As we look at Hollywood and the controversy around the Oscars, it goes back to the voting block and the lack of people who come from that culture. For example, the NWA movie is a fantastic, fantastic movie. You need people who can look at a piece of art like that and understand the artistry in it.
— Troy Carter
I found a scrap book that my mom had given to me, and inside was a letter that I wrote to myself at age 19. The letter included my goals and dreams for my life, and even then, I was writing about the management company that I built today.
When we're looking at strategic partners, it may be that they're larger partners or big corporations or start-ups. But, when you look at Gilt and places like Amazon and Starbucks, they're all places where it's a lot of foot traffic or digital traffic.
Lady Gaga is phenomenal. From the first day I met her, she was lightning in a bottle.
My mom was not able to buy us the expensive Air Jordans, so if I wanted something that was a little bit nicer, my brother and I, we had to go earn money for it.
I came up with Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Those guys, they took me under their wing at an early age.
GaGa is a digital baby - that's how they communicate. There cant be any layers between the artists and their fans.
The more people are listening to music and experiencing it, the more value for both the music companies and the artist, especially when their financial model is built around that . With the music industry, everybody is starting to understand that doesn't begin with a piece of music.
When you think about brands and movie studios and everybody who is trying to reach millennials, having a captive audience in the back of Lyft or an Uber is a pretty great place.
With what Enrou was doing with helping women and taking products from local marketplaces, we thought it was really great.
No one has bridged that gap between music and technology yet.
The way it works is the manager's sort of, you know, is like the hub of an artist's career.
People don't buy horses to ride around any more for transportation. I just think the world changes. As a business, we have to make the proper adjustments.
The way consumers interact with music is different now. It's not an albums business anymore; it's a singles business again, and the industry has gone through that before.
You can't make an artist like Lady Gaga. You can help support, you can help develop the vision - I think you can add to the vision - but you just can't make an artist like that. That's like saying Lebron James' high school coach made Lebron James.
I think, as an industry, we should be supportive of a broad subscription model and not do anything to jeopardize the potential health of the music business - because we're not out of the woods yet.
Music is one of those businesses in which, if you're talented and hustle hard enough, you can make it - specifically as an entrepreneur. If you look as far back as Berry Gordy, Russell Simmons, Andre Harrell, L.A. Reid, and Sean 'Diddy' Combs, there's a whole lineage of successful black entrepreneurs who have built their own companies from scratch.
The music industry really is a meritocracy on a creative level.
On the artist side, we made a significant investment in very young artists from the very beginning of their careers and helped them become global superstars.
With the 'Born This Way' album, generally we said, how do we find strategic partners that can help us with our vision? Part of that is about putting the music in places people wouldn't normally put music, like with Google and with Gilt.
I was just a kid in love with hip hop music. I love music. I love the culture. I wanted to be a part of it in any way.
There are not a lot of black men in the pop business.
Now we know that if we make a ten min video for YouTube, people will watch it.
What I like about Bre.ad is the simplicity of it. When you can explain it to people, like 'five-second billboards in front of a link shortener,' it makes a lot of sense.
To me, as A&R people and as managers, we're in the business of finding talent. It's no different than working with these engineers who just want to make good products.
The problem with when you look at eBay is that you can put a pair of Jordans next to a frying pan. It's an altogether different experience compared to having some editorial around it and well-curated experience.
When you sit down with Zynga and Google, and they talk about billions of impressions, you think, music has way more of an emotional connection than technology, but we haven't cracked the code.
If a kid goes and buys a CD at Best Buy, we have no idea who the person is, how many times they listen to it, or anything like that.
I bring in the record label who distributes the music.
I think piracy itself is going to end up going away.
When I first got pitched on Uber, I thought it was the dumbest idea ever.
I thought I was going to be a rapper as a kid and used to hop the train down to Jazzy Jeff's studio for, like, six months straight waiting outside of the studio for the big break, and one day we got in the studio and played our demo for Will and Jeff and quickly learned that we weren't that good.
I think overall, and this isn't specific to Spotify or any streaming service or any label... when you consider the overall value chain of the music industry and how important the songwriter is to the business - I think there needs to be another look at the value chain.
Technology is going to play a huge part in tomorrow's music business. And the companies that will win are going to be the most equipped to understand how to use data to further an artist's career.
I'd like to open doors for underserved communities and minorities in entrepreneurship.
With Gaga - she's not afraid to take chances. You get these dynamic projects because of it. She's completely unafraid.
I don't think we're out there aggressively looking for deals. Our strategy is that business follows the creative. We're not out there scouring the marketplace for opportunities.
Once we started making investments, we realized the same service we provided to artists was applicable to entrepreneurs as well.
I had this little rap group, and we were called '2 Too Many'... We used to hang out in front of Jazzy Jeff's record studio every day.
It's pre-roll or post-roll on Vevo. The record company makes money off of that, and then it trickles down.
The music industry really has to learn a lesson from the tech industry about what scale means at the end of the day and learning how to monetize.
I said, 'Who said African American founders can't build a billion dollar company?'
You go into the venues, and there's a huge drop-off rate in the merch lines. People don't want to miss parts of the concert.
My biggest frustration is the lack of scale in the music industry. The fact that no one has sold 100 million copies of an album is frustrating.
That's all I ever wanted to do in my life was music. And because I was a failed artist, I was actually able to help somebody accomplish their dream was, you know, definitely fulfilling.
I was Jazzy Jeff's assistant.
People are experimenting with streaming, with subscription services, whether it's a Spotify or a Pandora or a Rdio.
Music as a whole industry is growing exponentially, but in terms of the actual music file, when you look at the actual value there, to me, 'The Beatles' catalog should be worth more than Spotify.
If you wake up in the morning and your favorite artist isn't on the service that you're paying ten dollars a month for, sooner or later you lose faith in the subscription model.
My third hire when I came to Spotify was Tiffany Kumar, who came on as our global head of songwriter relations. The whole idea was to put our heads together and figure out how to build and contribute within the songwriting community.
