There are not enough Black executives in the music business who have control of P&L. But they are required to explain Black culture to white executives who do run that. | | | | This is a drill: Pop Smoke in London, Nov. 29, 2019.
(Joseph Okpako/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | | | “There are not enough Black executives in the music business who have control of P&L. But they are required to explain Black culture to white executives who do run that.”
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| | rantnrave:// Were reports of the death of "urban" greatly exaggerated? Or at least a little exaggerated? INTERSCOPE has just named a new SVP of urban radio promotions (congratulations, KEINON JOHNSON) and the NEW YORK TIMES reports that SHAWN GEE, the powerful manager of the ROOTS and head of LIVE NATION URBAN, is among the Black music execs standing behind the word. "The problem," Gee says, "lies in the infrastructure, in the system—not in the word.” But the usage of urban to describe Black music has been banned elsewhere, including REPUBLIC RECORDS (which, like Interscope, is part of UNIVERSAL MUSIC), and there are plenty of other execs committed to burying it, arguing that the word and the infrastructure are connected. The GRAMMY AWARDS have done away with the term too—sort of—suggesting that time may not be on urban's side. Elsewhere in a roundup of music's push to catch up with the BLACK LIVES MATTER movement, the Times' BEN SISARIO reports that music gear manufacturer TEENAGE ENGINEERING will begin sharing sales revenues later this year with a hand-picked group of four artists of color "in recognition of their role in popularizing the company’s products"... Women at SPOTIFY in the UK, where large companies are legally required to report these numbers, earn 9.9 percent lower salaries than men and their bonuses on average are 29.5 percent lower. And that's a good deal for women, compared with the gender pay gaps at other music companies as reported by MUSIC BUSINESS WORLDWIDE. At LIVE NATION UK, the average female employee pulls in 44.5 percent less per hour than the average male employee. SUZI QUATRO is not pleased... New world order: JASON ISBELL's next concert will be a $100-per-ticket interactive livestream (yes, that's a one followed by two zeros) next Tuesday in which he and up to 150 fans will be able to watch each other. A company called TOPEKA is providing the tech. If that price is too rich, you can see a taped replay on July 23 for $25. The next frontier: Livestreams meet virtual reality. “When cinema first came," says JEAN-MICHEL JARRE, whose June 21 VR livestream allowed fans to take virtual drugs, "people thought it was a magic trick, like a circus. They didn’t think it could be art, and people didn’t understand it. I think VR is seeing the same phenomenon now". Or, to put it another way, we're still in the early days of music video, waiting for someone to come up with a "THRILLER"... MIKE SHINODA has a mostly instrumental solo album coming out next week recorded in quarantine using TWITCH, with fans offering real-time suggestions and feedback through live chats, and, for one song, uploading their own vocals... Congrats to our friends at GUNPOWDER & SKY, who are producing "Words & Music" podcasts tracing artists' careers in their own words under a new deal with AUDIBLE. The first episode, with ST. VINCENT, launches later this summer, with SMOKEY ROBINSON and ALANIS MORISSETTE episodes to follow... MusicREDEF is taking an extended weekend in honor of US Independence Day. The next newsletter will hit your inbox on Tuesday... But Friday will still be FRIDAY and that will mean new music from the late POP SMOKE, WILLIE NELSON, MULATU ASTATKE & BLACK JESUS EXPERIENCE, GUCCI MANE (and others from his 1017 label roster), WESTSIDE GUNN, LITTLE KID, PAUL WELLER, BURY TOMORROW, BORIS, CURRENTS, DREAM WIFE, TWIN PEAKS, GONG GONG GONG/ANTON ROTHSTEIN/ANGEL WEI BERNILD and JOE ELY... BANDCAMP is once again waiving its fees on Friday, so it's a great day to do your shopping there, with 100 percent of revenues going to artists and labels... HAMILTON—the filmed version of the Broadway show—arrives on DISNEY PLUS Friday... And on Monday there's an album coming from the DALAI LAMA... RIP HOLLY LANE. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| The business owes much of its wealth to the work of Black artists but has just a handful of Black executives in its most senior jobs. Companies large and small say they’re devoted to change. | | |
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| Like most cities around the country, New York’s music venue owners are still looking at an ominous, uncertain future. But will it mean a temporary setback or the end of your favorite place? | | |
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| Now Sarah Pinsker’s 2019 book could potentially help us reimagine the meaning of music culture, offering a palpable example of radicalism in the face of technocratic forces. | | |
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| The term is omnipresent in reggae and essential to the music’s cultural history. But what does it mean? | | |
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| Sony, Warner, Spotify and Live Nation’s numbers have been revealed. | | |
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| A Wisconsin music festival originally named Covid Herd Immunity Fest is getting backlash from locals after "The View" co-host Meghan McCain called it "irresponsible." | | |
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| The AirPods Pro are getting simulated surround sound. But it could also be the secret sauce in its rumored full-size noise-canceling headphones, the so-called AirPods Studio. | | |
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| British talents such as 808 Melo and AXL Beats are working with big names like Drake and Travis Scott -- but the killing of scene linchpin Pop Smoke has created crisis. | | |
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| Oft-sampled vibraphonist Roy Ayers will turn 80 this fall, and his new album, recorded in L.A. on the Jazz Is Dead label, is both silky-smooth and prescient. | | |
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| Whether it's teenagers playing in a garage with friends and just learning an instrument, a band that is part of a small, local scene, someone signed to a big label and touring the world, a record label, or a venue-anyone who makes, distributes, writes about, or books music is part of the music industry. | | |
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| | | are you glad to be in america? |
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| While well-organized, K-pop fans are hardly a monolith. As they take action for BLM, the fandom itself is dealing with issues of harassment and racism. | | |
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| From funk masters to prog prodigies and beyond, we count down the players who have shaped our idea of the low-end theory. | | |
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| For a new streaming service, Apple TV Plus made some pretty sharp music choices from the start, tapping Carter Burwell to score "The Morning Show," Atli Örvarsson for "Defending Jacob," Michael Brook for "Little America" and Drum & Lace and Ian Hultquist for "Dickinson." | | |
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| You’ll devour "Glitter Up the Dark" with eyes wide and mind racing, drawing connections to whatever music you listen to. | | |
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| Jason Geter, who previously co-founded Grand Hustle Records, told me that he’s looking to “redefine what a record label is today” with his new startup Heavy Sound Labs. Geter said he sees Heavy Sound — which is part of startup studio Science Inc. — as an extension of the work he’s been doing for decades. | | |
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| Founder and CEO, Damian Manning, talks MBW through HIFI’s new product offerings. | | |
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| As the foremost Black woman in country music -- and one who is still waiting to enjoy a big radio hit, despite a series of buzzy singles over the last five years -- Mickey Guyton has sometimes felt she faced the "double whammy" of race and gender, to the point where she says she's often felt like she was "walking on eggshells" in always putting on a friendly face for the genre's gatekeepers. | | |
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| During this fertile period the way revelers received dance music -- and what was considered dance music -- shifted as new kinds of spaces geared toward L.G.B.T.Q. participants multiplied. | | |
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| At 79, 74 and 87 years old, respectively, these three veteran songwriters prove that it's possible to release poignant and powerful work late in an artist's career. | | |
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| At a pub in south London the day coronavirus is declared a global health pandemic, King Krule discusses 'Man Alive!', an album that punctuated the beginning of a new world. | | |
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| In a beautiful Trans-Atlantic collaboration, Chicago-based jazz musician Angel Bat Dawid has created a new record in response to Emma Warren's work on London's Total Refreshment Centre. Here, they discuss the importance of physical space in developing community and resistance. | | |
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| It's New York City, 1981, and we're more than twenty floors up above 57 th Street and the everyday mayhem of Manhattan. But here there is calm. And joy. And music. It's the office she shares with Harold Leventhal, famed manager of legendary folk stars like Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie (her son), Judy Collins, Peter, Paul & Mary, and others. | | |
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| | | | | Pop Smoke ft. Rowdy Rebel |
| | From "Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon," out Friday on Victor Victor/Republic. |
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