Trapital

Will Page returns to the show for a “state of the industry” episode. In last year’s appearance he correctly called out the slowdown in streaming subscriptions, bubbles in web3, and more. Will believes the value of copyrighted music could hit $45 billion annually when the 2022 numbers are calculated — up $5 billion from 2021, which is already an all-time high for the industry.   Another massive shi...

UnitedMasters and Translation CEO Steve Stoute returns to the show, fresh off a new deal with R&B star Brent Faiyaz for a reported $50 million. Brent had his pick at multiple major labels, but chose to stay independent with UnitedMasters. We talk about how independent companies can compete with majors on upfront money, competitive advantages in the music industry, and more. Steve and I also chat a...

It’s never been easier for brands to push their message out. But building true connections is  in today’s fragmented landscape. Dr. Marcus Collins has advice for cutting through the noise. His new book, “For The Culture”, is full of insights. Marcus has worked with Beyonce, Apple, Nike and more. He’s the Head of Strategy at Wieden+Kennedy, and a marketing professor at the Michigan Ross School of B...

This week, I’m running back an interview with another one of the most popular episodes we ever did with KevOnStage from early 2022.  KevOnStage (Kevin Fredericks) is a comedian, producer, director, and entrepreneur behind KevOnStage studios.   Today's episode talks about how he built an independent brand that really paid off his hard work. He established a solid fan base, had millions of followers...

In the 1990s, Interscope Records played by its own rules. Most new labels started with big stars, but Interscope had a clean slate. Most labels were scared of rap music, but Interscope leaned in. Co-founded by Jimmy Iovine, a producer, and Ted Field, a film producer, people questioned whether they had the chops to make it. The label has had a hand in some of the most memorable music moments like D...

This week, I’m running back an interview with one of the most popular episodes we ever did with Matt Pincus from 2022.  Matt Pincus is without question one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the music industry. He sold his independent music publishing company, SONGS, for $160 million five years ago. And now, the music holdings company he co-founded, MUSIC, just raised $200 million to invest i...

The first weekend of Coachella is here: Bad Bunny, BLACKPINK, and Frank Ocean will headline for 2023. Coachella is expected to gross well over $100 million with over 100,000+ attendees per day. In this episode, broke it all down withMIDiA Research’s Tati Cirisano. Coachella started in 1999 as a niche festival for indie rock and quickly morphed into the biggest brand-name festival in the United Sta...

This week, I’m running back an interview I did with Will Page in 2022. It was our most popular episode of 2022 and we talked about a lot of topics that are still timely and still being debated right now in the industry.  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...

If you had a billion-dollar fund to buy the full rights, masters, and publishing of ANY music artists — who are you acquiring to maximize shareholder value? This question was top of mind for real-life portfolio managers the past three years as music catalog sales boomed. Now my guest on the episode, Denisha Kuhlor, and I are asking ourselves the same hypothetical question. In this episode, we’re d...

Short-form video has exploded in popularity the past three years, buoyed by TikTok. Copycat apps and features are now the norm across social media sites — Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Instagram. MIDiA analyst Tati Cirisano joins me on this episode to break down the ongoing war between short-form video’s main players.  The music industry is certainly keeping a close eye on the battle. Short-f...

The artist-entrepreneur-investor Mr Eazi has no on-off switch. Who he is in the recording studio, on stage, and on the boardroom are the same. With business and music, Mr Eazi has found parallel industries that allow him to be the same person. He’s founded both emPawa Africa and Zagadat Capital to feed his business appetite. The former invests into African artists and helps them scale. Meanwhile,...

The gaming industry is larger than music and film combined. We’ve seen big music collabs in Fortnite, Roblox, and more, but there’s room to leverage music even more.   That’s been a big focus for Vickie Nauman, who works at the intersection of music and gaming. She consults for major record labels, game developers, and more through her company, CrossBorderWorks. She’s also worked on big virtual co...

Burna Boy will be the first African artist to headline a UK stadium show when he performs at the 60,000-capacity London Stadium this summer. It’s the latest sign of Burna’s starpower and Afrobeats exploding popularity. The Nigeria-born artist is one of the genre’s biggest stars. Burna has reached this level because of consistency (six albums in nine years), savvy performing strategies, and a headl...

In music, web3 hype may have cooled over the last year but there are still builders in the space making moves, like trac’s founder, Cardin Campbell. Trac is one of our sponsors for Trapital, and it was great to have Cardin on to discuss how music tech startups see the big picture and are approaching this. trac is a music distribution service, but it wants to bridge web2 and web3 together in a way...

The Techstars Music accelerator just announced its 7th cohort. As the program’s Managing Director Bob Moczydlowsky told me on this episode, they don’t invest in music companies. They invest in companies solving problems for the global music business.  There are 10 companies that involve music in some way, including — education, web3, and even wedding celebrations.  Each startup gets a $120,000 che...

The biggest stage in music is still the Super Bowl Halftime Show. In 2023, that stage belongs to Rihanna. This is a noteworthy show for multiple reasons. Rihanna hasn’t released an album since 2016’s ANTI, which was a TIDAL exclusive! Seven years is a long time. She has since built two billion-dollar brands with Fenty Beauty and Savage X Fenty, and recently became a mother. Could this be the start...

The playbook for artists to go viral on TikTok has changed a lot since 2019. Sean Taylor aka “BrandMan Sean” has written and executed that playbook for his clients since the early days of TikTok. He’s the co-founder of the ContraBrand Agency, which specializes in TikTok marketing for music talent. The agency has helped artists like Macy Gray, 24kGoldn, and Trap Beckham, among others. Sean and his...

Everybody’s got something to say about Cash Money Records and the brothers who co-founded the label —Bryan “Birdman” Williams and Ronald “Slim” Williams. To paint the full Cash Money full picture, good and bad, I brought on Zack O’Malley Greenberg who has interviewed the brothers at-length while working at Forbes. Cash Money has one of the deepest catalogs in the game with several classics. And un...

I had a great chat about the future of streaming and more with Ari Herstand, who isan independent artist who also runs Ari’s Take, an education business to teach others artists about the industry. He just released the third edition of his book, How To Make It In the New Music Business. Ari joined me to discuss how artists are navigating new music releases. It's increasingly getting out of the arti...

Sean “Diddy” Combs is one of hip-hop’s most serial entrepreneurs. His business track record stretches 30 years with successes in completely-different industries — music (Bad Boys Records), clothing (Sean John), spirits (Ciroc and DeLeon), media (Revolt), among many other ventures. To take a closer look at Combs' empire, I brought on Tarik Brooks, who is the president of Combs Enterprises.  Many ch...

I had the pleasure of being the keynote speaker at New York University’s Annual Alumni Event for its music business department. Big thanks to Larry Miller, a professor and director of the program, for inviting me.  It was a free-flowing conversation focused on how technology is reshaping the music industry from top-to-bottom. We’re well into the streaming era now, but some of the second-order effe...

I’m digging into the mailbag for today’s episode. For the first time in over a year, I asked Trapital listeners and readers to send me their most burning questions about the music industry. I’ve pulled out nine questions from the bunch to cover on the show.  We’re covering everything from NFTs to artificial-intelligence-assisted music creation to investing in music catalogs going forward and a who...

This episode is a two-parter. At the top, I talk about the news at Motown Records with Ethiopia Habtemariam stepping down from her role as CEO and Chairwoman. After that, I talked to Zack O’Malley Greenburg about Hip-Hop’s wealthiest artists of 2022.  After years of compiling the list for Forbes, Zack O’Malley Greenburg released the 2022 edition independently. This time around, he used insights fr...

Rich Homie Quan was one of the defining rappers of the music era that preceded the industry’s shift to streaming. He — along with the likes of Future and Young Thug — made “mumble rap” a hot commodity in the mid-2010s. But while Future and Thugger continued their careers, Quan took a hiatus from the game, until now. Quan dropped his first project, “Family & Mula”, in almost three years back in Oct...

Cooper Turley, better known as Coopahtroopa, is betting big on ushering a new generation of music. In September, he announced a first-of-its-kind investment fund focused squarely on web3 music projects and artists themselves. Coop Records raised $10 million and Coopah will be the sole general partner.  He’s hesitant to call it just an investment fund though. That’s because Coop Records is also a r...