David Guetta Sells Catalog to Warner Music in Partnership Deal

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBrent Smith has left WME and joined Wasserman Music, the new company formed after Casey Wasserman acquired Paradigm’s North American music representation business, as executive vice present and managing executive, the company announced Tuesday (July 6).“As many of you know, the senior leadership team and I have been spending time with Brent Smith, and today I am pleased to share that he is joining Wasserman Music as EVP and Managing Executive,” Casey Wasserman wrote

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorMotown Records announced that Brian Nolan has been appointed executive vice president of the label and executive VP of marketing, effective immediately. According to the announcement, in this new role, Nolan joins the label’s executive leadership team and will help guide the company as well as oversee Motown’s marketing teams and initiatives.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorYoung Thug has landed a major role in the musical dramedy “Throw It Back” — appearing in the movie and overseeing its soundtrack as executive producer. Directed by Shadae Lamar Smith from a script written with Rochée Jeffrey, the film stars Shahadi Wright Joseph and will feature Tiffany Haddish in a supporting role.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorMass Appeal has named two key executive hires —two “trailblazing women who will play a pivotal role in elevating and expanding the entertainment company’s presence,” according to the announcement.Jessica Rivera (pictured above, left) will serve as the General Manager of Music, overseeing the creative and day-to-day operations of Mass Appeal’s music division (label and publishing) and contributing across Mass Appeal’s other two divisions in content and creative

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAs Variety’s recent cover star H.E.R. announced during Sunday night’s BET Awards, the artist’s Lights On Festival will return to California’s Bay Area in September.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAfter years of criticism over a lack of female and diverse representation in its membership and the Grammy Awards, the Recording Academy is continuing its efforts to expand its voting body by extending invitations to 2,710 established music professionals “from wide-ranging backgrounds, genres and disciplines,” according to the announcement.It states that the 2021 class of invitees is 48 percent female, 32 percent Black or African American+, 13 percent Hispanic or

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorTo celebrate the 25th anniversary of Jay-Z’s iconic debut album “Reasonable Doubt,” the rapper has commissioned multi-disciplinary artist Derrick Adams to create a one-of-one animated digital artwork that recontextualizes the album’s cover, which will be auctioned off by Sotheby’s as an NFT in a special single-lot auction.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe United States is the only major country in the world where terrestrial radio pays no royalties to performers or recorded-music copyright owners of the songs they play, a situation that is largely due to the powerful radio lobby’s influence in Congress. While the more than 8,300 AM and FM stations across the country pay royalties to songwriters, they have never paid performers or copyright holders, although streaming services do.On Thursday, Reps.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorEricka Coulter has joined Warner Records as senior vice president of A&R, the company announced Wednesday (June 23). Coulter was most recently VP of A&R at Epic Records, where she worked with acts including Rick Ross, Giveon, and Lonr., among others; prior to her six-year tenure at Epic, she held posts at Interscope and Capitol (Evolve) Records.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorGrammy-nominated singer, songwriter and actor Janelle Monáe has signed an exclusive, worldwide administration agreement with Sony Music Publishing, the company announced on Tuesday.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorA year on from the “Blackout Tuesday,” during which the music industry paused to take a look at its racial policies and plan to reform them, how is it doing? According to both last week’s USC-Annenberg “Inclusion in the Music Business” study and a “report card” released over the weekend by the Black Music Action Coalition — a 200-plus-member organization formed around this time last year — it’s doing fair-to-badly.BMAC’s 37-page report takes a look at dozens of

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBack in the day, one of the great perks of being a music writer was “Free CDs and Tees” (t-shirts).

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorRepublic Records, Sony Music Publishing and Spotify were among the big winners at last week’s Clio Music Awards.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe Beatles’ film “Get Back” — a Peter Jackson-directed documentary culled from the footage from the 1970 “Let It Be” film — will premiere as a Disney+ original documentary series over the Thanksgiving holidays.Because of the wealth of tremendous footage Peter Jackson has reviewed, which he has spent the past three years restoring and editing, “The Beatles: Get Back” will be presented as three separate episodes.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAfter months of rumors, music agents Matt Galle, Mike Marquis and Rachel Pestik have joined CAA’s Music Touring department, the company announced Wednesday.Galle most recently served as a member of Paradigm Talent Agency’s Music Executive Leadership Group.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC) will present an overview of its inaugural Industry Action Report Card on Friday morning June 18th as part of the National Museum of African American Music’s State of Black Music Summit.With journalist and industry exec Naima Cochrane, BMAC drafted its first-of-its-kind report to “track and measure how individual companies in the music industry delivered on their pledges to work toward justice, equality and change in the wake

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorAlmost six months after Congress passed the $16 billion Save Our Stages act into law, less than 100 of the nearly 5,000 struggling independent venues have been approved for relief money, according to its most recent report, released June 9 by the Small Business Administration, which distributes the loans.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorThe new report on “Inclusion in the Music Business: Gender & Race/Ethnicity Across Executives, Artists & Talent Teams” from the USC-Annenberg Inclusion Initiative makes no bones about how far the music industry has to go in its stated goals of gender and racial equality — even after most major music companies loudly trumpeted their commitments to advancing its efforts in those directions in the wake of Blackout Tuesday and the Black Lives Matter protests last year.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBlack and underrepresented artists may be heavily represented on the charts, but the music companies that release, promote and tour those artists have a long way to go when it comes to diversity in their executive ranks, according to “Inclusion in the Music Business: Gender & Race/Ethnicity Across Executives, Artists & Talent Teams,” an authoritative new study from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBiz 3 PR veteran Dana Meyerson has launched an imprint called Slashie through Mom + Pop Music.