Drop The MIC: Music Industry Conversations

Success as a songwriter in the music industry requires collaboration. Our guests today will talk about what it looks like when you've found the right people to work with. We’ll be hearing from Gracie and Lawrence Clyde from Lawrence the band, Braxton Cook, Christian Kuria, Zach Fogarty, and Michael Uzowuru. 

Songs included in this episode: 
"Do You Wanna Do Nothing With Me?" and "It's Not All A...

What puts a tour into motion? In this podcast episode, we sat down with live music and touring experts Kaleb Herbel-Eisenmann (Artist Manager at Abstract MGMT), Darius Zelkha (Artist Manager/Marketing Partnerships at Brilliant Corners Artist Management), and Danielle Zucchini (National Marketing Manager for Live Nation) to discuss the mechanics of mid-cap, domestic tours in North America. Tune in to see how a tour is created, from ...

In this episode, we’re talking with Kyle Frenette, who previously was the long-time manager of the band Bon Iver. Throughout his successful and multi-faceted career in the music industry, Kyle has been involved in many different ventures including artist management, starting a record label to promote the local music scene, and political activism--even running for Congress. We’ll hear Kyle’s take on what the most important skills ar...

Building a business is hard. Building a business in the music industry is even harder. Artists and managers put their blood, sweat, and tears into their businesses, spending as many as 200 days at a time on the road. On this episode we hear from music industry executives, founders, and innovators telling us how they found their niches, how they built their businesses, and what advice they have for aspiring entrepreneurs hoping to e...

In this episode of Stanford’s Drop the MIC podcast, we hear from A&R professionals spanning over 20 years of music industry history. We have Daouda Leonard, a tried and true vet who was part of the generation that christened the internet age of brand building. Alongside him we have Bekah Flynn, an A&R rep at an indie record label who saw the rise of streaming platforms during her career and has learned when to leverage the ...

This episode dives into the world of music streaming with interviews from Jay Troop, who works in Artist & Industry Insights at Pandora, Lyric Rains-Bury, an artist, producer, and student, and Shun Hendrix, recording R&B artist and actor. These three interviews touch on our guests' experiences distributing their music, using music analytic tools, and dives into their overall experiences on music streaming platforms. Th...

From new artists selecting their target audience, to well-known stars switching up their style, building, maintaining, and even re-working their brand is a major aspect of an artist’s time in the spotlight. In this episode, we speak with the founder of Daemon, a company that offers modern music marketing by implementing a holistic marketing strategy across disciplines, and with executives at Harbor Park Media Company, which provide...

In our first episode of Season 2, we catch up with songwriters Jamie Hartman and Sam Dixon to talk about their creative process, artist collaborations, and how those play out in the studio. Jamie Hartman co-wrote Rag’n’Bone Man’s hit single, “Human,” and has worked with Ellie Goulding, James Bay, Celeste and many others. Sam Dixon is a Grammy award-winning songwriter and producer whose songwriting credits include songs from Adele, ...

In our exclusive bonus episode, we dive into conversations with the creators of Apple Music’s renowned Up Next program and managers of up-and-coming artist Gracie Abrams. Chris Hovsepian and JJ Corsini, the Senior Vice Presidents of Artist Development at Universal Music Group, reveal how they innovate and stay ahead of the curve while the music landscape changes at lightning speed. They also dig into how they championed stars-in-th...