bbbiz
Universal Music Group Launches Youth Task Force in Honor of Civil Rights Pioneer John Lewis
Universal Music Group (UMG) has established the Youth Task Force for Meaningful Change (YTFMC), paying homage to recently deceased civil rights pioneer and U.S. Rep. John Lewis. The new initiative is an offshoot of the music company’s social justice and equality-focused Task Force for Meaningful Change (TFMC) that launched globally June 4 and is co-chaired by UMG executive vp, general counsel and Def Jam interim chairman and CEO Jeff Harleston and Motown Records president and Capitol Music Group executive vp Ethiopia Habtemariam. As outlined in a staff memo obtained by Billboard, the 24-member YTFMC is comprised of “dedicated, entry-level employees” ranging from UMG’s °1824 — a division of student employees from various college campuses, working in creative and marketing roles —...
Triller Aims to Drastically Boost Indian Audience With New JioSaavn Deal
Triller and leading Indian music streaming service JioSaavn have struck a new partnership designed to expand the video-sharing app’s reach in the country. Under the agreement, which was announced Monday, all music videos offered inside JioSaavn will be Triller music videos, further expanding the app’s visibility in the country. Additionally, JioSaavn’s main screen will prominently display a button inviting users to make their own Triller videos. The new partnership comes on the heels of India’s ban of Triller competitor TikTok in late June over national security concerns. Following the ban, Triller surged to No. 1 on Apple’s App Store in the country. “We couldn’t be more pleased to have partnered with not only the biggest company in India but one of the biggest and ...
Napster Sold to Virtual Reality Concert App MelodyVR for $70 Million
Napster is on the move, again. London-based virtual reality concerts company MelodyVR announced on Tuesday that it is acquiring Rhapsody International, which operates as Napster, from its majority owner RealNetworks for the price tag of $70 million. MelodyVR, which operates an app specializing in live virtual reality music experiences, plans on combining with Napster to create the “first ever music entertainment platform which combines immersive visual content and music streaming,” said Anthony Matchett, MelodyVR’s CEO. The $70 million transaction is expected to close by year’s end and breaks down as $15 million in cash, $11 million in MelodyVR stock and the assumption of roughly $44 million in payments owed by Napster to various music industry entities. “For music&...
Nashville Venues Encourage Fans to #MaskNowPartyLater to Speed Concerts’ Return
Promoters in the city have launched a new social media awareness campaign, asking the touring industry to step up and spread the word. Venues and event creators in Nashville have banded together to encourage Americans to wear a mask and take safety precautions to help slow the spread of COVID-19 through a new campaign. The #MaskNowPartyLater campaign officially launched Wednesday (Aug. 19) with the incentive of bringing awareness to the live music sector and how slowing the spread of the virus now will bring live music back sooner. The collective of event creators, vendors, sports teams, venues, athletes and artists in Nashville began educating the public on what it’s going to take to get live events back sooner with the hashtag and are now calling upon the entire sector to step up and sha...
Universal Music Publishing China Hosted a ‘League of Legends’ Songwriting Camp With Riot Games
As the music industry continues to invest deeper into the lucrative esports space, Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) China and Riot Games China have concluded a songwriting camp focused on promotional songs for the game publisher’s upcoming 10th League of Legends World Championship. The camp took place at the end of July and brought together 14 UMPG China songwriters — both virtually and in the GUM Studio Shanghai recording facility — to create six songs for the widely-viewed championship, which takes place this year in Shanghai from Sept. 25 to Oct. 31. “Music and gaming are activities of no boundary. When matching them well, possibilities are endless,” said UMPG China managing director Joe Fang. “I am honored to be partnering with Riot Games on t...
Soundtrack Your Brand Signs Global Licensing Deal With Universal Music
The Swedish company, which operates in 73 markets, is pushing to disrupt the background music segment of the market. The growing segment of music streaming for businesses has taken another step forward. Soundtrack Your Brand, a cloud-based music service that is trying to become the Spotify of the business streaming world, signed a global licensing deal with Universal Music Group to use its catalog of music on the platform. The Stockholm-based company, which says it is the world’s fastest growing B2B music platform, delivers the flexibility of music-streaming technology to brands and businesses. Founded in 2013 with Spotify as a co-founder, Soundtrack Your Brand operates in 73 countries and competes in the background music segment with startups like Rockbot as well as with entrenched player...
2 Men Indicted in 2002 Killing of Run-DMC’s Jam Master Jay
Two men have been indicted in the 2002 slaying of hip hop artist Jam Master Jay, which until now had been one of New York City’s most notorious unsolved killings, three law enforcement officials told the Associated Press on Monday. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly and did so on the condition of anonymity. One of them identified the suspects as Ronald Washington and Karl Jordan. Federal prosecutors were expected to announce the charges at a news conference Monday afternoon. Washington, who had reportedly been living on a couch at Jay’s home in the days before his death, was publicly named as a possible suspect or witness as far back as 2007. He is currently serving a federal prison sentence stemming from a string of robberies he committed while on the run from police afte...
Biggie’s Son CJ Wallace Releases His First Music as He Grows Social Impact Company
Over a Zoom video interview, Christopher “C.J.” Wallace, Jr. holds up his dad’s jersey that almost eclipses Wallace and the entire computer screen. “It’s a 5XXL,” Wallace tells Billboard. On the back of the jersey, ‘POPPA” is stitched in bright yellow letters against the hunter green fabric. The young entrepreneur was only five months old when his father, The Notorious B.I.G., was killed. Now 23, Wallace has finally done something he says he was “very scared of for the longest time”: releasing his own music, inspired by his dad’s. “I just avoided it because you don’t wanna mess up anything great,” says Wallace. Born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles, Wallace has been in the process of building his own legacy with Think BIG — a social impact company that he co-founded with bu...
Four Takeaways From MSG Entertainment’s Near-Zero Revenue Debut Quarter as a Standalone Company
Crippled by venue closures, concert promoter MSG Entertainment’s fiscal fourth quarter revenue fell 96% to $9 million from $215.2 million for the same period a year earlier, according to financial results released Friday (Aug. 14). These aren’t the sort of numbers investors might have hoped for in the first full earnings report since MSGE spun off from the Madison Square Garden Company on April 20, but amid a pandemic that has shut down concerts since March perhaps there is some solace that this decline in revenue was still slightly better than the 98% drop Live Nation announced Aug. 5. Shares of MSGE dipped 4.7% to $67.99 at the New York Stock Exchange on Friday. In all, MSGE’s revenue for the full fiscal year, from July 1, 2019, to June 30, 2020, fell 27% to $762.9 million from $1 billio...
The Players Behind Harry Styles’ ‘Watermelon Sugar’: See the Full Credits
Harry Styles’ “Watermelon Sugar” took the top seed on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart this week to become his first No. 1 on the ranking, blasting from No. 7 the week prior. The track also charged up the Digital Song Sales chart 9-1, increasing 614% to 63,000 downloads sold in the week ending Aug. 6, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. And it rose 3-2 on Radio Songs, up 8% to 71.7 million audience impressions in the week ending Aug. 9. Explore the team of musicians, producers, engineers and more behind the track with recording credits provided by Jaxsta below. {“nid”:”9432725″,”type”:”post”,”title”:”How Harry Styles' \u2018Watermelon Sugar\u2019 Became His First No. 1 Single on the Hot 100″,&#...
Yucaipa Companies Forms Joint Venture With London-Based K2 Agency
Private equity firm the Yucaipa Companies have entered into a joint venture with K2 Agency, bringing renowned music agent John Jackson’s London-based booking outfit into the same company as the Yucaipa-owned Artist Group International. The partnership follows a recent announcement Yuciapa — the American firm founded in 1986 by Ronald Burkle — was partnering with Danny Wimmer Presents, North America’s largest independent festival producer. That deal came with the exchange for a minority stake in the concert promotion company. Yuicapa also operates booking agency X-Ray Touring as a joint venture with Paradigm Talent Agency and holds a minority stake in Primavera Sound and Primavera Pro. {“nid”:”8551642″,”type”:”post”,...
Spotify Allies With ‘Fortnite’ in Apple App Store Battle
Spotify is backing Fortnite developer Epic Games in its new clash with Apple and the tech giant’s App Store, highlighting its own lawsuit over similar issues. After Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store on Wednesday because Epic Games had introduced a way for players to purchase its virtual “V-bucks” currency outside the payment marketplace, Epic Games filed a lawsuit that could have legal ramifications in the music industry. {“nid”:”9416468″,”type”:”post”,”title”:”Sony Takes Minority Stake in Fortnite Maker With $250 Million Investment”,”relative_path”:”\/articles\/business\/9416468\/sony-minority-stake-fortnite-maker-epic-250-million-investment\/”,”media”:{“width”:&...
