Music Biz Features

Last month, the spread of COVID-19 started to shut down daily activities — everything ranging from mundane commutes to glossy film shoots. “The music industry seemed like the first to respond to that — ‘Oh shit, where are we gonna get content from?’” says Nick Cinelli, a director and animator …

In September 2018, Spotify announced a new “Global Cultures Initiative,” hoping to increase intercontinental musical exchange, and, ideally, transform more local non-Western hits into global phenomena. “We have launched numerous high-profile playlists and programs in the recent past,” Rocio Guerrero, then Head of Global Cultures at Spotify, said in September …

In late 2017, Amy Jackson received a curious piece of mail. Her husband, renowned Memphis trumpet player Wayne Jackson, had recently died, and she requested a statement for “Last Night,” a 1961 instrumental recorded when Jackson was a member of the Mar-Keys. Over the years, the song had since become …

It was either, depending on how you looked at it, a great blessing or a growing problem: Def Jam had way too many rappers on its hands. In a single year, the record label had gone on a mad signing spree for one young act after another, prompted by streaming’s …