Innholdsfortegnelse for February 26, 2022 i Billboard Magazine

WOMEN IN MUSIC have made huge progress over the past year. Michelle Jubelirer became Capitol Music Group’s first female CEO in the company’s 80-year history. Sherrese Clarke Soares secured $1 billion from private equity giant Apollo to acquire music and entertainment assets through her new investment group, HarbourView Equity Partners. And Golnar Khosrowshahi took her publishing firm, Reservoir Media, public, joining the rare ranks of female CEOs leading publicly traded companies in any sector. But despite these victories, women are still fighting for inclusion, representation, recognition and equal pay at the top of the music business, from recording studios to C-suites. Could the metaverse be a more welcoming place? As the music world scrambles to prepare for a virtual future, Billboard wanted to shine a light on efforts to…

TO PLAN Dashboard Confessional’s 2022 tour with Jimmy Eat World, which begins Feb. 27, the veteran emo band’s tour manager, Jack Funk, started making calls in late December to fill two buses with 12 musicians and hire a production crew. Even at the last minute, this process was, in normal times, routine. Not this year. “It’s a nightmare,” he says. “I started talking to people: This guy’s busy, this guy’s busy. Everybody wants money. And rightfully so — they’re in demand. But we’re not Bon Jovi. We can’t afford it.” In late January, with barely enough time left before the tour started, Funk found the final crew member, a front-of-house engineer. “It’s really stressful,” he says. For touring stars, venues and promoters, everything is anxious in 2022. The pandemic…

LAST YEAR, AFTER TAKING the Grammys stage for a futuristic, dance-heavy performance of her Hot 100-topping hit “Say So,” Doja Cat broke down in tears. “That one moment set me off in a different way,” she says. For an artist who has been toiling in the industry since 2013, making the rare jump from viral breakout to bona fide pop star in the process, “it was just the buildup and all the hard work and seeing the vision come to life,” she explains. As it turns out, she was just getting started. Three months later, in June, Doja released her acclaimed third album, Planet Her, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and launched two more Hot 100 top 10s with “Kiss Me More” featuring SZA and…

CO-EXECUTIVES OF THE YEAR 2020 Briana Agyemang Co-founder, #TheShowMustBePaused; senior artist campaign manager, Platoon Jamila Thomas Co-founder, #TheShowMustBePaused; vp of artist marketing, Motown Records After putting the music industry on notice for its systemic racial bias with the launch of their organization #TheShowMustBePaused, Agyemang and Thomas celebrated the first anniversary of Blackout Tuesday in June 2021 by sending accountability reports to music companies. They asked for an outline of changes that had been made to further growth opportunities for Black executives and employees. Their goal is “radical activism,” which means working to create “lasting change and a safe space for music professionals to strategically address issues affecting Black music and culture,” according to a statement from the two activists. EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR 2019 Desiree Perez CEO, Roc Nation…

MALUMA “Edgar Barrera is not just a musician — he’s a visionary. He understands different musical planes and makes them all sound so natural, as if each genre were a part of him. We have great empathy in the studio, but what truly defines us is brotherhood.” CHRISTIAN NODAL “Aside from being like a brother to me, Edgar is a truly talented being who writes with his heart in his hand. He knows how to mix genres perfectly. Regional Mexican and norteño flow through his blood. I admire and respect him a lot. He’s devoted 24/7 to music. Be it for love of the art or love of business, he’s always thinking about music.” CAMILO “Edgar and I have a deep connection because of the honest love that he…

BILLBOARD 200 1 Encanto Soundtrack LAST WEEK 1 PEAK POSITION 1 WEEKS ON CHART 12 THE ENCANTO soundtrack and breakout smash “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” combine for a respective Billboard 200 and Bill-board Hot 100 double domination not achieved in nearly 30 years. The Disney animated film soundtrack tops the Billboard 200 for a sixth week, and fifth in a row, while its biggest hit — by Carolina Gaitán, Mauro Castillo, Adassa, Rhenzy Feliz, Diane Guerrero, Stephanie Beatriz and the Encanto cast — leads the Hot 100 for a fourth week. Encanto and “Bruno” mark the first soundtrack and corresponding song to rule the respective rankings simultaneously for at least four weeks since Whitney Houston’s soundtrack to The Bodyguard and “I Will Always Love You” topped the lists…

ONE OF THE MOST common questions we hear from creators thinking about selling their song catalogs is “What do they” — the buyers — “know that I don’t?” The answer is simple: The catalog-sale marketplace has been driven by institutional investors, and they are looking for yield — a predictable rate of return. In the low-interest-rate environment of the last decade, it has been impossible to find yield in financial instruments like bonds. Music royalties, though, provide a steady return that is not correlated to traditional asset classes. Most sellers, however, aren’t thinking about how macroeconomic factors like interest rates affect music royalties. They are inextricably linked, and with inflation at 7.5% — a 40-year high — and the Federal Reserve indicating that it will begin raising rates in…

RIO DE JANEIRO — In 2016, Richard Encinas, a São Paulo state prosecutor, led investigations into organized crime that culminated in a raid of a clandestine warehouse and the seizure of millions of pirated DVDs and CDs that took more than seven trucks to transport. But the transition from physical recorded music to digital streaming has happened at breakneck speed in Brazil, ushering in a booming illegal trade in artificially boosted audio and video streams. So, two years later, Encinas traveled with a group of colleagues to London to learn how to better combat cybercrime, including new challenges emerging in the music industry. Now, Encinas — who heads the Center for Investigations of Cyber Crimes in the São Paulo public prosecutor’s office, known in Brazil as Cyber Gaeco —…

FROM Seoul AGES 21-35 LABEL SM Entertainment FOUNDATION In 2019, K-pop label SM Entertainment launched the all-male supergroup SuperM — and soon after started thinking about a girl group equivalent. Announced late last year, GOT the beat features some of the label’s biggest female stars, including BoA, a 20-year industry veteran and an Asian pop icon; Taeyeon and Hyoyeon from Girls’ Generation; Seulgi and Wendy from Red Velvet; and Karina and Winter from new arrival aespa, whose metaverse concept and futuristic beats are on the cutting edge of pop. As for what they all have in common? “GOT the beat is very focused on performance,” says BoA. “All the great dancers are together.” DISCOVERY For its youngest members, GOT represents a chance to work alongside some of their idols.…

WHEN NIGERIAN SINGER-SONGWRITER A awas11yearsold, sherealizedthatthe purpose of her education was to “become something” in life. She says that music was “the thing I understood, my warmth and escape” — and nearly 15 years later, in her mid-20s, she made that calling her career. By 2007, the artist born Bukola Elemide released her self-titled debut album, Aṣa, that included her progressive breakthrough hit, “Jailer,” which she says is “about people who put people down. If you spend so much energy making my life miserable, yours will be as well.” While A a says that “Jailer” is not her favorite song, “everyone knows it everywhere I go. Songs that I sing in Yoruba are dear to me.” Co-written by A a and Nigerian musician-producer-song-writer Cobhams Asuquo, the hit has earned…

PHOEBE BRIDGERS IS NOT in album mode. She’s not in touring mode or label-leading mode right now, either. “I’m kind of in like, homey, taking-in-art mode,” she says over Zoom. Bridgers is sitting in her sun-filled Los Angeles home, wearing overalls and holding her black pug, Maxine. “Like, walking-around, reading-and-listening-to-records mode — which probably means I’m about to make something, but who knows.” Bridgers has earned the break. Since the release of her critically acclaimed debut, 2017’s Stranger in the Alps, she has gained a reputation as a quiet storm, capable of stunning sold-out crowds into silence with intimate lyrics sung in a plaintive near-whisper. Acts from Taylor Swift to The 1975 have invited Bridgers to guest on songs that require an added layer of emotional devastation, while her…

EARLIER THIS WINTER, Gabby Barrett and her husband, guitarist Cade Foehner, went skiing for the first time, not far from where she grew up outside of Pittsburgh. “No bones were broken,” she says, giving two thumbs up over Zoom, though she admits with a light chuckle that Foehner “fell down a lot… I also fell down.” Mountain missteps aside, Barrett has been soaring lately. The 21-year-old’s career took off in 2020 with “I Hope,” a seemingly sweet love song inspired by a cheating high school boyfriend that delighted listeners with its left-turn knife twist at the chorus’ end. It landed Barrett a deal with Warner Music Nashville and hit the top of Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, while a remix featuring Charlie Puth rose to No. 3 on the Hot…

The Mechanical Licensing Collective in 2021 completed the first full year of its mission, as described by chief marketing officer Ellen Truley: “ensuring that every rights holder who is eligible to receive mechanical royalties for streams and downloads of their music is paid those royalties on time and in full.” Created by the 2018 passage of the Music Modernization Act and designated by the U.S. Register of Copyrights in July 2019, The MLC named Kris Ahrend as its first CEO in 2020. He led the effort to build the nonprofit organization from scratch, which meant creating a “diverse and inclusive team that includes people with different backgrounds, views and experiences,” according to The MLC’s statement of its guiding principles. One sign of The MLC living up to those principles…

IN THE WAKE OF YET ANOTHER COVID-19 surge — with the omicron variant leading to a massive spike in cases at the end of 2021 — artists, crews and audiences still prepared for a come-back year for live music. Leading the way early on is Tool: After starting its 2022 tour on Jan. 10 in Eugene, Ore., the hard-rock band earned $13.8 million from 120,000 tickets sold in the month of January, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. Still, January is typically the slowest month of the year for artists on the road, as album and touring cycles taper off before Christmas and only gradually begin to return as February nears. This year was no exception, particularly with omicron cases not peaking until the middle of the month…

WHEN BILLY CANDLER, CO-FOUNDER of full-service merchandising company Absolute Merch, went to the House of Blues in Anaheim, Calif., in early February, he saw a welcome sight: “The line for merch was out the door,” he says. Fans eager to buy T-shirts, hoodies and other items is a great sign for artists touring in 2022 since merch sales at concerts remain vital to many artists. The road out of the pandemic seems to be filled with potholes, however. Inflation — everything from cotton costs to shipping fees — has sent the costs of merchandise and vinyl records soaring from pre-pandemic levels. Unable to shoulder their higher cost burden, each company in the supply chain has raised prices for its clients. That leaves less opportunity for suppliers and artists to…

WHEN MULTI-hyphenate music company EMPIRE was getting ready to open the doors of its new 10,000-square-foot San Francisco recording studio in the spring of 2019, founder/CEO Ghazi predicted it would propel his independent operation to the next level. “I told people: ‘Once we get a studio, watch the pulse of the company change,’ ” he says from his Bay Area office. Two years later, the bet paid off, as EMPIRE landed three Billboard Hot 100 hits born from that studio: Yung Bleu, Chris Brown and 2 Chainz’ “Baddest,” which reached No. 56; Money Man and Lil Baby’s “24,” which reached No. 49; and Fireboy DML and Ed Sheeran’s “Peru,” which debuted on the chart in February at No. 79. As the music business has evolved over the past decade,…

Growing up in income-based housing in Dayton, Ohio, Jamee Ranta says “opportunities were nonexistent” — and while she dreamed of becoming an astronaut, music had a more formative impact. Ranta has now worked alongside some of music’s biggest stars as CEO of Artifact Content, a multimedia production company she founded in 2017. She first arrived in Los Angeles nearly a decade prior and hustled to break into the industry, working on as many music video sets as she could. Self-employed since 18, Ranta’s bet on herself has more than paid off: Her work on Cardi B’s “WAP” helped the clip win the 2021 BET video of the year award, and she more recently executive-produced the visual for Justin Bieber’s Grammy Award-nominated “Peaches.” Now, Ranta is eager for her…

ON AUG. 30, 2021, Reservoir Media CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi and O rapper Offset laughed as they rang the opening bell at NASDAQ’s Marketsite Studio in New York. As confetti — in Reservoir (and NASDAQ) blue — fluttered around them, Khosrowshahi soaked in the initial moments of becoming the first female founder and chief executive of a publicly traded independent music company. “It was a true moment of arrival,” she recalls. Although the presence of Offset, who signed with Reservoir in 2017, and a very pregnant Cardi B may have looked like a contrived photo op, Khosrowshahi says the Migos member had asked to attend the ceremony. “It just came up in conversation, and he told me he wanted to be there,” she recalls. And though she admits she was…

Velasquez, 36 — as well as her parents, Julio and Angela Velasquez — died June 24 in the collapse of the Surfside Towers in the Miami suburb of Surfside, Fla., which killed 98 people. Velasquez was a driving force on the sponsorship team at Live Nation, making a huge impact on its business during her seven-year tenure at the company. Her colleagues described her as a passionate, fun, innovative and fierce leader who worked to break down barriers for women, advocated for equality within the LGBTQ+ and Latina communities, and formed long-standing partnerships with the biggest global brands. She was also an accomplished artist-performer who moonlighted as DJ Theresa. She is “missed dearly and will always be remembered for the amazing human she was,” Live Nation officials said in…