April 23, 2021 • 35 mins
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 enter the space.
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Episode Transcript
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Jay (00:06):
Welcome to the Drop the Mic podcast where we'll dive into
conversations with some of themusic industry's most
established professionals Likeall of our episodes, what you
will hear today has been createdand curated by Stanford students
who are breaking their way intothe music scene.
I'm Jay LeBouef and I leadStanford University's music
industry initiatives.
Whether you're aspiring tolaunch your career in the music
industry are already a musicindustry pro, or just curious to
(00:29):
learn more.
We've got you covered.
Federico Reyes (00:41):
Hi everyone.
Welcome back to Drop the MicSeason Two, where we chat with
music industry professionals toget an exclusive behind the
scenes look at the industry.
My name is Federico Reyes andI'm a senior at Stanford
University.
My name is Angel Smith and I'm asenior at Stanford, majoring in
African and African-Americanstudies.
Melanie Okuneye (00:59):
My name's Melanie and I'm a student at
Stanford graduate school ofbusiness.
Federico Reyes (01:04):
and today we'll be talking to entrepreneurs who
have built businesses centeredaround their niches.
In spaces that they feel arecurrently underrepresented.
First of all, we have a reallyexciting interview with Rico
Brooks.
Ace (01:17):
As CEO of a Delta Thomas management Rico Brooks oversees
the music careers of some of themost notable names in the
industry, including platinumselling producers on the digital
international producers, BobbyJohnson, and iBeatz as well as
hitmakers B Wheezy Beats, DRich, and Grammy award winning
songwriter, producer, TashaCatour.
Brooke's got his start in musicas a sales associate of
Peppermint Music and his startin management helping to shape
(01:39):
the careers of various hip hopartists as a manager, then
president of BlackEntertainment.
With plans on developing acareer in movie production,
branding and strategicmarketing.
The future holds limitlessopportunities for this respected
entrepreneur.
Thank you for joining us Rico.
Could you share a little bitabout yourself and how you got
into the music industry?
Rico Brooks (01:58):
After I graduated from Morehouse, I started
working at a record store andthen that's.
How I met a lot of people, a lotof relationships that I have
right now, like Block, RusselSpencer who had a deal with Bad
Boy through Atlantic, you know,Puff label and then I was
managing boys in the hood andgorilla zoe.
Then I started working withproducers, with Sonny Digital,
(02:20):
Metro Boomin.
It was basically word of mouth.
It was like one brick at a time.
I did not know of or see that Iwould be managing some of the
biggest names in the music.
I just was trying to serve myguys and super serve them.
And so when I did that the wordspread and other people like,
Hey, I want you to do this forme.
Yeah.
So, it was like, Hey, I likewhat you did for this guy.
(02:41):
Can you do that for me?
So, and then it became like wordof mouth.
It basically turned me on toother people because they saw
what I was doing for other guys.
And they spread the word, youknow, it's not like I was out
there advertising and say, Hey,look, I do this.
Hey, look, I do this.
I never went out for guys.
And I never really just chased,like guys who had names, we were
always building from the groundup.
(03:01):
It's crazy to see a guy comefrom like living with their
parents or financial success andthen becoming like really
successful financially and beingable to, move out and get their
first car and get that firstbank account and just all that
stuff.
So I got to see these guysbasically become from teenagers
to grown men, you know, andthat's a beautiful journey.
Ace (03:22):
I know you also have a big focus on financial literacy.
How does this translate to themission of your business?
Rico Brooks (03:27):
Yeah, I definitely want to make sure my guys get
paid.
You know what I'm saying?
it's hard to be happy if you'reworking even be productive, if
you're hungry.
And if you're hungry, you can'tpay your bills.
So other things like your, justyour existence.
If you're not existing, thenit's hard to be creative.
Cause you know, it's hard tojust tell a person who don't
have food or clothing or shelterto say,"Hey look, be creative."
Ace (03:51):
Absolutely.
It's admirable to hear you takethis into consideration into how
you work with your artists.
My next question is how do yousee your business changing what
do you look forward to when yougo to work?
Rico Brooks (04:01):
I want to always be finding the next new guy.
That's, my joy.
Honestly, when I find the guythat nobody's heard of, or, you
know, we're working on stuff andthen we get a placement and then
that brings me joy, you know?
if I find a guy like say let'ssee let me see the example, like
when I was working with, I stillwork with IBeats, he's from
(04:21):
Budapest, Hungary and he sent mea beat when we started working
together and I sent it toOliver, Drake's manager and the
next thing, you know, Drake cutsit.
So that's my joy right there.
seeing a vision become reality.
I love that.
Ace (04:34):
I know you manage a lot of great artists is there anyone in
particular you think we shouldbe listening to right now?
Rico Brooks (04:39):
Music is, just like art, you know, it's in the eye
of the beholder.
Music is in the ears of thelistener.
But, you know, I listened to,everybody's talking about pooh
shiesty you know, I listen tosome of the guys i'm working
with you know, of course immasay listen to famous twins, and
I know we have a guy on thelabel, a 24 K golden he's
working on some good music.
Ace (04:59):
I'll definitely make sure to check out these artists.
I want to end with you by askingwhat advice would you give to
entrepreneurs trying to maketheir way into the music
industry?
Rico Brooks (05:08):
Yeah.
If you have an idea you know,write it down and then start
building towards it, you know,and don't give up on it.
Ask for advice and maybe find amentor that's doing something
that's similar to what you wantto do, or that can help you.
Our fore fathers or the earlysettlers they built these roads
so you don't have to make a newtrail, but you can trail blaze
(05:30):
if something is totallydifferently, you know, but I
would try to seek out avenuesand just go forward, you know,
persevere too don't get downwhen it doesn't go your way,
because it's going to be part ofthe story and you know, it's
darkest just before Dawn.
Ace (05:46):
Thank you.
We go for taking us through yourjourney.
I admire the culture of respectand care.
You've cultivated for yourartist, as well as your business
mindset of financial literacythat goes into your commitment
to making sure folks get paid.
We'll be looking forward to yourcontinued success next i chatted
with music executive MaliHunter.
Melissa, also known as MaliHunter is a music industry
(06:07):
leader, executive producer,brand marketer, Emmy and Grammy
nominated artists.
She has been a resource anddriving force behind many major
artists, such as J Cole, LennyKravitz, Missy Elliott, and
Drake.
Mali is the founder ofEarthAngelWorldwide, a nonprofit
birth out of the transformativeEarthGirl Creative Camp
experience that brought womenfrom all over the country
(06:28):
together for a week of healingand musical collaboration.
Mali is a CEO of the retinaagency, and since transitioning
from her partnership withTreeSound Studios is focused on
giving her energy to women inmusic, through the EarthGirl
Movement.
Thanks for being here.
Mali could you talk about howyou got into the music business
and what your journey has lookedlike so far?
Mali Hunter (06:50):
One of my girlfriends uncle's best friends
was an executive at Sony.
So I did some internships stufffor him.
And, I started my careermusically producing music for
commercials in Chicago, for aman named Alan Moore who was a
big music jingle producer.
So for jingles, they have,Cleo's, which is like Grammys
(07:14):
and he had them all around hisroom.
So I would, have to train andget down there and intern and
just kinda be underneath himdoing what I could as an intern.
And, got my first break whensomeone didn't show up to sing
for a Gerber ad.
and he said, I can't believeyou've been sitting underneath
me all these months cause he wasstressing out the singer didn't
(07:34):
come So, when I saw howlucrative it was.
And I decided I wanted to be aproducer.
My popularity, came fromcreating dinner parties when the
records were done and feedingthe press to listen to 2 Chainz
and T.I., and Killer Mike andDavid Banner and J Cole and you
(07:55):
know, all my buddies in thebusiness and it worked out
really well for me.
So I was able to learn thebusiness side by being in like a
lot of people, you know, thinkgoing to school the best way to
do, but I think hands-on a lotof times, way more important
than just reading about it.
Ace (08:13):
Now that you've done a lot of work for other people, how
you moving towards buildingearth girl is a business what's
the mission behind the work?
Mali Hunter (08:20):
Earthgirl girl was planted for women to understand
you, don't gotta be the onefemale rapper.
You ain't gotta be the onefemale attorny, you don't have
to be the one A&R accountant,you know, businesswoman, rapper,
singer, dancer, whatever.
We're stronger together and,earthgirl is a very magical
thing because it became biggerthan me because women started to
(08:41):
find their tribes.
my goal was to bring in thecorporate women that I knew that
were powerful at Viacom.
I needed Chinkes Ratner,Michelle and all women there
who, support me and the EarthGirls.
For years new I would get backin music and television
production.
And my way back in was to teachgirls how to make music for
(09:02):
television and film and Viacom.
So what I was doing, my team hadjust finished 150 songs with
Missy Elliott and we had ourfirst singles and she performed
at the VMAs so the timing of theEarthGirl ATL camp was just
incredible because it came offof my camp that we did and
hosted at my old partnersstudio, which now we have our
(09:25):
new stone wood studio, but itcame off, you know, and January,
and it disrupted the wholeindustry because every single
person that was somebody wantedto be there.
Everybody was welcome to comeand make music and it was super,
super special.
And I knew we'd get Grammynominations and we actually won
a Grammy and couple of platinumrecords out of it and it was a
(09:46):
magical thing.
So when that happened, I said ohit's time for the girls because
of power that I had and theattention that I had from being
a part of this magical time, Iwanted to pour into the women
and I did, and all of thesebrands and Viacom came together
and we got catalogs that we puttogether from Earth Girl.
It was awesome because we'reable to pay a couple bills for
(10:09):
some of the tunes that the girlswere putting in and they were
able to get back in money andunderstand, Oh, this is how the
business side works.
Ace (10:17):
It's incredible how the creative camp has already made
waves in the music industry howdo you see this mission growing
and changing?
Mali Hunter (10:23):
Earth Girl is takes a woman who knows to help a
woman to grow.
I just see it sparking thiscontinuous movement of women
pouring into women andunderstanding that we're more
powerful together and killingthose old, it just has to be one
queen in the room, you know?
For years I've heard we're goingto go in here and change the
(10:44):
industry.
No, ma'am I never wanted to.
What I wanted to do was be alight understand aint nobody no
victim over here, anywherearound me, we gone learn how
this works and we going to playthe game the way we play it,
because every contract isdifferent.
Let me read and understand andknow and fight for what's right
for me and my friends.
(11:05):
And that's what I do.
Ace (11:07):
Hmm, that's really important work.
Thank you.
Finally is there any advice youwould like to give to young
entrepreneurs making their wayinto the music industry?
Mali Hunter (11:17):
Well, it would depend on the person, I think,
my dad used to tell me, don'tgive advice cause you'll send
somebody down the wrong paththat's not theirs.
But I think I dropped a few gemsearlier.
One I'd say, because youngpeople always say music is my
life.
And I always say, your life isyour life.
Music is part of your life, ifyou want to be in the music
(11:41):
industry, you have to understandwhat you want.
It's like saying I want to playfootball.
Okay.
What part of football do youwant to play?
Do you want to be the referee?
What's your ultimate goal, youwant to be a running back,
quarter or what, what do youwant to do?
I would say if you're going todo music and it's something that
you search after don't be fairytale about it, figure out who's
(12:01):
done it.
How many years it took them toget there.
And look at it like a longjourney that you don't put a
time limit on.
Ace (12:13):
Great advice.
Thank you, Molly for sharingyour journey with us.
It's grounding to learn howyou've cared for artists and
making their careers and howyour committee to grading even
more opportunity for women inmusic through earth girl.
We have many more inspiringentrepreneurs in this episode so
stay tuned for our next guestPedro Cañas.
Federico Reyes (12:31):
It's my pleasure to introduce our next guest.
Pedro Cañas is an American houseDJ and record producer.
In 2020, he founded Midtownhouse LLC with a mission to
reclaim Manhattan as thenightlife capital of the world.
That same year, he began to workat Sony music entertainment in
global digital advertising andgraduated from the NYU's
undergraduate music businessprogram soon after.
(12:53):
Welcome to the show Pedro.
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself.
What kind of education did youget?
Pedro Cañas (12:58):
Yeah.
So, I went to NYU and prior tothat in high school, we didn't
have a music tech or middleschool, actually, we didn't have
a music tech class, and I wasalready super into the idea of
producing electronic music.
So I took some courses in, inNew York City.
I was like the youngest kidthere.
I was like 14 and everyone elsewas around 20 years old to like
(13:18):
their early thirties.
Dude, I didn't understand, whatthey're producing, they're
producing some techno and I'mlistening to like Skrillex and
deadmau5, what's this boringstuff you're making.
Federico Reyes (13:28):
You have your own business.
You started a record label.
Tell us more about it.
What is the mission or goal?
Pedro Cañas (13:34):
I was living in mid on mid town.
I was living in Chinatown, but Iwas living in Manhattan,
basically in the city.
And, all the underground houseevents were happening in
Brooklyn.
And I was just tired oflistening to hip hop and
reggaeton and pop music all day.
And so I began to say, you knowwhat, I'm going to have my own
events, my own house events inthe city in Manhattan.
I'm going to, book DJs fromBrooklyn underground scene to
(13:57):
come play in Midtown.
And so that's how it started.
It was just Midtown House eventssolely.
On classical house music orminimal house music, and the
other mission is to educatepeople and to, bring house music
back to Manhattan.
That says as simple as it canget Sure.
Federico Reyes (14:15):
Yeah.
Do you have any mentors alongthe way that helped guide you
through.
Pedro Cañas (14:19):
Yes.
In terms of mentors, earlier inthe career, I call it a career
because actually is a career.
Like I choose to make, music,not only because I love it, but
I actually want to make a careerout of it.
I, I love the idea of being ableto produce records and sell them
and have DJs play them aroundthe world.
Before I was talking about theunz unz unz techno stuff that
(14:41):
these guys were making, therewere 30 years old.
Uh, I got dragged into it.
I moved to, Zurich, Switzerland,and I began to notice
underground scene.
At a young age, I was 18 yearsold coming from the States.
I began to go to the clubsthere.
I would stay there till like5:00 AM, 6:00 AM in the morning.
And I got very into theunderground house, scene.
And in terms of mentors, toanswer your question, I would
(15:04):
say I've had a bunch over thepast couple of years from,
friends like Adrian Calvet whoin a way he got me into the
underground scene as well He'sfrom Paris or from Bordeaux
actually but now he was livingin Paris and France.
and he got me into like Frenchdisco.
Then I had a Carlos Olandi fromthe basement discos in Spain,
really guided me into theunderground disco scene.
And believe it or not.
(15:26):
my most important mentor rightnow is, a person named Misha
Hamadi who actually works at abulge bracket bank.
Federico Reyes (15:33):
Would you say that underground music is your
niche?
Pedro Cañas (15:37):
I started with EDM.
It was great.
I had no problem with it.
And then as soon I hit the scenein Switzerland, with the minimal
house, it's just, it's a wholedifferent thing and I just got
carried into it.
So my niche is just house music.
in the sense it's just moreunderground.
Tracks are like six minutes longor 10 minutes long.
And, uh, it's what you wouldlisten to in a, in a basement,
(15:58):
in a sweaty basement or like, ona beach in like Tulum or, in
Cannes or something like that.
Or in Bali.
It's a whole different scenethat I wasn't, exposed to in the
U S at a young age, but I'm veryhappy now.
I found my place within theelectronic scene and it's
definitely underground and apart of the niche actually is
trying to, recognize that,classic house came from,
(16:19):
neighborhoods in Chicago and NewYork from latinos and blacks as
well.
And, part of what Midtown houseis, or the mission of Midtown
house is to try to bring housemusic back to Manhattan, the
idea of recognizing that housemusic's roots came from the U S
and yeah.
Trying to bring it back.
Federico Reyes (16:39):
Yeah.
What do you see your businessgoing?
How do you plan to grow it?
Pedro Cañas (16:43):
The label had a residency.
So basically every week I wasbooking DJs, I was playing and
it was Thursday nights and itwas just a great atmosphere,
unfortunately, due to thepandemic I had to pivot the
business completely from thelive industry to the digital
industry.
And so that's when I already hadsome recognition in live events,
(17:06):
within the local scene of NewYork and I started to, release
music Midtown house.
And it's been going well.
Not only are there DJs that,represent New York or the U S
but I have DJs in the rosterthat are from Argentina, from
Switzerland, from, UK, fromRussia, from France.
(17:27):
And they all have someconnection to manhattan, which
has been a beauty.
and in terms of, the team, it'sjust myself.
I have things outsourced.
But these people that Ioutsource to are part of the
community as well as the team,because it's always just the
same people it's basicallypretty international.
All done digitally.
Federico Reyes (17:44):
Gotcha.
Yeah, that makes sense.
How do you see your businesschanging?
Where do you want it to golooking forward?
Pedro Cañas (17:50):
The business strategy for me is to be present
in online streaming servicesthat are not super big yet.
I think it's very important tobe, in line with other companies
that are also in the come uptrying to make it.
What I see in trending is to tryto figure out a valuable way of
(18:10):
starting a business, justdigitally making everything
digital.
In music consumption, I lovewhen there's applications like
TikTok these apps that just comeout of nowhere and a high volume
of users just begin to use thembecause they're unregulated and
they do not have any forms oflike ad credits in the
(18:31):
beginning?
I mean, take talk does now, somaybe time to move on to the
next one, but in a sense thatnowadays, as you might notice on
Instagram, and we've even seenthis on TV, on radio and
Spotify, you name it, we'regiven ads.
We're not really choosing themusic that we're listening to.
it's all being served to us inone way or another.
(18:54):
Yeah.
over the past year or two, weheard a lot of breakthrough
artists, like BENEE for example,or, uh, you know, we heard the
Rick Asterly track, res otherthan memes, right?
So these are just things thatjust happen.
And that's the beauty of, peopleand these types of sites,
because it's not the big playersthat are controlling the music
(19:17):
in that instance, it's theactual people that are sharing.
So, um, I hope that continues.
I hope people can just, youknow, be sharing music and
forget about things being servedto them.
Federico Reyes (19:27):
Yeah.
And, to finish it off, whatwould be your advice for young
entrepreneurs in the musicindustry?
Pedro Cañas (19:32):
My personal advice for people that want to go into
the music industry is toperhaps, study computer science
or be in a finance role, andthen minor in music business, or
try to figure out how to internin a music business company over
the summer.
The reason I say this is becausestudying computer science or
finance is just so valuable inthe industry And there's so many
(19:56):
job postings for these types ofroles.
Spotify is always, posting aboutengineers and things like this.
In a digital world that we're inright now, those are the best
two majors to do.
It also just depends on what youlike because, the music industry
is very different.
There's the corporate ladder.
and then there's theentrepreneurial ladder and the
(20:17):
creative side.
And, you know, everything's verydifferent depending on who you
talk to.
And I would say that, I guessI'm, I'd say I'm pretty happy
with what I'm doing at themoment.
People, might think it's hard tocreate an LLC, or start a
business.
And it's really simple.
You just look at your state, goto on your website, on the
(20:37):
state's websites and try tofigure out how to open an LLC.
It's not super expensive to do.
In New York, I think it's like250 bucks maybe and you could
start your own company.
I think it's just very valuablefor people to have this,
especially at a young age, ifyou have that drive to be an
entrepreneur, you should just doit from the beginning.
Federico Reyes (20:57):
We just got some great advice from Pedro about
putting yourself out there,building a business and going
for it.
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
Next up we talked to twoentrepreneurs who are working
hard to build their ownbusinesses in this ultra
competitive music industry
Michael Oguike (21:14):
My name is Michael Oguike.
I'm from Nigeria and I'mcurrently an MBA student at the
Stanford Graduate School ofBusiness.
Before my MBA, I used to work inenergy for an oil and gas
company in Nigeria, but mypassion for technology really
(21:35):
moved me to build my startup.
So my startup is called AmplifyMusic and basically it lets
people create collaborativeplaylists and enjoy social
music.
So think about the time whereyou're at a party, maybe a house
party, we take group of friendsand then you have different
people who want to control themusic.
(21:55):
Some people want to play R&B.
Some people have very bad tastein music, but you want all your
friends to be able to come intoone playlist and add and vote
the songs they want to hear.
So amplify music allows peopleto create that democratized
playlist.
Where people can enjoy socialmusic and everyone gets to hear
(22:15):
what they recommend and peopleare happier.
Melanie Okuneye (22:18):
What kind of challenges do you foresee within
the current music ecosystem orwithin, how people consume
music?
How do you plan to get overthem?
Michael Oguike (22:31):
So specifically speaking for Amplify Music, I
think a key challenge for us is,monetization, firstly, and then
secondly, with licensing for theservice we're providing.
So I'll talk firstly, aboutrevenue or monetization.
(22:52):
We currently do not host anymusic on our platform.
What we do is we integrate withSpotify and Apple music APIs.
So the challenge that introducesis if we provide this platform
who is going to want to pay forboth Spotify and then also pay
for this other app.
(23:13):
Secondly, in terms of likelicensing, one opportunity we
have is to say, take Amplify toa B2B model where our customers
are going to be a restaurant orsay hotels or for public places
where it can serve as a jukeboxin a more public environment,
(23:36):
but the challenge with that iseven in a public environment,
the restaurants have to paylicenses.
So there are organizations likeBMI or ASCAP that require those
companies or those restaurantsto pay certain amounts of money
to broadcast music.
(23:56):
So when it gets into that kindof scenario, then you see that
there's a legal implication ofproviding a service to those
kind of customers, becausethey're going to say,"Hey, well
maybe we're playing musicillegally".
Melanie Okuneye (24:07):
What would your advice be for young
entrepreneurs in the musicindustry?
Michael Oguike (24:17):
You know, people would usually say,"believe in
yourself","believe in your idea"and all, but I think one thing
that's very important is tobuild fast, grow quickly, build
fast, learn fast, fail fast, anda hard lesson I've learned is
(24:38):
sometimes you have thisflamboyant idea or this product
you have in your mind that youwant to build and from the
get-go you want your product toconnect artists.
You want it to have chatfeatures.
You want it to have emojis.
You want it to play music.
You want to be able to selltickets from day one.
(24:59):
I think it's very important foryou to identify the most
fundamental and primal valuethat your product is going to
give to the customers and buildon that very foundational level.
Melanie Okuneye (25:14):
Michael.
Thank you for sharing yourexperiences and learnings from
your music technology startup inNigeria.
Now, we are going to shift thefocus to Sameen Sameen, please
tell us about yourself.
Sameen Singh (25:27):
My name is Sameen Singh.
I am the Chief Strategy Officerat Create Music Group.
I wasn't always in the musicindustry.
I actually started in Finance.
I was doing Investment Bankingon Wall Street: Private Equity
investing, always with a focuson media and entertainment.
And then I made the switch intoworking in music, starting at a
(25:49):
music festival company, inEurope, which was a lot of fun
and, I guess, a relic of thepre-pandemic era,(hopefully it
will come back).
And then I got my MBA and joineda company called Create Music
Group.
Melanie Okuneye (26:03):
What does Create Music Group do?
Sameen Singh (26:06):
We started as a YouTube company back in 2015 or
so.
We developed this technology tocrawl Youtube to identify
primarily user generated contentthat was using unlicensed music
and therefore not payingroyalties on that music and back
(26:28):
in 2015/2016 YouTube's contentID system wasn't as robust as it
is today.
So it actually was reallymeaningful money for artists.
Their music was being played inpeople's videos and they just
weren't getting it.
They weren't getting any moneyfrom that.
And especially in the electronicindustry, for electronic DJs and
stuff, this was like meaningfulrevenue and that remains a big
(26:50):
part of our business today.
Today, we distribute for over5,000 labels.
After getting into distribution,we started doing direct
distribution with artists.
And so we work with close to90,000 artists that we
distribute music through.
And on top of just plain vanilladistribution, we are more of a
label services company at thispoint where we're offering
(27:12):
everything from digitalmarketing services, to
publishing and synchronization,to licensing, to even advances,
which are the traditional recordlabel products.
The third major piece of ourbusiness is a digital ad agency
called Flight House, which is aTik Tok based ad agency.
(27:34):
They are the largest brand onTik Tok today with over 27
million followers on thatplatform and with Tik Tok being
a music based, social network,social discovery network, it's
an opportunity for us to amplifya lot of the music that we
distribute through Flight Houseby, doing dance challenges and
like other viral campaigns.
(27:56):
We got number two on the Inc5,000 fastest growing companies
in America lists this pastsummer.
Which is the, I think thehighest ever ranking for a music
company or even a media companymore broadly.
Melanie Okuneye (28:08):
So can we actually talk about monetizing
music?
How do you think about this inthe music industry?
Sameen Singh (28:15):
I mean, if you look at the history of listening
to a song and how much that isvalued in the market, we don't
have to start at the beginning,but let's start in the nineties
and early 2000s with CDs, right?
As a consumer, you're paying$20to buy an album and that was the
market value of that content.
(28:37):
Then there was a period wherewith piracy and everything,
where content basically camefree and artists weren't making
any music on the monetization oftheir recorded IP.
And then with streaming it savedthe industry in the sense that
you went from free to actuallymaking money off of your
recorded music again.
But the monetization rates areso low.
(28:58):
A stream on Spotify premium isstill like three tenths of cent,
right?
So the market rate of a streamis three tenths of a cent.
On YouTube, it's a fraction ofthat.
That's why you see artists lookto other ways to monetize their
music and, whatever it is.
That's why you saw such a hugegrowth in the live music
(29:20):
industry in the last 10 years.
The live music industry from arevenue perspective is actually
bigger than the recorded musicindustry.
But that also creates a problembecause artists are on the road
for 200 days a year, which is,in any line of work, that's a
pretty taxing lifestyle.
Even if you're staying in reallyfancy hotels and flying on
(29:40):
private jets, it's still hard tobe on the road for that much.
And on top of that, you'reexpected to continually make new
music and engage with your fanson other platforms.
It's a pretty daunting job.
So recorded, save the musicindustry for some time.
Obviously with the pandemic yousaw when that went away, how the
recorded industry got so exposedagain, and this is why you saw a
(30:01):
lot of artists, big nameartists, go back and look at the
recording contracts and werelike, wait, why am I giving up
so much?
Why am I not being paid as muchon my recorded?
Because when the money's flowingin from all these different
sources, it's fine.
But when it dries up you startto re-examine things.
The recording saved the industrybut I think that's why musical
(30:21):
artists are always looking atnew ways to monetize whether
it's their art or theirengagement or their relationship
with their fans.
That's why you see things likeCameo, right?
Come up as another way for anartist to monetize with fans:
Only Fans.
These subscription platforms,and even like the next, the
newest thing, whatever it islike this week, just because we
happen to have been talking thisweek, the latest thing is NFTs.
(30:45):
Right.
Which, in my opinion is a bit ofa fad, but it's just artists see
that they can actually monetizethese valuable assets that
they've created.
And so whatever medium orplatform or network they're able
to do it on, they're open todoing, but it comes down to,
because on the recorded side thestructure doesn't work for them.
Melanie Okuneye (31:07):
So one thing you talk about a lot asCreate
Music Groupis empoweringartists.
How do you empower artists?
Sameen Singh (31:16):
You know, a traditional record label deal is
80/20 in favor of the label.
And the label owns the masteri.e.
the IP is registered to them.
They own it in perpetuity.
Our deals are 20/80.
The opposite and in the artist'sfavor and they own their IP in
perpetuity.
So everything down to the artcore product, and then even more
(31:38):
recently, we introduced a creditcard, which is the music
industry's first credit card forartists and creators.
The biggest pain point in musichas always been payments:
artists, getting their moneyfast.
Not even getting their moneyfast.
Knowing what they're making andthen getting that money.
We were there about a year and ahalf ago.
We're still the only companythat does it, which I'm
(31:59):
surprised by.
Our daily earnings portal, whichshows artists how much money
they're making from the threemajor platforms, Spotify, Apple,
and YouTube on a daily basis.
So, you know, yesterday you gota million streams.
That equates to$30,000.
(32:20):
That's going to hit, but you'regoing to get it eventually when
the money flows through thesystem.
No one else shows that even tothis day and the artists that we
work with, literally check thatthing 10 times a day.
Cause you can see how much moneyyou're making on a real-time
basis is pretty crazy.
The next evolution of that,which is getting that money,
(32:41):
right?
Like it's great that I can seethat I'm going to get paid
$30,000, but I want to get thatmoney.
And, it takes anywhere from, asquickly as a month, if it's just
traditional streaming fromSpotify, who's probably the
quickest to pay to six months toa year.
If you're talking aboutpublishing and it's
international and it has to flowthrough that whole complex
(33:02):
system.
So the natural, next step was: showing you that money's cool, (33:04):
undefined
but how do we get you thatmoney?
And, we can't as Create MusicGroup, no one, even if you're
the biggest music company in theworld can tell Spotify or
YouTube or some collectionagency and Germany to, pay that
(33:25):
money quicker.
But because we know that themoney is earned, we're
comfortable.
And we figured out a way tobasically front you that money
through a credit card.
Melanie Okuneye (33:39):
Thank you Sameen for your time and for
answering my questions.
One last fun question for bothyou and Michael.
Who should we be listening toright now in music
Sameen Singh (33:52):
So I'm more of a Hip Hop person myself.
So right now two artists thatI'm listening to are Pooh
Shiesty.
You know, he's got that song"Back In Blood" with Lil Durk
and SSGkobe who is this reallyup and coming artists.
He just came out with twoawesome songs last week.
Michael Oguike (34:14):
I'm trying to fight the urge to say Burna Boy.
I remember in our first quarter,a lot of the TAs used to take
song requests for people whowanted to just request songs and
I knew there was a class I wasin and I requested Burna Boy,
(34:35):
and the next day when Burna Boywas playing in class, the TA
actually said Burna Boy is themost requested artist across
like the entire class.
Melanie Okuneye (34:45):
Thanks to our listeners for sticking with us.
We just heard from fiveindividuals in the music
business with very differentperspectives from working with
artists.
Running a label residency.
Raising money supporting othersand our communities and the
blood, sweat, and tears neededto build something in the
(35:06):
industry.
Thanks for tuning into drop themic
Welcome to the Drop the Mic podcast where we'll dive into
conversations with some of themusic industry's most
established professionals Likeall of our episodes, what you
will hear today has been createdand curated by Stanford students
who are breaking their way intothe music scene.
I'm Jay LeBouef and I leadStanford University's music
industry initiatives.
Whether you're aspiring tolaunch your career in the music
industry are already a musicindustry pro, or just curious to
(00:29):
learn more.
We've got you covered.
Federico Reyes (00:41):
Hi everyone.
Welcome back to Drop the MicSeason Two, where we chat with
music industry professionals toget an exclusive behind the
scenes look at the industry.
My name is Federico Reyes andI'm a senior at Stanford
University.
My name is Angel Smith and I'm asenior at Stanford, majoring in
African and African-Americanstudies.
Melanie Okuneye (00:59):
My name's Melanie and I'm a student at
Stanford graduate school ofbusiness.
Federico Reyes (01:04):
and today we'll be talking to entrepreneurs who
have built businesses centeredaround their niches.
In spaces that they feel arecurrently underrepresented.
First of all, we have a reallyexciting interview with Rico
Brooks.
Ace (01:17):
As CEO of a Delta Thomas management Rico Brooks oversees
the music careers of some of themost notable names in the
industry, including platinumselling producers on the digital
international producers, BobbyJohnson, and iBeatz as well as
hitmakers B Wheezy Beats, DRich, and Grammy award winning
songwriter, producer, TashaCatour.
Brooke's got his start in musicas a sales associate of
Peppermint Music and his startin management helping to shape
(01:39):
the careers of various hip hopartists as a manager, then
president of BlackEntertainment.
With plans on developing acareer in movie production,
branding and strategicmarketing.
The future holds limitlessopportunities for this respected
entrepreneur.
Thank you for joining us Rico.
Could you share a little bitabout yourself and how you got
into the music industry?
Rico Brooks (01:58):
After I graduated from Morehouse, I started
working at a record store andthen that's.
How I met a lot of people, a lotof relationships that I have
right now, like Block, RusselSpencer who had a deal with Bad
Boy through Atlantic, you know,Puff label and then I was
managing boys in the hood andgorilla zoe.
Then I started working withproducers, with Sonny Digital,
(02:20):
Metro Boomin.
It was basically word of mouth.
It was like one brick at a time.
I did not know of or see that Iwould be managing some of the
biggest names in the music.
I just was trying to serve myguys and super serve them.
And so when I did that the wordspread and other people like,
Hey, I want you to do this forme.
Yeah.
So, it was like, Hey, I likewhat you did for this guy.
(02:41):
Can you do that for me?
So, and then it became like wordof mouth.
It basically turned me on toother people because they saw
what I was doing for other guys.
And they spread the word, youknow, it's not like I was out
there advertising and say, Hey,look, I do this.
Hey, look, I do this.
I never went out for guys.
And I never really just chased,like guys who had names, we were
always building from the groundup.
(03:01):
It's crazy to see a guy comefrom like living with their
parents or financial success andthen becoming like really
successful financially and beingable to, move out and get their
first car and get that firstbank account and just all that
stuff.
So I got to see these guysbasically become from teenagers
to grown men, you know, andthat's a beautiful journey.
Ace (03:22):
I know you also have a big focus on financial literacy.
How does this translate to themission of your business?
Rico Brooks (03:27):
Yeah, I definitely want to make sure my guys get
paid.
You know what I'm saying?
it's hard to be happy if you'reworking even be productive, if
you're hungry.
And if you're hungry, you can'tpay your bills.
So other things like your, justyour existence.
If you're not existing, thenit's hard to be creative.
Cause you know, it's hard tojust tell a person who don't
have food or clothing or shelterto say,"Hey look, be creative."
Ace (03:51):
Absolutely.
It's admirable to hear you takethis into consideration into how
you work with your artists.
My next question is how do yousee your business changing what
do you look forward to when yougo to work?
Rico Brooks (04:01):
I want to always be finding the next new guy.
That's, my joy.
Honestly, when I find the guythat nobody's heard of, or, you
know, we're working on stuff andthen we get a placement and then
that brings me joy, you know?
if I find a guy like say let'ssee let me see the example, like
when I was working with, I stillwork with IBeats, he's from
(04:21):
Budapest, Hungary and he sent mea beat when we started working
together and I sent it toOliver, Drake's manager and the
next thing, you know, Drake cutsit.
So that's my joy right there.
seeing a vision become reality.
I love that.
Ace (04:34):
I know you manage a lot of great artists is there anyone in
particular you think we shouldbe listening to right now?
Rico Brooks (04:39):
Music is, just like art, you know, it's in the eye
of the beholder.
Music is in the ears of thelistener.
But, you know, I listened to,everybody's talking about pooh
shiesty you know, I listen tosome of the guys i'm working
with you know, of course immasay listen to famous twins, and
I know we have a guy on thelabel, a 24 K golden he's
working on some good music.
Ace (04:59):
I'll definitely make sure to check out these artists.
I want to end with you by askingwhat advice would you give to
entrepreneurs trying to maketheir way into the music
industry?
Rico Brooks (05:08):
Yeah.
If you have an idea you know,write it down and then start
building towards it, you know,and don't give up on it.
Ask for advice and maybe find amentor that's doing something
that's similar to what you wantto do, or that can help you.
Our fore fathers or the earlysettlers they built these roads
so you don't have to make a newtrail, but you can trail blaze
(05:30):
if something is totallydifferently, you know, but I
would try to seek out avenuesand just go forward, you know,
persevere too don't get downwhen it doesn't go your way,
because it's going to be part ofthe story and you know, it's
darkest just before Dawn.
Ace (05:46):
Thank you.
We go for taking us through yourjourney.
I admire the culture of respectand care.
You've cultivated for yourartist, as well as your business
mindset of financial literacythat goes into your commitment
to making sure folks get paid.
We'll be looking forward to yourcontinued success next i chatted
with music executive MaliHunter.
Melissa, also known as MaliHunter is a music industry
(06:07):
leader, executive producer,brand marketer, Emmy and Grammy
nominated artists.
She has been a resource anddriving force behind many major
artists, such as J Cole, LennyKravitz, Missy Elliott, and
Drake.
Mali is the founder ofEarthAngelWorldwide, a nonprofit
birth out of the transformativeEarthGirl Creative Camp
experience that brought womenfrom all over the country
(06:28):
together for a week of healingand musical collaboration.
Mali is a CEO of the retinaagency, and since transitioning
from her partnership withTreeSound Studios is focused on
giving her energy to women inmusic, through the EarthGirl
Movement.
Thanks for being here.
Mali could you talk about howyou got into the music business
and what your journey has lookedlike so far?
Mali Hunter (06:50):
One of my girlfriends uncle's best friends
was an executive at Sony.
So I did some internships stufffor him.
And, I started my careermusically producing music for
commercials in Chicago, for aman named Alan Moore who was a
big music jingle producer.
So for jingles, they have,Cleo's, which is like Grammys
(07:14):
and he had them all around hisroom.
So I would, have to train andget down there and intern and
just kinda be underneath himdoing what I could as an intern.
And, got my first break whensomeone didn't show up to sing
for a Gerber ad.
and he said, I can't believeyou've been sitting underneath
me all these months cause he wasstressing out the singer didn't
(07:34):
come So, when I saw howlucrative it was.
And I decided I wanted to be aproducer.
My popularity, came fromcreating dinner parties when the
records were done and feedingthe press to listen to 2 Chainz
and T.I., and Killer Mike andDavid Banner and J Cole and you
(07:55):
know, all my buddies in thebusiness and it worked out
really well for me.
So I was able to learn thebusiness side by being in like a
lot of people, you know, thinkgoing to school the best way to
do, but I think hands-on a lotof times, way more important
than just reading about it.
Ace (08:13):
Now that you've done a lot of work for other people, how
you moving towards buildingearth girl is a business what's
the mission behind the work?
Mali Hunter (08:20):
Earthgirl girl was planted for women to understand
you, don't gotta be the onefemale rapper.
You ain't gotta be the onefemale attorny, you don't have
to be the one A&R accountant,you know, businesswoman, rapper,
singer, dancer, whatever.
We're stronger together and,earthgirl is a very magical
thing because it became biggerthan me because women started to
(08:41):
find their tribes.
my goal was to bring in thecorporate women that I knew that
were powerful at Viacom.
I needed Chinkes Ratner,Michelle and all women there
who, support me and the EarthGirls.
For years new I would get backin music and television
production.
And my way back in was to teachgirls how to make music for
(09:02):
television and film and Viacom.
So what I was doing, my team hadjust finished 150 songs with
Missy Elliott and we had ourfirst singles and she performed
at the VMAs so the timing of theEarthGirl ATL camp was just
incredible because it came offof my camp that we did and
hosted at my old partnersstudio, which now we have our
(09:25):
new stone wood studio, but itcame off, you know, and January,
and it disrupted the wholeindustry because every single
person that was somebody wantedto be there.
Everybody was welcome to comeand make music and it was super,
super special.
And I knew we'd get Grammynominations and we actually won
a Grammy and couple of platinumrecords out of it and it was a
(09:46):
magical thing.
So when that happened, I said ohit's time for the girls because
of power that I had and theattention that I had from being
a part of this magical time, Iwanted to pour into the women
and I did, and all of thesebrands and Viacom came together
and we got catalogs that we puttogether from Earth Girl.
It was awesome because we'reable to pay a couple bills for
(10:09):
some of the tunes that the girlswere putting in and they were
able to get back in money andunderstand, Oh, this is how the
business side works.
Ace (10:17):
It's incredible how the creative camp has already made
waves in the music industry howdo you see this mission growing
and changing?
Mali Hunter (10:23):
Earth Girl is takes a woman who knows to help a
woman to grow.
I just see it sparking thiscontinuous movement of women
pouring into women andunderstanding that we're more
powerful together and killingthose old, it just has to be one
queen in the room, you know?
For years I've heard we're goingto go in here and change the
(10:44):
industry.
No, ma'am I never wanted to.
What I wanted to do was be alight understand aint nobody no
victim over here, anywherearound me, we gone learn how
this works and we going to playthe game the way we play it,
because every contract isdifferent.
Let me read and understand andknow and fight for what's right
for me and my friends.
(11:05):
And that's what I do.
Ace (11:07):
Hmm, that's really important work.
Thank you.
Finally is there any advice youwould like to give to young
entrepreneurs making their wayinto the music industry?
Mali Hunter (11:17):
Well, it would depend on the person, I think,
my dad used to tell me, don'tgive advice cause you'll send
somebody down the wrong paththat's not theirs.
But I think I dropped a few gemsearlier.
One I'd say, because youngpeople always say music is my
life.
And I always say, your life isyour life.
Music is part of your life, ifyou want to be in the music
(11:41):
industry, you have to understandwhat you want.
It's like saying I want to playfootball.
Okay.
What part of football do youwant to play?
Do you want to be the referee?
What's your ultimate goal, youwant to be a running back,
quarter or what, what do youwant to do?
I would say if you're going todo music and it's something that
you search after don't be fairytale about it, figure out who's
(12:01):
done it.
How many years it took them toget there.
And look at it like a longjourney that you don't put a
time limit on.
Ace (12:13):
Great advice.
Thank you, Molly for sharingyour journey with us.
It's grounding to learn howyou've cared for artists and
making their careers and howyour committee to grading even
more opportunity for women inmusic through earth girl.
We have many more inspiringentrepreneurs in this episode so
stay tuned for our next guestPedro Cañas.
Federico Reyes (12:31):
It's my pleasure to introduce our next guest.
Pedro Cañas is an American houseDJ and record producer.
In 2020, he founded Midtownhouse LLC with a mission to
reclaim Manhattan as thenightlife capital of the world.
That same year, he began to workat Sony music entertainment in
global digital advertising andgraduated from the NYU's
undergraduate music businessprogram soon after.
(12:53):
Welcome to the show Pedro.
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself.
What kind of education did youget?
Pedro Cañas (12:58):
Yeah.
So, I went to NYU and prior tothat in high school, we didn't
have a music tech or middleschool, actually, we didn't have
a music tech class, and I wasalready super into the idea of
producing electronic music.
So I took some courses in, inNew York City.
I was like the youngest kidthere.
I was like 14 and everyone elsewas around 20 years old to like
(13:18):
their early thirties.
Dude, I didn't understand, whatthey're producing, they're
producing some techno and I'mlistening to like Skrillex and
deadmau5, what's this boringstuff you're making.
Federico Reyes (13:28):
You have your own business.
You started a record label.
Tell us more about it.
What is the mission or goal?
Pedro Cañas (13:34):
I was living in mid on mid town.
I was living in Chinatown, but Iwas living in Manhattan,
basically in the city.
And, all the underground houseevents were happening in
Brooklyn.
And I was just tired oflistening to hip hop and
reggaeton and pop music all day.
And so I began to say, you knowwhat, I'm going to have my own
events, my own house events inthe city in Manhattan.
I'm going to, book DJs fromBrooklyn underground scene to
(13:57):
come play in Midtown.
And so that's how it started.
It was just Midtown House eventssolely.
On classical house music orminimal house music, and the
other mission is to educatepeople and to, bring house music
back to Manhattan.
That says as simple as it canget Sure.
Federico Reyes (14:15):
Yeah.
Do you have any mentors alongthe way that helped guide you
through.
Pedro Cañas (14:19):
Yes.
In terms of mentors, earlier inthe career, I call it a career
because actually is a career.
Like I choose to make, music,not only because I love it, but
I actually want to make a careerout of it.
I, I love the idea of being ableto produce records and sell them
and have DJs play them aroundthe world.
Before I was talking about theunz unz unz techno stuff that
(14:41):
these guys were making, therewere 30 years old.
Uh, I got dragged into it.
I moved to, Zurich, Switzerland,and I began to notice
underground scene.
At a young age, I was 18 yearsold coming from the States.
I began to go to the clubsthere.
I would stay there till like5:00 AM, 6:00 AM in the morning.
And I got very into theunderground house, scene.
And in terms of mentors, toanswer your question, I would
(15:04):
say I've had a bunch over thepast couple of years from,
friends like Adrian Calvet whoin a way he got me into the
underground scene as well He'sfrom Paris or from Bordeaux
actually but now he was livingin Paris and France.
and he got me into like Frenchdisco.
Then I had a Carlos Olandi fromthe basement discos in Spain,
really guided me into theunderground disco scene.
And believe it or not.
(15:26):
my most important mentor rightnow is, a person named Misha
Hamadi who actually works at abulge bracket bank.
Federico Reyes (15:33):
Would you say that underground music is your
niche?
Pedro Cañas (15:37):
I started with EDM.
It was great.
I had no problem with it.
And then as soon I hit the scenein Switzerland, with the minimal
house, it's just, it's a wholedifferent thing and I just got
carried into it.
So my niche is just house music.
in the sense it's just moreunderground.
Tracks are like six minutes longor 10 minutes long.
And, uh, it's what you wouldlisten to in a, in a basement,
(15:58):
in a sweaty basement or like, ona beach in like Tulum or, in
Cannes or something like that.
Or in Bali.
It's a whole different scenethat I wasn't, exposed to in the
U S at a young age, but I'm veryhappy now.
I found my place within theelectronic scene and it's
definitely underground and apart of the niche actually is
trying to, recognize that,classic house came from,
(16:19):
neighborhoods in Chicago and NewYork from latinos and blacks as
well.
And, part of what Midtown houseis, or the mission of Midtown
house is to try to bring housemusic back to Manhattan, the
idea of recognizing that housemusic's roots came from the U S
and yeah.
Trying to bring it back.
Federico Reyes (16:39):
Yeah.
What do you see your businessgoing?
How do you plan to grow it?
Pedro Cañas (16:43):
The label had a residency.
So basically every week I wasbooking DJs, I was playing and
it was Thursday nights and itwas just a great atmosphere,
unfortunately, due to thepandemic I had to pivot the
business completely from thelive industry to the digital
industry.
And so that's when I already hadsome recognition in live events,
(17:06):
within the local scene of NewYork and I started to, release
music Midtown house.
And it's been going well.
Not only are there DJs that,represent New York or the U S
but I have DJs in the rosterthat are from Argentina, from
Switzerland, from, UK, fromRussia, from France.
(17:27):
And they all have someconnection to manhattan, which
has been a beauty.
and in terms of, the team, it'sjust myself.
I have things outsourced.
But these people that Ioutsource to are part of the
community as well as the team,because it's always just the
same people it's basicallypretty international.
All done digitally.
Federico Reyes (17:44):
Gotcha.
Yeah, that makes sense.
How do you see your businesschanging?
Where do you want it to golooking forward?
Pedro Cañas (17:50):
The business strategy for me is to be present
in online streaming servicesthat are not super big yet.
I think it's very important tobe, in line with other companies
that are also in the come uptrying to make it.
What I see in trending is to tryto figure out a valuable way of
(18:10):
starting a business, justdigitally making everything
digital.
In music consumption, I lovewhen there's applications like
TikTok these apps that just comeout of nowhere and a high volume
of users just begin to use thembecause they're unregulated and
they do not have any forms oflike ad credits in the
(18:31):
beginning?
I mean, take talk does now, somaybe time to move on to the
next one, but in a sense thatnowadays, as you might notice on
Instagram, and we've even seenthis on TV, on radio and
Spotify, you name it, we'regiven ads.
We're not really choosing themusic that we're listening to.
it's all being served to us inone way or another.
(18:54):
Yeah.
over the past year or two, weheard a lot of breakthrough
artists, like BENEE for example,or, uh, you know, we heard the
Rick Asterly track, res otherthan memes, right?
So these are just things thatjust happen.
And that's the beauty of, peopleand these types of sites,
because it's not the big playersthat are controlling the music
(19:17):
in that instance, it's theactual people that are sharing.
So, um, I hope that continues.
I hope people can just, youknow, be sharing music and
forget about things being servedto them.
Federico Reyes (19:27):
Yeah.
And, to finish it off, whatwould be your advice for young
entrepreneurs in the musicindustry?
Pedro Cañas (19:32):
My personal advice for people that want to go into
the music industry is toperhaps, study computer science
or be in a finance role, andthen minor in music business, or
try to figure out how to internin a music business company over
the summer.
The reason I say this is becausestudying computer science or
finance is just so valuable inthe industry And there's so many
(19:56):
job postings for these types ofroles.
Spotify is always, posting aboutengineers and things like this.
In a digital world that we're inright now, those are the best
two majors to do.
It also just depends on what youlike because, the music industry
is very different.
There's the corporate ladder.
and then there's theentrepreneurial ladder and the
(20:17):
creative side.
And, you know, everything's verydifferent depending on who you
talk to.
And I would say that, I guessI'm, I'd say I'm pretty happy
with what I'm doing at themoment.
People, might think it's hard tocreate an LLC, or start a
business.
And it's really simple.
You just look at your state, goto on your website, on the
(20:37):
state's websites and try tofigure out how to open an LLC.
It's not super expensive to do.
In New York, I think it's like250 bucks maybe and you could
start your own company.
I think it's just very valuablefor people to have this,
especially at a young age, ifyou have that drive to be an
entrepreneur, you should just doit from the beginning.
Federico Reyes (20:57):
We just got some great advice from Pedro about
putting yourself out there,building a business and going
for it.
Thank you so much for being onthe show.
Next up we talked to twoentrepreneurs who are working
hard to build their ownbusinesses in this ultra
competitive music industry
Michael Oguike (21:14):
My name is Michael Oguike.
I'm from Nigeria and I'mcurrently an MBA student at the
Stanford Graduate School ofBusiness.
Before my MBA, I used to work inenergy for an oil and gas
company in Nigeria, but mypassion for technology really
(21:35):
moved me to build my startup.
So my startup is called AmplifyMusic and basically it lets
people create collaborativeplaylists and enjoy social
music.
So think about the time whereyou're at a party, maybe a house
party, we take group of friendsand then you have different
people who want to control themusic.
(21:55):
Some people want to play R&B.
Some people have very bad tastein music, but you want all your
friends to be able to come intoone playlist and add and vote
the songs they want to hear.
So amplify music allows peopleto create that democratized
playlist.
Where people can enjoy socialmusic and everyone gets to hear
(22:15):
what they recommend and peopleare happier.
Melanie Okuneye (22:18):
What kind of challenges do you foresee within
the current music ecosystem orwithin, how people consume
music?
How do you plan to get overthem?
Michael Oguike (22:31):
So specifically speaking for Amplify Music, I
think a key challenge for us is,monetization, firstly, and then
secondly, with licensing for theservice we're providing.
So I'll talk firstly, aboutrevenue or monetization.
(22:52):
We currently do not host anymusic on our platform.
What we do is we integrate withSpotify and Apple music APIs.
So the challenge that introducesis if we provide this platform
who is going to want to pay forboth Spotify and then also pay
for this other app.
(23:13):
Secondly, in terms of likelicensing, one opportunity we
have is to say, take Amplify toa B2B model where our customers
are going to be a restaurant orsay hotels or for public places
where it can serve as a jukeboxin a more public environment,
(23:36):
but the challenge with that iseven in a public environment,
the restaurants have to paylicenses.
So there are organizations likeBMI or ASCAP that require those
companies or those restaurantsto pay certain amounts of money
to broadcast music.
(23:56):
So when it gets into that kindof scenario, then you see that
there's a legal implication ofproviding a service to those
kind of customers, becausethey're going to say,"Hey, well
maybe we're playing musicillegally".
Melanie Okuneye (24:07):
What would your advice be for young
entrepreneurs in the musicindustry?
Michael Oguike (24:17):
You know, people would usually say,"believe in
yourself","believe in your idea"and all, but I think one thing
that's very important is tobuild fast, grow quickly, build
fast, learn fast, fail fast, anda hard lesson I've learned is
(24:38):
sometimes you have thisflamboyant idea or this product
you have in your mind that youwant to build and from the
get-go you want your product toconnect artists.
You want it to have chatfeatures.
You want it to have emojis.
You want it to play music.
You want to be able to selltickets from day one.
(24:59):
I think it's very important foryou to identify the most
fundamental and primal valuethat your product is going to
give to the customers and buildon that very foundational level.
Melanie Okuneye (25:14):
Michael.
Thank you for sharing yourexperiences and learnings from
your music technology startup inNigeria.
Now, we are going to shift thefocus to Sameen Sameen, please
tell us about yourself.
Sameen Singh (25:27):
My name is Sameen Singh.
I am the Chief Strategy Officerat Create Music Group.
I wasn't always in the musicindustry.
I actually started in Finance.
I was doing Investment Bankingon Wall Street: Private Equity
investing, always with a focuson media and entertainment.
And then I made the switch intoworking in music, starting at a
(25:49):
music festival company, inEurope, which was a lot of fun
and, I guess, a relic of thepre-pandemic era,(hopefully it
will come back).
And then I got my MBA and joineda company called Create Music
Group.
Melanie Okuneye (26:03):
What does Create Music Group do?
Sameen Singh (26:06):
We started as a YouTube company back in 2015 or
so.
We developed this technology tocrawl Youtube to identify
primarily user generated contentthat was using unlicensed music
and therefore not payingroyalties on that music and back
(26:28):
in 2015/2016 YouTube's contentID system wasn't as robust as it
is today.
So it actually was reallymeaningful money for artists.
Their music was being played inpeople's videos and they just
weren't getting it.
They weren't getting any moneyfrom that.
And especially in the electronicindustry, for electronic DJs and
stuff, this was like meaningfulrevenue and that remains a big
(26:50):
part of our business today.
Today, we distribute for over5,000 labels.
After getting into distribution,we started doing direct
distribution with artists.
And so we work with close to90,000 artists that we
distribute music through.
And on top of just plain vanilladistribution, we are more of a
label services company at thispoint where we're offering
(27:12):
everything from digitalmarketing services, to
publishing and synchronization,to licensing, to even advances,
which are the traditional recordlabel products.
The third major piece of ourbusiness is a digital ad agency
called Flight House, which is aTik Tok based ad agency.
(27:34):
They are the largest brand onTik Tok today with over 27
million followers on thatplatform and with Tik Tok being
a music based, social network,social discovery network, it's
an opportunity for us to amplifya lot of the music that we
distribute through Flight Houseby, doing dance challenges and
like other viral campaigns.
(27:56):
We got number two on the Inc5,000 fastest growing companies
in America lists this pastsummer.
Which is the, I think thehighest ever ranking for a music
company or even a media companymore broadly.
Melanie Okuneye (28:08):
So can we actually talk about monetizing
music?
How do you think about this inthe music industry?
Sameen Singh (28:15):
I mean, if you look at the history of listening
to a song and how much that isvalued in the market, we don't
have to start at the beginning,but let's start in the nineties
and early 2000s with CDs, right?
As a consumer, you're paying$20to buy an album and that was the
market value of that content.
(28:37):
Then there was a period wherewith piracy and everything,
where content basically camefree and artists weren't making
any music on the monetization oftheir recorded IP.
And then with streaming it savedthe industry in the sense that
you went from free to actuallymaking money off of your
recorded music again.
But the monetization rates areso low.
(28:58):
A stream on Spotify premium isstill like three tenths of cent,
right?
So the market rate of a streamis three tenths of a cent.
On YouTube, it's a fraction ofthat.
That's why you see artists lookto other ways to monetize their
music and, whatever it is.
That's why you saw such a hugegrowth in the live music
(29:20):
industry in the last 10 years.
The live music industry from arevenue perspective is actually
bigger than the recorded musicindustry.
But that also creates a problembecause artists are on the road
for 200 days a year, which is,in any line of work, that's a
pretty taxing lifestyle.
Even if you're staying in reallyfancy hotels and flying on
(29:40):
private jets, it's still hard tobe on the road for that much.
And on top of that, you'reexpected to continually make new
music and engage with your fanson other platforms.
It's a pretty daunting job.
So recorded, save the musicindustry for some time.
Obviously with the pandemic yousaw when that went away, how the
recorded industry got so exposedagain, and this is why you saw a
(30:01):
lot of artists, big nameartists, go back and look at the
recording contracts and werelike, wait, why am I giving up
so much?
Why am I not being paid as muchon my recorded?
Because when the money's flowingin from all these different
sources, it's fine.
But when it dries up you startto re-examine things.
The recording saved the industrybut I think that's why musical
(30:21):
artists are always looking atnew ways to monetize whether
it's their art or theirengagement or their relationship
with their fans.
That's why you see things likeCameo, right?
Come up as another way for anartist to monetize with fans:
Only Fans.
These subscription platforms,and even like the next, the
newest thing, whatever it islike this week, just because we
happen to have been talking thisweek, the latest thing is NFTs.
(30:45):
Right.
Which, in my opinion is a bit ofa fad, but it's just artists see
that they can actually monetizethese valuable assets that
they've created.
And so whatever medium orplatform or network they're able
to do it on, they're open todoing, but it comes down to,
because on the recorded side thestructure doesn't work for them.
Melanie Okuneye (31:07):
So one thing you talk about a lot asCreate
Music Groupis empoweringartists.
How do you empower artists?
Sameen Singh (31:16):
You know, a traditional record label deal is
80/20 in favor of the label.
And the label owns the masteri.e.
the IP is registered to them.
They own it in perpetuity.
Our deals are 20/80.
The opposite and in the artist'sfavor and they own their IP in
perpetuity.
So everything down to the artcore product, and then even more
(31:38):
recently, we introduced a creditcard, which is the music
industry's first credit card forartists and creators.
The biggest pain point in musichas always been payments:
artists, getting their moneyfast.
Not even getting their moneyfast.
Knowing what they're making andthen getting that money.
We were there about a year and ahalf ago.
We're still the only companythat does it, which I'm
(31:59):
surprised by.
Our daily earnings portal, whichshows artists how much money
they're making from the threemajor platforms, Spotify, Apple,
and YouTube on a daily basis.
So, you know, yesterday you gota million streams.
That equates to$30,000.
(32:20):
That's going to hit, but you'regoing to get it eventually when
the money flows through thesystem.
No one else shows that even tothis day and the artists that we
work with, literally check thatthing 10 times a day.
Cause you can see how much moneyyou're making on a real-time
basis is pretty crazy.
The next evolution of that,which is getting that money,
(32:41):
right?
Like it's great that I can seethat I'm going to get paid
$30,000, but I want to get thatmoney.
And, it takes anywhere from, asquickly as a month, if it's just
traditional streaming fromSpotify, who's probably the
quickest to pay to six months toa year.
If you're talking aboutpublishing and it's
international and it has to flowthrough that whole complex
(33:02):
system.
So the natural, next step was: showing you that money's cool, (33:04):
undefined
but how do we get you thatmoney?
And, we can't as Create MusicGroup, no one, even if you're
the biggest music company in theworld can tell Spotify or
YouTube or some collectionagency and Germany to, pay that
(33:25):
money quicker.
But because we know that themoney is earned, we're
comfortable.
And we figured out a way tobasically front you that money
through a credit card.
Melanie Okuneye (33:39):
Thank you Sameen for your time and for
answering my questions.
One last fun question for bothyou and Michael.
Who should we be listening toright now in music
Sameen Singh (33:52):
So I'm more of a Hip Hop person myself.
So right now two artists thatI'm listening to are Pooh
Shiesty.
You know, he's got that song"Back In Blood" with Lil Durk
and SSGkobe who is this reallyup and coming artists.
He just came out with twoawesome songs last week.
Michael Oguike (34:14):
I'm trying to fight the urge to say Burna Boy.
I remember in our first quarter,a lot of the TAs used to take
song requests for people whowanted to just request songs and
I knew there was a class I wasin and I requested Burna Boy,
(34:35):
and the next day when Burna Boywas playing in class, the TA
actually said Burna Boy is themost requested artist across
like the entire class.
Melanie Okuneye (34:45):
Thanks to our listeners for sticking with us.
We just heard from fiveindividuals in the music
business with very differentperspectives from working with
artists.
Running a label residency.
Raising money supporting othersand our communities and the
blood, sweat, and tears neededto build something in the
(35:06):
industry.
Thanks for tuning into drop themic
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