Reservoir Acquires Iconic Tommy Boy Music, Groundbreaking Hip-Hop Label, for $100 Million

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 EditorVeteran artist-producer DJ David Guetta has entered into a career- agreement with Warner Music that sees the company acquiring his recorded-music catalog from the last two decades, as well as striking a new deal for future recordings.

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 EditorWith two major releases in just a few days, June is basically a debut party for 4th & Broadway, the legendary Island Records imprint that is now helmed by LaTrice Burnette.The label, named after Island’s former location above Tower Records in New York’s East Village, originally was launched in 1984 and focused on hip-hop and dance music by artists such as Eric B. & Rakim (the 1987 classic “Paid in Full”), Dream Warriors, Stereo MCs, Bomb the Bass and others.

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 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 EditorMusiCares, which has distributed more than $25 million in Covid-19 relief to members of the music community, announced Monday that it is distributing a “final round” of such funding.The effort continues the support for music professionals, concluding upon distribution of the $2 million raised during its Music on a Mission concert and campaign in March, to be directly distributed to 2,000 eligible applicants.“Although the pandemic relief will be coming to a close,

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorIt’s not exactly an iron-clad guarantee — especially by Drake standards — but the superstar rapper said on Saturday that his long-delayed “Certified Lover Boy” album, which he’d originally promised would be out in January but then changed his mind, will be out by the end of the summer.On Saturday night, Drake sat down for a rare interview on Caffeine after an appearance at Ultimate Rap League’s N.O.M.E. XI battle-rap event, where he staked $50,000 on the winner.

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

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorPrimary Wave Music, the fast-rising independent music company, has entered into a worldwide distribution agreement with Virgin Music Label & Artist Services, an arm of Capitol Music Group in the U.S.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorRCA Records has announced a new partnership and label deal with Loud Robot, the record label from J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, to release new musical talent.To kick off this partnership, Nnena, the first musical signing to Loud Robot, today releases a brand-new track and video for “Heart Moan,” the second track from her forthcoming debut EP “Bipolar AF,” which is set for release on June 25.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorSony Music Entertainment has announced “an expansion of the comprehensive support we provide to thousands of our artists around the world” via a new initiative called Artists Forward, “prioritizing transparency with creators in all aspects of their development,” the company stated in a letter to artists.The most striking element of the campaign is the “Legacy Unrecouped Balance Program,” whereby the company “will no longer apply existing unrecouped balances to

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorBruce Springsteen is getting back to work this summer, playing a big role in Broadway’s return by bringing back his $108-million-grossing “Springsteen on Broadway” for the entire summer, but that isn’t all he has in the works, as he revealed in a call on Sirius XM’s E Street Radio.“I am looking forward to being in front of an audience,” he told hosts Dave Marsh and Jim Rotolo. “It’s going to be quite a thing.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorLast June, YouTube launched a $100 million #YouTubeBlack Voices Fund in an effort to help equip Black musicians with the resources and support to enable them to “thrive and invest in work that amplifies the voices, perspectives and stories of all Black artists around the world,” according to the announcement.The company has provided periodic updates on aspects of the program, and on Wednesday, unveiled a report on the progress its music efforts have made over the

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorA week after some tracks purportedly from Lorde’s third album leaked onto the internet (although it seems very few people have actually heard them?), the singer posted a note on her website Monday, along with a rather attention-grabbing photograph of a derriere, possibly hers, from below.As last week’s rumors predicted, it seems the first single is called “Solar Power.” The remainder of the message says only, “Arriving in 2021… patience is a virtue,” nodding to the

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorH.E.R. and Ingrid Andress will join the star-studded performer lineup for the 2021 CMT Awards while Anthony Mackie, Busy Philipps, Iliza Shlesinger and Michael Strahan have been added as presenters, the network announced Monday (June 7).The two artists will duet with previously announced performers: Fast-rising R&B star H.E.R.