Trapital

41:08

How Does the Music Business Compare To Film And TV?

Trapital ·

2022/07/29

Best-selling author Zack O’Malley Greenburg and I took a break for a new Dad-girl duties to talk about the latest headlines in the music industry — namely Irv Gotti selling a 50-percent ownership stake in Murder Inc.’s past music recordings. He got $100 million from Iconoclast for the deal, plus another $200-million credit line to fund future media endeavors Irv has planned. After the sale, Irv did an interview with Billboard and quipped that monetary-wise, the music industry is the “lowest form” in

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39:09

Why Talib Kweli is Focused on his Fans

Trapital ·

2022/07/22

Twenty-four years after their debut album, Black Star — the duo of Talib Kweli and Yasiin Bey — is back with its sophomore release, “No Fear Of Time.” Talib joined Trapital to discuss the long-awaited return album (which dropped in May) and why it was released exclusively on the paid-subscription podcast platform Luminary. Spurning traditional streaming platforms like Apple Music or Spotify was about serving its true fans, Talib told me during our interview.The pair was already in business with

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31:59

What Every Artist and Creator Needs to Know Before...

Trapital ·

2022/07/15

This week’s special guest on Trapital is entertainment lawyer Karl Fowlkes. As part of his own The Fowlkes Firm, Karl represents entertainers across many domains — from music to sports to media, including hip-hop’s rising star, Blxst. He pulled double duty, not only appearing on the podcast, but guest-writing for the newsletter about the need for the artist contract to evolve.In particular, Karl predicts shared equity between not only artists and record labels, but also with other parties like

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45:24

Improving The Artist-Fan Relationship

Trapital ·

2022/07/08

There’s never been more ways for artists to tap directly into their fan bases than present day. However, actually understanding those same audiences hasn’t scaled at the same rate with the times. My guest on Trapital this week, Denisha Kuhlor, is out to solve that pain point with her new music tech startup, Stan.Denisha’s company wants to take a more scientific approach to understanding and growing an artist's fanbase — from the casuals to the “stans.” Strengthening the artist-fan relationship

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43:27

Sherrese Clarke Soares Explains Why Content Is Queen

Trapital ·

2022/07/01

“Content is queen” is the mantra of this week’s Trapital’s guest, Sherrese Clarke Soares. The phrase has a double-meaning. For one, it’s the heart of her investment firm, HarbourView Equity Partners, which specializes in acquiring content across the entertainment, sports, and media sectors. But on a personal level, the phrase also represents her unique place in the industry as a rare Black and female founder. Sherrese founded HarbourView in 2021. This came on the heels of founding Tempo Music and

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36:31

How Drake and Beyoncé Drop New Music

Trapital ·

2022/06/23

After a massive week inside the music industry, I had to bring Wall Street Journal music and entertainment reporter Neil Shah onto Trapital for an emergence podcast on Drake’s surprise “Honestly, Nevermind” album drop and Beyonce’s own announcement for her first album in six years, “Resistance.”For Drake, he once again switched it up — not only his hairstyle (cornrows this time), but his musical style. Drake is known to experiment with different sounds and flows, but “Honestly, Nevermind” is a

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55:12

Broken Record: Missy Elliott

Trapital ·

2022/06/17

This week, we’re doing something a little different and sharing a fantastic episode from our friends over at the Broken Record podcast. On Broken Record, acclaimed producer Rick Rubin, bestselling author Malcom Gladwell, and former New York Times editor Bruce Headlam talk with the musicians you love about their lives, inspiration, and craft. Today, we’ll hear Rick’s conversation with one of the most innovative artists in music, Missy Elliot. Hope you enjoy! We’ll be back next week with a new episode

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35:36

Stem CEO Milana Lewis Wants To Get Artists Paid

Trapital ·

2022/06/10

Joining us on Trapital for the second time is Milana Lewis, co-founder and CEO of Stem. She last joined me at the end of 2019 and Stem has been in hyper-growth mode since then. Stem helps artist get paid in a clear and timely manner — not only through online-based financial tools, but music distribution too. As a former talent agent for UTA, Milana noticed it wasn’t exactly cut and dry how artists were paid out. That issue is exacerbated inside the music industry due to murky record deals and

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37:44

Bay Area Hip-Hop with Rexx Life Raj

Trapital ·

2022/06/03

Bay area artist Rexx Life Raj (real name Faraji Omar Wrightz) is in album mode with “Blue Hour” set to drop soon. The new album is his most personal yet. It was largely recorded after his mother passed away and before his father did too — which was within a three-month span of each other during 2021. The personal grief of both losses influenced the sounds of the new music. While recording this music was one way Raj coped with his grief, he also wants the album to do the same for others going through

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27:29

Why the Golden State Warriors Launched a Record Label

Trapital ·

2022/05/27

The Golden State Warriors took the commonly-said phrase “every company is a media company” and did one better, launching a first-of-its-kind organization, Golden State Entertainment (GSE). Leading this brand-new entertainment company is Warriors’ chief business officer David Kelly, who joined me on this episode of the Trapital podcast to discuss the brand-new endeavor. While GSE is an extension of the Warriors brand, it wasn’t created with the sole purpose of advancing the NBA team. It’s a

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48:17

The iPod’s Legacy in the Music Industry with Zack...

Trapital ·

2022/05/20

On this episode, we switched things up! Instead of a standard interview, I talked about a few recent topics with the best-selling author, Zack O’Malley Greenburg. He has long had his pulse on the music industry. Between his past time covering the business at Forbes, writing acclaimed books on the likes of Jay-Z and Michael Jackson, or his current Substack blog, Zack has formed both a macro- and micro-view of the entire industry. He’s the perfect person to bring onto Trapital to discuss the stories

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44:35

Comedian Bigg Jah Charters His Own Path Into...

Trapital ·

2022/05/13

3.3 million followers on Facebook. Over 423 million views on YouTube. 4.2 million TikTok likes.Bigg Jah (real name Jahdai Pickett) has put up those gaudy social media numbers with no studio or agency backing and a relatively small team. The do-everything entertainer — who can write, act, direct, produce, and everything in between — has been posting content online almost nonstop for the past five years, doing what he calls “hood good comedy.” It’s all paying dividends now. He’s built a synergy map

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37:36

How indify’s Co-Founder prettyboyshav Is Flipping The...

Trapital ·

2022/05/06

The traditional record label model isn’t artist-friendly. That’s not a secret to anyone by now. Deals are notoriously long and feature a revenue split heavily tilted toward the label — not the artist. But an ambitious alternative has arisen in the last few years. Meet indify, a start-up co-founded by musician prettyboyshav and his two childhood best friends, Matthew Pavia and Connor Lawrence.indify is a platform that connects investors with up-and-coming artists. Investors can not only financially

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31:31

Young M.A and the $20 NFT

Trapital ·

2022/04/29

Music NFTs are all the rage as of late. Entering the mix is Young M.A, who dropped a capsule on April 19. But in true Young M.A fashion, she took a different approach to her first-ever NFT project.For one, each NFT is only $20, making it widely accessible to her diehard fanbase. That’s a departure from most artists-focused NFTs that are on the pricier side due to their limitedness. In total, Young M.A dropped five NFT collections with 250 editions in each — for a total of 1,250. Each of the five

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42:32

How Fanbase Raised $6 Million Without VC with Isaac...

Trapital ·

2022/04/22

In less than three years, the Fanbase social content app has raised six million dollars (without traditional venture capital) and is inching toward the one-million user mark. How did co-founder Issac Hayes III take the app from nothing all the way to this? If you ask him, his life spent in the cut-throat music industry gave him the inspiration AND business chops to thrive within the tech space. As the son of legendary R&B artist Isaac Hayes, he was made well aware from the get-go of the

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56:12

The Future Of Music Business With Economist Will Page

Trapital ·

2022/04/15

One of the most unique insights into the state of the music business today doesn’t come from a record label exec. Not from an agent. Not from an artist. No, it comes from Scottish economist Will Page, who served that role for Spotify from 2012 to 2019 — a period of explosive growth for the streaming giant. But if you ask Page about streaming’s future, he’s not nearly as optimistic as the rest of the industry. “The party has to come to an end,” as he told me on this episode of Trapital.Page believes

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43:16

Audiomack CMO Dave Ponte’s Plan to Grow the Pie for...

Trapital ·

2022/04/08

It’s been ten years since Dave Ponte co-founded Audiomack alongside Dave Macli. The decade has been strong in international growth for the music streaming platform — Audiomack recently became Nigeria’s number-one overall iOS app in a given week — but if Ponte has it his way, Audiomack will next become THE “home base” for artists, a place to begin their entire musical journey. The platform has rolled out numerous features to support those lofty ambitions, plus has several others in the works. One of

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46:57

The Broccoli City Music Festival

Trapital ·

2022/04/01

Today I’m joined by Brandon McEachern and Marcus Allen, the co-founders of Broccoli City. The music festival makes its return to Washington D.C. on May 7-8 with a stacked lineup that includes Gunna, Summer Walker, Wale, and plenty more stars from the world of hip-hop and R&B. The black-owned promotion had not one, but two events canceled in the past two years. During the forced downtime, festival co-founders Marcus Allen and Brandon McEachern made a conscious decision to not just return for

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51:10

Why Podcast Ownership Matters with Brittany Luse and...

Trapital ·

2022/03/25

A lot of creators talk about owning their intellectual property and distribution, but co-hosts of the For Colored Nerds podcast — Eric Eddings and Brittany Luse — actually went and made it happen, by any means necessary. The two left the Spotify-owned Gimlet Media network in 2020, leaving behind The Nod show (and its IP) which they had built up since 2017. As “free agents”, the duo made ownership a mandate in its next podcast deal.Stitcher was happy to oblige, bringing the two together in a

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45:33

How Kevin Liles Built 300 Entertainment Into A $400...

Trapital ·

2022/03/18

Kevin Liles didn’t co-found 300 Entertainment just to sell it. He created it, first and foremost, to fill a void he saw in the music industry — a lack of talent development. Ten years after starting the 300 record label, it’s safe to say Kevin and company filled that void. By developing culture-shifting artists like Gunna, Megan Thee Stallion, Young Thug, among others, 300 has become one of the hottest commodities in all of hip-hop. This led to WMG buying the formerly-independent label for $400

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