Music industry veteran Anthony Martini has joined record label, distribution platform and music licensing startup Slip.stream as chief music officer and partner, it was revealed today.
The announcement comes several months after Slip.stream acquired the brand and name of Martini’s indie hip-hop label, Commission Music, along with the recording contracts for Powers Pleasant, Big Havi, DJ Envy and DJ Holiday, in August. At the time, it was announced that Martini would join Slip.stream’s board to help guide the development of the company’s frontline record label. He will now lead that process, while also developing new music products across the intersection of gaming, content creators and brands.
Martini joins Slip.stream from a brief stint at Royalty Exchange, where he was appointed CEO in March. During his tenure there, the company paid out over $90 million to artists and Martini helped launch a new program allowing rightsholders to sell their royalty streams as NFTs. He became the first to take part in that program, selling an NFT of his share of the publishing royalty stream for his longtime client Lil Dicky’s 2015 track “Save Dat Money.”
In addition to his executive duties, Martini is an investor and advisor to the metaverse media company Factory New, which is behind TikTok avatar rapper FN Meka. He previously managed artists including Tyga and founded Commission Records, whose roster included Lil Dicky and MadeinTYO, before selling a majority stake in the company to Big Noise Music Group in 2019. (Big Noise still owns the entire Commission Music catalog along with MadeinTYO’s recording contract.)
Martini joins Slip.stream founder and co-CEO David Carson, co-CEO Dan Demole and CMO Jesse Korwin, the latter two of whom previously co-founded synch licensing company Jingle Punks. Slip.stream launched in July with a library of over 100,000 licensed music tracks and sound effects, which creators can access by purchasing a subscription plan.
“The music fan experience needs freedom to be more dynamic,” said Martini in a statement. “The reality is, people don’t just listen to music, they want to USE it. The more people can use music, the more exposure it gets, which increases an artist’s chance of success. Slip.stream is built on that premise. It never made sense to me how labels would pay an influencer to promote a song, but then penalize them if they promoted it for free. That’s the type of outdated model that I’m on a mission to change.”
Slip.stream’s label releases in 2021 have included Powers Pleasant’s single “Evil Twin” featuring Denzel Curry and Zillakami, DJ Five Venom’s “Look at What I Did,” and Big Havi and KyleYouMadeThat’s “Important!”
