

1971 AND ALL THAT Adam Barker joined Universal Music as a deal-maker. He’s now also a film-maker, cutting his teeth on Amy and, more recently, exec-producing the new Apple TV+ series, 1971…

round 10 years ago, renowned British music journalist David Hepworth posited the theory, quite casually but quite confidently (and quite often, actually), that 1971 was, as he put it ‘the annus mirabilis of the rock album’. He didn’t make a big deal of it. He does, after all, posit theories reasonably regularly – on podcasts, on his blog, on Twitter. It’s what he does. But they’re more pub chat than pitch. This one, however, had legs. And then wings, becoming first a best-selling book, Never A Dull Moment, and now a eight-part documentary series on Apple TV+, 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything. The series has moved things on quite a bit from Hepworth’s original position; it’s more global, less personal, and dwells more on the societal and political scenarios music was reflecting and sometimes influencing at the time. It has been made by much of the team behind Amy, the Oscar-winning featurelength documentary from 2015, including series director Asif Kapadia, who is part of a group of executive producers that includes Universal Music UK’s Director of Business Affairs, Adam Barker. Here, Barker discusses his evolving role within UMG, and explains how the mosttalked about new music doc of the year came together. Can you first give us a quick thumbnail sketch of your career so far? I was a criminal defense barrister for a few years, then I bumped into a friend of a friend of a friend who said, ‘You should have a look at working in the music industry, you’d love it: you get drunk all the time and don’t do any work; it’s amazing.’ From asking around, I realised that was what very much what this person did, and they were promptly fired. But the idea had been planted.

Adam Barker

I first worked for a guy called Tony Calder, who was one of the music industry’s great rogues. He was a comanager of The Rolling Stones, he was Marianne Faithfull’s manager and he was often referred to as ‘a psychedelic gangster’. Quite a character. From there, I went to work with Dean Marsh at a boutique law firm that specialised in dance music. That took me to Ministry of Sound, for about three years, which was an education – very strange, but very enjoyable. And then I joined Universal in 2003 via

what used to be Mercury Records, but has since morphed into EMI. 10 years ago, my predecessor in this job, Clive Fisher, retired and I was lucky enough to be put forward as his replacement [as Director of Business Affairs]. In that 10 years as, if you like, the chief deal-maker and contract negotiator at Universal, what have been the main changes in that area, from the record company side of the desk? It’s definitely become more complex; the variety of different types of deals has 85

increased dramatically and there are more choices and options for artists than ever before. If I think back to 10 years ago, obviously we were in a digital era, but, by and large, artists had the choice only of relatively conventional record deals: multiple options, royalty basis, advances – the standard ingredients that had been in place for decades. The commercial terms of deals had changed over time, but up until that point, the structure of deals, the basic commercial choice available to artists, had been pretty much unchanged for 20-odd years. And then, over the last 10 years, the way that digital distribution affords opportunities, the rise of label services, the rise of DIY, the ability to do it independently, has all meant that the number of options available to artists, and their lawyers and managers, has increased dramatically. So the first question for an artist starting out has become, what type of deal works best for me? Obviously the heart of what we do as a label is best supported by a more conventional structure, because it’s a structure that allows us to make what can be massive amounts of investment. It also used to be that nine out of 10 artists had not released a record before we signed them. Now, many artists have already released records independently and may have had some level of success, because it’s never been easier to put a record out. I think the barrier to being a globally successful artist is as high as it’s ever been, and it’s as hard as it’s ever been, it’s challenging for labels and artists alike. But the bigger initial barriers to entry, if you like, have fallen away.

I mean, I would say that, wouldn’t I? But I really do believe there is no substitute for a record label with great resource, great expertise, great talent, ability to invest, global reach; there’s no substitute for that if you want a global career. I think you can go from nought to 20 miles-per-hour yourself, but if you want to get from 20 to 100 miles-per-hour, I think it’s very difficult to do that without a major label. Let’s talk about how your role has evolved in recent years, especially the move into film production. How did that start? A number of years ago, Universal established a division called Globe, with a remit that included making TV programmes and documentaries. I worked with them for some time, but then when Amy came along, it was outside

catalogue level. So it was a sensitive project, but as David and I started to see some of the very early rough cuts, it was clear there was something incredibly special coming together. David was wonderful about ironing out and fixing some quite difficult dynamics that you can imagine came up throughout the process. And I would handle the sort of day-to-day relationships with James, looking after budget, making sure it was moving along, trying to iron out things I could iron out. And then this amazing film came out, we took it to Cannes, we went to the BAFTAs and the Oscars… It was something out of the ordinary for David and I. Most of all we were just hugely lucky to work with such incredible filmmakers. You glossed over it rather quickly there, but let’s go back and ask what it’s like to win an Oscar – or at least be part of the team of producers behind a film that wins an Oscar? Well, oddly, there was a core of confidence even early on, because it was such a great film. We flew out to LA, thrilled to be there. And then I just remember being absolutely over the moon. It was phenomenal, David and I got a thank you from the stage, and it was just so different from what we did day-to-day.

“We loved the book, we loved the idea and it obviously resonated with our catalogue.”

Is that all positive, or is it a problem for a major label? I think it is a positive thing, because it allows artists and their managers to be entrepreneurial outside of labels in the early stages. But I fervently believe that to achieve the kind of career success that most artists want, they absolutely need to partner with a label. 86

of Globe, and through a connection of David Joseph’s, actually. He knew the producer of Senna, James Gay-Rees, who came in and pitched the idea for a film about Amy Winehouse. As is David’s way, he works on impeccable instincts, and he was on board straight away; he was passionate about Amy’s legacy. He sent James and I away to make a deal, to make it work, and over the next couple of years, the film started to come together. There were highs and lows within that, it wasn’t an easy process, emotions were running very high. The film certainly didn’t pull any punches about some of the conclusions it made. A number of people were a little bruised by it, and those people were very vocal about that. Some of them were people with whom we had very close relationships on a

How did 1971 come about? Even before we got to the end of the Amy process, we were already talking to James about what we could do next, because I think we were all pretty clear that something special was happening. James came to us one day and said there’s this book, the David Hepworth book, and he wanted to do it as a documentary series. At this point we were kind of prepared to back James, Asif and Chris [King, editor/ exec producer] on pretty much anything. In this case, we loved the book, we loved the idea and it obviously resonated with our catalogue. We struck a deal, we looked at the budget. It was a more expensive project

INTERVIEW

than Amy, but manageable. And as with Amy, we were prepared to fully fund it, not to seek distributors’ money or pre-sell it, but to take the leap of faith. We started talking to James in late 2017, and it took a long time, just because of the huge volume of material, and the scale of the project. What was your role in that process? Day-to-day would be James and his team calling me about schedules, budgets, problems. Trying to keep it on track, pulling in favours where we needed favours, occasionally prodding James about the budget. And then where David was needed was pulling in some of the bigger contacts, some of the bigger names that were interviewed, using his address book, and also tapping into his creative overview. I think David and I both recognised that we could encourage and nudge, but really what we were trying to do was nurture these amazing filmmakers. They don’t need our advice, they sometimes just need a bit of cajoling and some practical behind the scenes help. How did you decide you wanted to move things on from the book? To be honest, other than us all having read the book, and having optioned the book, we very quickly didn’t refer to it. No disrespect to David, and we’re all fans, but this became its very own, very distinct filmed project. There are touchpoints between the two, but the series is a more expansive animal. When did Apple TV+ come into the picture? We started talking to a broad selection of streaming partners about 12 months ago. We narrowed it down in summer last year, and there were a number of interesting commercial discussions, as you can imagine. In the end we were delighted to choose Apple, because of the Apple Music connection, and also, ultimately, they were the most attractive commercial partner. With TV platforms, it’s not always

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necessarily about which one is the biggest, it’s which one can do the most with it and which one wants it the most – and that’s quite often the service that’s in the process of building a catalogue. How difficult – and expensive – was it to clear all the music right? It wasn’t cheap, it was very time consuming, and it was quite difficult, because we were very ambitious about what we wanted to clear and how much we wanted to clear. That was a very big part of the process for quite some time. Was there anything you couldn’t get? Ultimately, there wasn’t; we found a way through things. Sometimes there was a compromise required. Have you got any idea of how much music is in there? I think there are 58 artists, and more than 150 tracks. Why was 1971 such an important year?

For me, I think music and events were so closely intertwined, right? The music informed the events, the events informed the music. There were almost instant reactions to events by musicians. There was a rapid back and forth dynamic between music and what was going on. And I’m not sure we’re in that world today. We’ve got seismic events happening, we’ve got amazing music being made, but I’m not sure I see as much connection between the two. Music, by definition, is culturally relevant because it is culture. But its connection with societal events and political events, with some notable exceptions, seems to not be there right now. Is there anything you can tell us about what the Amy/1971 team are working on next? David [Joseph] and I have already started a new project. It’s going to be a feature length doc focusing on a hugely influential artist, but it’s early days and I’m afraid I can’t say who it is at this stage. n 87

Richard Antwi

Jojo Mukeza

Esther Lenda Bokuma

Daniel Beckley

Meet the Richard Antwi Scholarship graduates It is now five years since the tragic early death of music industry lawyer, manager and entrepreneur, Richard Antwi. Following his passing a group of his friends established the Richard Antwi Scholarship, which champions Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic individuals and is awarded in conjunction with the Music Business Management MA at the University of Westminster. It is supported by all three UK major record labels, music publishers, and several of the top independent music companies and law firms. MBUK meets the first three graduates, all of whom are now working within the music business – and all of whom are aiming high… 88

FEATURE

‘It’s ground level change, far beyond an Instagram post and a company box tick’ Jojo Mukeza pushed past a formerly uneasy relationship with formal education, secured his degree and is now part of the new team at 0207 Def Jam… Can you tell us a bit about your background and how much of a difference the Richard Antwi Scholarship made in terms of providing opportunities? I’m a Congolese-born British citizen. When I was 15 I was a huge fan of the producer collective Ruff Sqwad so I started making grime beats on FL Studio, and with a few close friends we formed our own producer collective, The Confect. Fast forward a few years and I ended up achieving a Masters in Music Business Management, courtesy of the great Richard Antwi scholarship.

“I’d like to be part of the right kind of change and conversations.”

How did you find the course? It was one of the most challenging things I had done in my life at the time. I never really excelled in formal education, so it was a whole different pocket I was in. Two things stick with me: First, the people I met, the whole class of 18/19. There are some powerful thinkers in there and I’m sure many of them will go on to achieve big things in this industry. The second thing is – and I need to preface this by saying I’m not really an advocate for formal education as I believe there are many different paths and entry points in this game – learning how to write in essay form and communicate my thoughts in such a style was and is something I am massively proud of.

What have you learned working at 0207 Def Jam? The Richard Antwi Scholarship made a colossal difference and played a huge part in the opportunities that I have in front of me today. I have changed my narrative and it’s now possible to inspire others in my community. 0207 Def Jam, is one of the best labels

in the business that understands the unique experience I bring and I’m able to fulfil my career and creative ambitions. What has your mentoring experience been like? I haven’t had a formal mentoring experience, but I’ve connected with people on the way who I would consider giants, that have shared crucial perspective and wisdom. Matt Ross [Sent Entertainment], who helped set up the scholarship, was hugely supportive in providing insight on how the industry communicates on a business level. Sally-Ann Gross played a key role as my lecturer and her support through my studies is something I’ll always be grateful for. Will Bloomfield [Modest Management], who is also part of the scholarship team, gave me time, which is very underrated, but very valuable. He would listen to all

my ideas, including the rubbish ones. I then met Char Grant [A&R Director at 0207 Def Jam] when I got into Universal. Her support has been invaluable. There’s so much happening all the time, and this industry moves at 200mph, but it’s important to be heard out and Char is a shining reflection of the team over at 0207. I also have to give a huge shout out to David Joseph [Universal Music UK Chairman & CEO] for having the foresight to support the scholarship in a real, tangible, impactful and meaningful way. It’s ground level change, far beyond an Instagram post and a company box tick. What are your ambitions? I want to share stories, listen to other people’s stories and build on my own stories. I’m blessed because my passion for music and sound align with my work. I always enjoyed producing and I never thought it would lead me to an MA and then to working with some of the greatest people in the game at 0207. We are in a time and space where creators have to be well informed in the music business in order to adapt to the demands of the market and climate. I want to spend some time unpacking what that fully is for me, personally. There is much demand on the industry to change, to become a safer place for workers, to have mental health conversations and many other ethical and structural changes. I’d like to be a part of the right kind of change and conversations. What’s the one thing that you think needs fixing in the music business right now? I’ll always be a producer at heart, so that’s the fight I’m picking. I can see cracks in the relationship between the music business and producers; that dynamic needs repairing. 89

‘I’m not afraid of change, nor am I afraid to fail or start again’ Esther Lenda Bokuma is a hotly-tipped artist in her own right (under the name Estée Blu) and is currently working at Universal Music’s Brand Partnership, Sync and Production division, Globe…

moved out of formal education and into artist development as a course leader on a music diploma programme, facilitating the learning of other young musicians. As that drew to a close, I was keen to discover more about career opportunities in the wider music business, and also sharpen my tools as an artist. In the summer of 2019, I saw Twin B [Alec Boateng, Co-President of 0207 Def Jam] post about the Richard Antwi scholarship on Twitter, and did some digging.

“It made me even more aware of the fact that artists are businesses.” That same afternoon, I had a phone call with the Programme Director, Sally-Anne Gross, at the University of Westminster who told me more about the Masters in Music Business Management and the scholarship. I was sold and applied for both! The Richard Antwi scholarship massively supported me in terms of financing the MA, providing me with a living stipend and also introducing me to the incredible scholarships committee, filled with friends and family who knew and loved Richard. It redefined how I saw myself, my talents, my influence and trajectory as an artist. It also made me even more aware of the fact that artists are businesses, and it was important for me to expand my skills and integrate all my passions

and experiences in building a creative and dynamic career for myself. I don’t believe in the myth of the starving artist, and with the right resources, talent, work ethic, network and guidance, anything is possible in terms of designing the life that you want. How did you find the course and what were the most important things you learned? I’ve always been a naturally curious person ¬– and a bit of a nerd – and as this Masters was actually my third degree and fifth University it definitely exceeded my experiences of higher education. It felt like the perfect alignment of time and space to nurture

Photo: Yukitaka Amemiya

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how much of a difference the Richard Antwi Scholarship made in terms of providing opportunities? I’m Esther, also known as Estee Blu, and I’m a London-born R&B, jazz and Afrofusion influenced artist, of Congolese heritage. I also work at Globe in the Brand Partnerships team at Universal and serve as a Sound Connections Trustee, with a focus on building career pathways for young people in the music industry. In addition, I sit on the recently launched F-List board of directors led by former BASCA CEO Vick Bain (now known as the Ivors Academy). The F-List focuses on gender parity for women and gender minorities in music, with an intersectional approach. My official journey into the industry was through birthing my artist persona, Estée Blu, around 2015. I have been compared to the likes of SZA and Solange by NME and supported by Help Musicians, the MOBO Awards and the Roundhouse. I’ve had features on platforms such as Apple Music 1, COLORS, AfroPunk and Sofar Sounds, with nods from Jamz Supernova, Julie Adenuga, Kamilla Rose and Remi Burgz, which has been fabulous as an independent and self-managed artist. I’d had offers for a few TV talent shows, management and a small independent label, but I’ve always been integral about how I grow my career, the contractual terms and the values of who I partnered with; if it didn’t feel right, I always trusted my intuition. So I was happy to fund my own development, learn as much as I could and take things at my own pace. With a bi-lingual background, I qualified as a French teacher to continue to support myself, and then after about 18 months I

FEATURE

my interests, expand my network and accelerate. We covered everything from copyright and intellectual property, to A&R, music marketing and new technologies, with several music industry professionals visiting us on a weekly basis as guest speakers. However, having to do a 10,000 word dissertation last summer was extremely challenging in what seemed like a never ending lockdown, at the height of the Black Lives Matter resurgence, particularly as I had chosen to investigate an intense subject matter, exploring the experiences of darker-skinned Black British women and their dealings with racism, colourism (discrimination against people with a dark skin tone in favour of those with a lighter skin tone from the same race) and sexism in the UK music industry. I also deep dived into Afro-futurism as a potential tool to circumvent inequalities. Given the climate, that was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done, but I believe that it was a timely and necessary piece of work that uncovered the reality of being a dark-skinned Black woman in British music: the dichotomy of being highly influential but equally invisible and looking to independence and entrepreneurship to carve out one’s own sense of freedom. I learnt that learning is a life-long process, so my research is still ongoing and I hope to be able to publish my thesis in paper or book. How has your work placement been and what have you learned from working at Globe? Like many, I’ve started my role virtually and it’s been strange not having met the team in real life and not being able to go on shoots, which is a big part of the position. But regardless of that, working at Globe has been a good experience. Individually, everyone is absolutely incredible at their jobs, so it collectively makes a stronger team, who work and deliver at such a high quality and standard. I’m only about six months in, so I’m still learning, but I guess the main takeaway

is the importance of brands in the music space, and how they each have varying objectives when partnering with artists. That means we have to be meticulous in our research, creative in our offer and tailor things specifically, which means that no deal is the same. What has your mentoring experience been like? I’ve been able to virtually shadow almost everyone on the Brands team and learn about their specialist skills as we work on such a broad range and scale of commercial partnerships. Outside Universal, my other mentors include Sally-Anne Gross, Matt Ross, Paul Heard [ex-M People/MPH Productions] and Will Bloomfield from the Richard Antwi scholarship committee, and it’s

“A lot of difficult conversations have been had – and are still ongoing.” comforting to be able to touch base with them regularly and still have their support beyond graduating last October. What are your ambitions? Since childhood, my ambitions have always involved honouring my creativity in whatever way that manifests. I’m not afraid of change, nor am I afraid to fail or start again, so long as I’m living in my purpose. I live quite holistically, since having an experience with burnout a few years ago, so having a good work/life balance are key factors for me as I continue in this industry. Music has always been my first love, and in the next 10 years I’ll definitely fulfill those artistic goals, putting all my years of learning into practice. I’m also interested in further developing my youth outreach activity, as I know how hard it can be to navigate this industry when you first start out, have absolutely no clue what you’re doing and have no connections.

I’m going to continue to focus on creating more safe spaces, particularly for Black women in music, across all intersections. There’s still so much more to unpack in terms of our unique experiences in this industry, which are often related to the combination of inequalities due to gender and race. However, there’s also room to celebrate the contributions of Black British women in wider culture, and I want to carry on lending my voice, doing the research and internal work, platforming others and also championing the movement towards equity. What’s the one thing that you think really needs fixing in the music business right now? As mentioned earlier, the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, along with The Show Must Be Paused Blackout Tuesday moment, really put a lot of things in perspective for me. I did a panel with Mulika Sannie and Keith Harris OBE around that time and it was a very honest conversation about the conditions of Black people within the music industry, both behind the scenes and out front. It was and still is shocking when you start to dissect where power sits, which is disproportionate to the creative, cultural and spiritual contributions of Black people in contemporary music. I recognise that a lot of difficult conversations have been had – and are still ongoing. A lot of learning and unlearning has taken place, which is great to see. But one thing that sticks out to me from the research I did on Black British women in music is how Black women are rarely on label rosters, not seen as priority artists and not in positions of seniority across the major and independent labels as well as the music trade bodies. Black women want the same opportunities as everyone else, the chance to economically participate and take up space in the vast musical genres and popular culture they helped build and continue to shape. For me, that’s the one thing that music industry leaders and the music business as a whole needs to address and fix right now, with real care and careful consideration. 91

‘In 10 years, I would like to be president of a major music company, building a successful and culturally significant roster’ Daniel Beckley is a legal scholar and multi-instrumentalist who has already benefitted from two internships and music industry law firms and is now working at Universal Music Publishing… multiple departments has really improved my overall understanding of the key areas involved in this area of the business.

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how much of a difference the Richard Antwi Scholarship made in terms of providing opportunities? I grew up in South London, from West African heritage. Since I was young, music has played a central role in my upbringing. Most of my school years involved learning multiple instruments and performing at venues across London as part of the Southwark Youth Orchestra. I started producing at the age of 14, drawing influences from nineties R&B, soul and hip-hop. I went on to study law at university and quickly realised that I wanted to apply the skills I developed there into a creative environment. The music business made sense, as it combines law, music and creativity, and I felt I could really add value to the industry. The Richard Antwi scholarship has been a huge catalyst for creating opportunities within this extremely competitive and selective space, It has also provided me with a role model in Richard, whose story has motivated me to excel.

the first ingredient to an artist’s success, it takes a lot of planning, investment and a dedicated team of people who understand the business to break an artist.

How did you find the course? When I was first introduced to the course by the scholarship team it was described as a bridge between the academic study of music business and the business itself. For me, I think it did just that. I became much more familiar with how the industry is structured and the fundamental issues that the industry is currently grappling with. The most important things I learned were how to think critically, understand the fundamentals of music copyrights and how to express creative ideas in music. I also learned that success in the music industry is very intentional. Talent is only

How has your work placement been and what have you learned from working at UMPG? It’s been eye opening. I’ve had a broad experience of the many interesting and challenging things that keep a major publisher busy. Initially, publishing was a grey area for me, partly because there are so many layers involved. For example, you have the core function of administering copyrights and collecting royalties on behalf of writers, while also creating commercial opportunities through sync and digital licenses. So, the opportunity to work across

What has your mentoring experience been like? The mentoring experience has been really beneficial for both my personal and professional development. The likes of Matt Ross and Will Bloomfield have been incredibly generous with their time, freely providing counsel and support. It truly feels like an extended family of people who care and want to help you navigate a meaningful career in music. I think what I have learned the most is the importance of keeping good relationships, being consistent and always feeling encouraged to express your ideas.

“It provided me with a role model in Richard, whose story has motivated me to excel.”

What are your ambitions? I want to create impact and become a forward-thinking music executive. In 10 years, I would like to be president of a major music company, building a successful and culturally significant roster. I would also like to be able to create opportunities for other young people that share similar backgrounds to myself. And what’s the one thing that you think needs fixing in the music business? I think diversity and representation is key across all areas in the music business. It makes sense for executives to better reflect the talent they look after and initiatives like the Richard Antwi scholarship are helping to address this. I’d also like the music business to be more proactive than reactive. We need to be ahead of the curve with technological advancements which have the potential to be disruptive in the future.

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‘IT’S IMPORTANT FOR PEOPLE TO BE THEIR AUTHENTIC SELVES’ Jess Kinn was the first hire at agent Jon Ollier’s new live music agency, One Fiinix Live. Here, the former Paradigm agent tells MBUK about her career, working on livestream events for Dua Lipa and Gorillaz and how her family inspired her to pursue a career in the live industry...

ess Kinn’s family musical legacy is something to behold. The Londonbased live agent’s grandad was Maurice Kinn, the influential promoter and British industry figure who founded the NME in 1952, which published the first UK Singles Chart in November of that year. Kinn’s dad, an avid record collector, had an entire room dedicated to vinyl, which she says she “raided” to DJ around London as a teenager using garage, soul and freakbeat 45s from his collection. He also taught her how to tell the difference between US and UK vinyl pressings just by holding them. 94

“I grew up with my dad literally giving me music quizzes every day,” says Kinn. She adds that her grandad’s musical legacy, and the knowledge that her dad instilled in her, made her and her sister, Martha Kinn (Director at YMU Music in London and manager of Years & Years, MNEK), determined to make it in the music industry. Kinn’s live music career started at The Leighton Pope Organisation before joining Coda Agency (which would later become Paradigm following a merger with the latter US firm). Starting on the reception desk and later working as an assistant with Nick Matthews and Dave Blackgrove, Kinn

worked her way up to agent, spending nine years in total at Paradigm. “There was no set path for me becoming an agent and I would work late, be at every show and always be putting my hand up to do more,” she recalls. “Live [music] and the music industry is heavily male[dominated] and I was usually one of the only females in the room, especially in the early days.” She adds: “Unfortunately that’s still the case now. I saw music industry football teams hardly had any women in them so I decided to start my own mixed football team every Wednesday at Paradigm and it was great. We played during our lunch

INTERVIEW

break, which was so good for our mental health, and [we] won trophies.” After leaving Paradigm at the start of 2020, Kinn headed up events for live streaming firm LIVENow, where, during live music’s enforced and prolonged hiatus due to the pandemic, she worked on livestreamed concerts for the likes of Gorillaz and the record breaking Dua Lipa Studio 2054 event. In early 2021, she joined Londonbased live music agency One Fiinix Live, launched by award-winning British agent Jon Ollier, following nearly six years at Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Emma Davis, Ollier’s long-time colleague at CAA also joined the new company, whose roster of superstar clients include the likes of Ed Sheeran, Anne-Marie and Lauv. At Paradigm, Kinn’s acts included Mallrat, Years & Years, Cat Burns, Tessa Violet, Rebecca Garton. All have now joined her at One Fiinix Live. Other acts on Kinn’s roster include Beka, Lava La Rue, George Moir, Ellie Dixon, and Michael Aldag & The Stickmen. “It’s very humbling that they’ve decided to come on this journey with me,” she says. “I’m so excited to be a part of something from the beginning and helping to create a forward-thinking, safe and supportive working environment.” She continues: “I love the fact that my roster is so diverse and predominantly female, and that my artists are out there pushing boundaries and being so creative. Years & Years and Elton John’s surprise performance at the Brits was absolutely outstanding and a beautiful celebration of queer culture. I’m so excited to go and watch Lava La Rue in August and Beka in October. Both shows are going to be really special.” Looking back over the events of the past 18 months, Kinn tells MBUK that “the pandemic has given us all time to reflect, sit with ourselves and realise what’s important in life”. She also explains that “there were definitely times in the pandemic that I wanted to leave live [music] and do something else, especially with everything going on and the fear we all felt”. Kinn

Elton John and Olly Alexander at the BRITs 2021

says however, that she’s “been doing this for over 10 years and I can’t seem to leave!”. She concludes: “Nothing can replace that feeling when you watch a live show.” Here, Kinn discusses how she moved from live music to livestreaming to navigate her way through the pandemic, and why she decided to join Ollier at his new venture. As a live music professional, tell us about how things were for you going from the end of 2019 into the pandemic in early 2020? I had a crazy end to 2019 and I thought, ‘2020 has got to be better. This is my year’. And then the pandemic hit and it was all so overwhelming on people’s mental health. The [music] industry isn’t just somewhere you work. You put your whole life into [your work]. To see it all just fall away so quickly was very difficult. All the changes, all the redundancies and everything going on made me reassess a lot of things in my life and made me realise what’s important. I thought, I need

a minute to re-think and re-group, and I decided that I didn’t just want to sit around and wait. I ended up moving across to a live streaming platform [LIVENow] and I did that for six months. That gave me something to sink my teeth into and gave me a new skill. I learned everything there is to know about streaming, which has come in really handy (referring to myself as the stream queen!). Was live streaming something that you were taking seriously before the pandemic? Look, we all know that [livestreaming] can never replace live music. It can never be a replacement for an actual feeling of going to a gig. But, as the pandemic hit, and as things carried on into the second lockdown, it was like, this is the only way you’re going to be able to see any live music. The live streams that worked were the ones that offered something completely different and something that you can’t see live, like a hybrid between a gig and a music video. 95

Going forward, it can really be used as an amazing tool. Not necessarily just streaming a gig if you can’t travel to shows, but actually offering something personal to fans, like seeing the artist [backstage] before the show. But it can never replace an actual live show. You worked on Dua Lipa’s live stream event. How challenging was that to get off the ground? It took a lot to get it announced and to even get it to happen, because they all had to be put into different COVID bubbles. That was a really big challenge. The same with the Gorillaz [livestream concert]. That was a great example of something you can never see live. It obviously had so many special effects and the production that was built [meant that] you could never actually see it live. Do you think live streaming will form part of the events experience post-pandemic? It can definitely be used as a tool, but I don’t think every gig is going to be live streamed, because it’s very expensive to put cameras in for the live stream and to do that in every venue.

Do you have any other goals for the first few months? We’re looking at things like sustainable touring. We’re looking at building and growing [the business] when the time is right. And then, we’re also focusing on the artists and on the music and signing some really great acts. [We’re] getting ready for when it does all turn on again. [We want] to be ready to celebrate this incredible moment, when it all happens.

and believe in what we’re doing, then it just seems to work. We’re on this journey together. What do you think were the biggest challenges facing live music before the pandemic? Something that it’s probably facing even now, which is saturation. A lot of artists were out touring and trying to get slots at festivals. Trying to get venue availability is really hard. Even trying to find exciting and interesting venues was hard at that time. Now, there are venues that are closing and there are so many artists that are going to tour now and next year. It’s going to be really difficult for fans who might have to choose what shows they go to. That’s why it’s important that, as agents, we try and be creative in the process with the manager, with the artist and say, ‘What is this? What can we offer fans that’s different and personal to them as the artist?’ Give someone that different experience, rather just going to a show; provide something that’s new and exciting for them.

“You can’t be afraid to stand your ground, trust your instincts and know you’ll have knock backs.”

After LIVENow you started working with Jon Ollier. Why did you want to work with him and what’s it like working at One Fiinix? I saw that all these changes were being made across agencies and saw that Jon had started the company. I was really excited to see what he was doing. I didn’t know him or anything, but I heard really good things about him in the industry. I called him up and said, ‘Look, do you want to have a catch-up?’ We had this really great conversation on the first phone call. We went on this long lunch and spoke about music, what we wanted for the ethos of the company, the strategy etc., and it just made sense to come out of the live streaming world and get back into doing what I love, which is obviously live music. We just really vibe together on strategy and the music. He’s very straight talking, 96

which I like. We both really have this passion for the artists. It’s great that we can both bounce ideas off each other. Emma [Davis], who also works with us on the team, is amazing. There’s [other] things [we want to do], like we want to banish the word ‘assistant’. We want to use something like ‘business support’ instead. We’re all together as a team, and we want the same thing, so that’s really important.

With the artists that I’m working with, I feel very lucky that they’re really amazing people; they stand for something. The managers I’m working with are also amazing. So that’s where we’re at: we’re blocking out the noise around us and focusing on the artists and on the music. How challenging has it been to find new acts to work with over the past few months of the pandemic? I don’t know if it’s been challenging, but there’s just so much music and so many artists out there. It’s hard without being able to say to them, ‘Look, this is what we can do.’ We can [only] say, ‘This is what we hope we can do.’ But, for me, if I hear something and it’s undeniable and I feel like I can add something to it, I’m just like, ‘I want to work with you guys’. If they believe in me

Let’s go back to the beginning. How did you get into music and then start working in the live music industry? I grew up with my dad literally giving me music quizzes every day. Our living room has a wall dedicated to records and I would help out on my Dad’s record stall in Camden Market, he would make me feel the vinyl to tell him if it was an American or British pressing. Music was always spoken about in our family and [because] that all happened, I started DJing. I would raid my dad’s vinyl collection and go around London, and play sixties soul, garage, freakbeat and funk. It’s also kind of in my blood. My granddad founded the NME in the fifties. [Maurice Kinn retained Percy Dickins and Ray Sonin to help re-launch the title.] He was instrumental in publishing a (Official Singles] chart and put on concerts with the Rolling Stones and The Beatles on the same bill. He was the first and only person to bring Billie Holiday over in the

INTERVIEW

Lava La Rue

fifties, which was super cool. He’s got this incredible legacy, but he passed away when I was 10 years old, so that was in 2000. But what it did was it made me and my sister [Martha Kinn, Director at YMU Music] be much more determined to go into [the music business], because we spoke about music so much and because of my dad instilling this music into us. [After DJing], I got into working at booking agency The Leighton Pope Organisation and did that for a year. I was a PA and then wanted to be more on the agents and booking side. I was also interning at some PR companies [at the time]. Then, I saw there was something going at Coda Agency and went for that. I didn’t get the job, but they were really impressed with my interview, so I got onto reception there and then just built myself up. I worked on reception for two months, then started working with Nick and Dave. I worked across DJs and live acts, assisting, then booking, working solely with Nick and a couple of the partners, adding people to our team and carried on building my roster and career. I was there for nine years.

Jess Kinn worked on Dua Lipa’s Studio 2054 livestream event, which pulled in over 5 million viewers in December 2020

How would you advise young people to start a career working as an agent? I was out and about talking to people, meeting people. I love people, I love music. Those are the two [reasons why] I thought [this career] made sense. You can’t be afraid to stand your ground, trust your instincts and know you’re going to have knock backs and people that doubt you along the way. This job is so rewarding but it’s hard. It’s also [about] creativity, strategy, taking risks and showing that you’re willing to graft, stay late and go to a gig every night of the week. Make sure you keep and nurture good relationships with people and keep trying and keep pushing. What other advice would you give to somebody who wanted to work in live music? It’s important for people to be their authentic selves. You need to not listen to a lot of people telling you ‘No’ or telling you one thing. You really need to fight for it. What I’ve noticed is that artists and managers want people, on a human level, to really connect with them, and to

be on their team and to be able to work with them [collaboratively]. That’s really important. A lot of why we got into this industry [gets] lost and taking it back to actually being about the music and about the people is really important. What’s one thing that you would change about the music industry and why? It’s a big question. There’s a lot of things I would want to change, but I would definitely change the level of representation behind the scenes in the music industry. Even though we are seeing more upcoming artists from diverse backgrounds, when it comes to promoters, tour managers and agents, people from LGBTQ+ backgrounds, people with different gender identities and non-white people are still largely unrepresented, and that needs to change. People’s mental health is also really important. People need to focus more on that. And, again, making it about the music and remembering why we all get up and do this every day. n 97

Every Picture Tells A Story

Date: June, 1989 Location: Wembley Arena, London Bob was playing Wembley, and we decided to have a small affair backstage, 20 or so people, major retailers, the big people from radio, Champagne, nice things on sticks and everyone gets to meet Bob. I said to Bob’s people, we just want to give him a Gold record, and then if he could spend 10 minutes with us, that would be great. Of course word came back: Bob does not do meet and greets. Undeterred, I thought, I’ll get there early, I’ll find him and explain the situation, persuade him that this is something he should do. I go to Bob’s dressing room, there’s no one there, I ask a security guy where he is and he says, ‘Oh, he’s down there, second door on the left.’ I knock, no answer, so I open the door and it’s basically a storage cupboard. Sitting on a fold-up chair was Bob, to his left was George Harrison, and to his left, sat on a huge keg of beer, was Ringo. I said, ‘Sorry to interrupt, my name is Paul Russell, I run the record company here and Bob I was wondering…’ Before I’d even got half of it out: ‘I don’t do meet and greets, I don’t do album presentations.’ I tried again, I said the radio people have been very, very good to us, so have retail, it’s only about 20 people, no one’s going to jostle you, if you could just come by, we’ll give you the album, you could say a few words, it would mean so much to everyone… Still no. 98

I’m about to launch into my third request, when suddenly Ringo says, ‘For fuck sake Bob, do as the fucking geezer asks, come on, don’t be a c**t.’ Bob looks at Ringo, and I sense my chance. I said, ‘Bob, I’ll tell you how we’re gonna do this. The room has two doors, you come in one door, I’ll be standing with the album, we’ll take a photograph, you go out the other door. You don’t even have to take the album with you, just smile at 20 people.’ At which point Ringo chimes in again: ‘For fuck sake Bob, do the guy a fucking favour.’ Bob looks at Ringo, looks back at me, ‘You promise I don’t even have to take the album?’ After the show, there we are, in our room, someone gives me the signal, Bob comes through the door, he won’t take the album, as you can see, but he puts his hand on my shoulder and manages as much of a smile as we were ever going to get. The photographer fires off two or three shots and Bob’s out the other door. So, thanks to Ringo, we got him! As part of a storied career, Paul Russell was the Chairman of Sony Music UK during much of the eighties and nineties.

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Music Business UK – Q2 2021

Articles inside

Keith Harris Did Ya Know

Sandy Dworniak This Much Talent

Adam Barker Universal Music UK

Rudimental Major Toms

Mike Smith Downtown Music Services

Joe Kentish Warner Records

Jess Kinn One Fiinix Live