business
Turnpike Troubadours Signs With TMWRK for Management Ahead of 2022 Reunion Tour
Turnpike Troubadours have signed with Andrew McInnes‘ TMWRK for management ahead of the group’s 2022 reunion tour. TMWRK’s Sydney Clark will serve as day-to-day manager for the group, while longtime agent Jon Folk with Red 11 Music in Nashville will continue to book their live performances. McInnes tells Billboard that he and TMWRK senior vp Paddy Scace were introduced to the band by David Macias at Thirty Tigers and that they eventually agreed to manage the six-person group after meeting the members in Oklahoma. He said Scace will manage the band’s touring business, while the staff at TMWRK will work with the group to develop a strategy around their independent record label, Bossier City Records. “They’ve always released their own records, and we excel at that business,” McInnes tell...
FTX exchange acquires Liquid and absorbs its subsidiary Quoine
The acquisition deal is yet to receive the green light from the financial markets regulator and shareholders Japan-based FTX users will be moved to Quoine after the completion of the deal Following a successful $400 million Series C funding round at the end of last month, FTX has moved to acquire Liquid – a Japan-based crypto exchange firm. The Bahamas-based exchange, led by Sam Bankman-Fried, is looking to seal the acquisition deal for Liquid by March. Neither party revealed the deal’s specifics, including the financial sum involved. This is not the first time that Liquid and FTX have crossed paths. Last year in August, the former suffered a hack that saw it lose up to $90 million worth of funds in almost 70 various crypto assets. Following the hack, FTX financed the exchange, offer...
Executive Turntable: Warner Records Taps Commercial SVP, Stem Strengthens Artist & Label Team
Josh Remsberg was named senior vp, commercial revenue at Warner Records. The Los Angeles-based Remsberg joins Warner from Universal Music Group’s Capitol Records, where he’s served as senior vp, commerce & business development since 2020. In his new role, he’ll report to and work closely with Warner Records executive vp, promotion & commerce Mike Chester to develop and implement the label’s new release and long-term sales strategy and artists campaigns across streaming, digital and commercial platforms and accounts. Remsberg joined UMG in 2001 as an 18-year-old college representative at the University of Michigan. After graduating, he was hired as a field rep for Geffen Records in Detroit. He later worked for UMG’s distribution arm with a focus on the Republic and Motown labels. He...
South Park destroys Matt Damon’s Crypto.com ad in season premiere
More than three months after its release, the ad from crypto exchange Crypto.com featuring Hollywood star Matt Damon was the subject of ridicule in the latest episode of the animated series South Park. In the first episode of its 25th season titled “Pajama Day”, the creators of South Park took on people in the United States refusing to wear a mask and once again associated crypto investments with scams. Characters in the show attacked Damon’s appearance in an TV spot titled “fortune favors the brave”, showing the actor speaking about Crypto.com amid a digital landscape of historic figures. “My dad said he listened to Matt Damon and lost all his money…” “Yes, everyone did! But they were brave in doing so!” The criticism is likely related to cryptocurrencies losing more than $500 billion in ...
Rita Ora Signs Record Deal With BMG
Rita Ora has struck a partnership with BMG to release her future recordings, the company announced Thursday (Feb. 3). Under the new deal, Ora will own all of her future master recordings. “I’m THRILLED to announce that I am partnering with BMG!!! I couldn’t be happier that they will be my label family moving forward,” Ora said on social media. “Their approach to artist ownership and control is very much aligned with mine, and it’s so empowering to know that I will own all my master recordings that I make from now on. I also feel so motivated to be working with such a dynamic, creative, forward-thinking global company.” Ora is one of the largest pop acts BMG has added to its roster and follows the $10 million global deal the company signed with 5 Seconds of Summer in October. Ora has charte...
Nike Becomes an Equity Investor in the WNBA
NIKE, Inc. on Thursday became an equity investor in the WNBA, deepening its 25-year commitment to the league. The partnership will allow Nike to help grow the league by crafting authentic storytelling, offering widened visibility for WNBA athletes and establishing additional grassroots opportunities for girls to play basketball. “Women’s sport is one of the best investments, with great potential to impact and grow the next era of basketball,” said Sonja Henning, VP, NA Leagues Partnerships, NIKE, Inc., in a statement. “Nike has always been more than a sponsor with the WNBA — we’re a strategic partner. And we’re proud to be part of a movement that is redefining sport for a new generation — for WNBA players, fans and girls.” Through this investment, Nike’s main goal is to equip the league wi...
John Legend Dives Into NFTs With Our Happy Company’s ‘OurSong’ Platform
John Legend, the great-allrounder who has already completed an EGOT, the youngest person to do so, is spreading his wings into NFTs. The R&B star is named co-founder and chief impact officer at Our Happy Company, which today (Feb. 2) launches OurSong, its social NFT platform. With Legend in his dual-capacity, Our Happy Company has ambitions for OurSong to “build a better system for creators to be discovered, monetize their work, and engage with fans through NFTs,” reads a statement. The new platform is meant to appeal to those of us who don’t possess a degree in computer science, or have, at the very least, a lifelong tech habit. One of its points of difference is ease of use, for artists and consumers. OurSong users don’t need to hold a separate cryptocurrency wallet outside the...
Sony Creating Joint Venture In India For Film and Music Ventures
Sony Group is leveraging its music and movie entertainment divisions to create a joint company focused on developing investment ventures for media talent in India. The new venture, to be named Sony Entertainment Talent Ventures India (SETVI), will draw from a “vast pool of commercial talent and star-power in India to build investment opportunities, partnerships, metaverse solutions and more,” the company says in a press release. Sony Music Entertainment is already a leading record label in India, with a strong presence in Bollywood and Tamil OST, across multiple genres that include national and regional pop. Sony Pictures Entertainment includes Sony Pictures Networks, a broadcast division with over 700 million viewers from 170 million households in 8,000 cities across India; Sony Pictures ...
Worldwide Independent Network Appoints Maria Amato as Chair
Maria Amato, CEO of the Australian Independent Record Labels Assn. (AIR), is appointed chair of Worldwide Independent Network (WIN), the organization that brings together local independent music trade bodies across the globe. Based in Melbourne, Amato becomes WIN’s first female chair and the organization’s first from the southern hemisphere. Amato is one of several new changes to the board of WIN for 2022. She’s joined by new directors Jeffrey Chiang (Fluxus Inc./LIAK, South Korea), Paul Pacifico (AIM, U.K.) and Sandra Rodrigues (ABMI, Brazil), who replace outgoing directors Carlos Mills (ABMI, Brazil), Chan Kim (Fluxus Inc,/LIAK, South Korea), and Kees van Weijen (IMPALA, Europe). “Today’s news marks the first time that WIN has been chaired both by a woman, and by someone from outside Eur...
HitPiece Wanted to Make an NFT for Every Song — Only Its Founders Forgot to Ask Artists First
Over the last couple days, a beta version of a new platform called HitPiece has sparked outrage and confusion throughout the music industry after artists and their teams began finding NFTs of their songs posted on the marketplace without their permission. The NFTs were listed as “available for auction” or as “live” auctions under individual song titles with corresponding album artwork, and while they were characterized as “music NFTs” they did not appear to contain audio. HitPiece’s mission, according to the company’s pitch deck, is to make a “1 of 1 NFT for every song,” allowing “USD and Crypto for payment.” The company launched in December, but it wasn’t until Tuesday that people began to really take notice that it was listing NFTs for artists ranging from XXXTentacion to John Lennon to ...
Twitch Reaches Deal With Merlin for Independent Labels
Live streaming platform Twitch has entered into an agreement with digital music licensing service Merlin to create revenue-earning opportunities for independent artists. Merlin represents more than 20,000 labels and hundreds of thousands of artists from every country in the world, who can now interact with fans, generate earnings and build community on Twitch. Similar to the recent agreements formed between Twitch and Universal Music and Warner Music’s recorded music divisions, the Merlin partnership is not a licensing deal. “We’re thrilled to collaborate with Twitch for this groundbreaking deal,” said Merlin CEO Jeremy Sirota in a release. “We’ve been engaged in conversations with Twitch since the day I started at Merlin, and I’m pleased that our team found a path for Merlin members and t...
For Lil Wayne, Mac Miller & More, Bringing Mixtapes to Streaming Is a Boon — But Clearing Them Is ‘Hell’
In the last few years, many cult-favorite hip-hop mixtapes from the 1990s and 2000s have made their way to streaming platforms, including Apple Music, Tidal and Spotify. Fan demand helped, but the hard work was done by sample clearance experts like Deborah Mannis-Gardner, who negotiated with copyright owners and labels whose songs and recordings were sampled on the tapes, to secure the necessary licenses. In 2021 alone, streaming services started offering Mac Miller’s critically acclaimed 2014 mixtape Faces, A$AP Rocky’s 2011 debut Live. Love. A$AP; Megan Thee Stallion’s compilation project Something For Thee Hotties which includes a handful of her standalone freestyles from the last few years, and Nicki Minaj’s breakout 2009 project, Beam Me Up Scotty. “This all started during COVID last ...
