Billboard Magazine July 1-14, 2017

JUSTIN BIEBER CONTINUES HIS RECORD-BREAKING YEAR by becoming the first artist to boast the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 titles concurrently on Billboard’s Digital Song Sales chart. He leads the list for a seventh week as featured on Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito” (140,000 downloads sold in the week ending June 15, according to Nielsen Music); he holds at No. 2 as featured on DJ Khaled’s former No. 1, “I’m the One” (77,000, with Quavo, Chance the Rapper and Lil Wayne); and he debuts at No. 3, also in a featured role, on David Guetta’s “2U,” which launches with 72,000 first-week downloads sold. On the Billboard Hot 100, the songs rank at Nos. 1, 2 and 16, respectively. Bieber previously broke chart barriers with “Despacito” and “I’m the One”:…

MARSHMELLO, A DANCEmusic DJ spinning at clubs and festivals around the world this summer, expects to generate $20 million in touring revenue in 2017. So at the moment, he isn’t interested in signing a major-label record contract. Instead, he’s in talks with a handful of majors in hopes of putting out a single with each one. “It’s the Wild West today, because artists can do more on their own,” says marshmello’s attorney Joshua Binder, a partner at Davis Shapiro, whose other clients include Kendrick Lamar and Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith’s Top Dawg Entertainment roster. “He doesn’t have a record company trying to take credit for his success, [which allows him to say], ‘Let’s try dating before we get married.’ ” With streaming spurring the music industry’s growth to a gallop,…

THE FIRST TIME THAT John Langford visited London’s O2 Arena in 2014, he paused outside and stared up at the 25-acre dome before him. “I remember thinking, ‘Jesus, that’s a big place,’ ” recalls the Johannesburg-born executive, who took over as vice president/ GM of the world’s highestgrossing arena last November after serving as director of live entertainment at the SSE Hydro Arena in Glasgow. Now, the AEG-owned 21,000-capacity venue is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a string of shows by alt-J, Céline Dion and Ed Sheeran. Grossing $141 million from 182 shows in 2016, according to Billboard Boxscore, sellouts in 2017 have included Drake (eight nights), Take That (six) and Sheeran (three). “We’re going in a great direction,” says Langford. “It’s just about having a steady hand on the…

At 20 years old, Andre Benz may not be old enough to get into clubs or order a beer. But during the past five years he has become one of the most powerful tastemakers in electronic music, combing through new tracks and featuring favorites on his YouTube channels Trap Nation, Chill Nation and Rap Nation, which he launched in high school. ”By the end of senior year I was already making enough capital to hire employees and expand,” says Benz, whose channels count a combined 20 million subscribers — more than Spotify’s most popular playlist — while Trap Nation alone has logged nearly 5 billion views. Benz now has eight full-time employees and three part-time contractors in a Los Angeles office he opened in 2016 and has begun signing artists…

Few record labels were as important to the rise of West Coast hip-hop as Priority Records. From 1985 until 2004, when it first shut down, Priority was home to game-changing early albums from N.W.A, Dr. Dre and Ice-T, among a slew of others. Now, Capitol Music Group is relaunching the imprint as a versatile distribution wing overseen by CMG’s hierarchy, including chairman/CEO Steve Barnett, new executive vp Dion “No I.D.” Wilson and Motown president Ethiopia Habtemariam, and run by Los Angeles radio veteran William “Fuzzy” West and A&R rep Serge Durand to push Capitol deeper into the hip-hop market. ”Until Ethiopia arrived with Motown [in 2014], Capitol hadn’t been committed in urban for 25 years,” says Barnett. Capitol hopes to use that trailblazing legacy to compete with indie distributors that…

EVEN RICK ROSKIN, ONE OF THE most prominent talent agents in the music business, says he finds Creative Artists Agency’s towering, O-shaped headquarters — known as the Death Star — intimidating. The Tulane graduate’s office in CAA’s executive suite looks out on expansive views of Los Angeles as valets whisk away cars below. “It’s a bit daunting, but on the music side we tend to be a little more casual. We don’t wear suits,” says Roskin, CAA co-head of contemporary music for North America. The 51-year-old began working in CAA’s mailroom 30 years ago, as a kid who loved music but whose “only redeeming skill was I knew how to operate a keg.” Roskin became an agent in 1991, and over the years his client roster has grown to include…